Redhead Steps Around the World

Headed to Joytown like normal (for the last time) to be part of devos. Fridays have become my favorite devo day because its praise day! We stood in a group singing hymns, worship songs, and African chorus. After devos, we passed out daily inspiration desk-top calendars to all the therapists as a thank you and encouragement. The booklets worked out perfectly as they turned into sort of yearbooks with everybody walking around shaking hands and getting the team's email and facebook info.   The rest of the morning we continued working on data spreadsheets in our "chapel" work area with a few extra curious faces peering into windows and coming to visit us at our computers. Favorite high-lights of the day: Continuing to hone my wheelie skills Watching a news camera crew and their filming of the dance group performing a song and dance in costume Wonderful time at lunch laughing and spending time with people Teaching Elizabeth, woman who's been cooking lunch f...

Our whirlwind day of presentation (no wheelchair pun intended) began with a formal presentation to the Joytown secondary school (high school) and ended with a true Kenyan-style impromptu pres to the primary students and teachers. We carefully planned a presentation to the high school students, even creating a powerpoint to share with them containing graphs of the finalized data and pictures from the study. We miraculously packed 20+ people and wheelchairs into a computer room of the school library that was really only designed for 10 or so comfortably. We shared our data results and the Tinsley family shared some really encouraging words to the teens/young adults, urging them to realize that they are fearfully and wonderfully made by God for great purposes in this world. After exchanging contact information with one of the head-teachers who organized the high school participation in our study, (once she had told us about three different ways about the high school exchange progra...

A quick and uneventful day today as we spent the afternoon "home" at SACDEP to finish spreadsheets and crunch data into graphs and meaningful information. The team headed to Joytown in the morning like normal for devotionals, which were led by Nicole and I. We focused on 2 Corinthians 12:6-10 and each shared on the idea of Christ's (God's) power being made perfect in our weakness. Nicole expressed how focusing on self iniquities goes nowhere but that serving others brings joy and growth. I shared the Parable of the Cracked Pot which basically expresses the idea that we do not need to be perfect to fulfill God's will and serve others. In fact, God uses our specific weaknesses/cracks for good. We really are all crack pots… :) The rest of the morning we double checked student demographic information with the Bethany Kids therapists then headed back to SACDEP for a home-base day of working on spreadsheets and stuff. Other events from the "uneventful...

Today I woke up with the Rocky theme song stuck in my head. Well not exactly, but that was the general feeling among the team as we went over our plans for the day of mass data collection. We each had our subjects divided up onto lists and were partnered up with a "people-fetcher" whose job it would be to bring kids from their classes to the research area. All of the kids who were subjects for the original wheelchair skills testing would be called back to test the standard "China chair" on rough ground only, a 6-minute rolling test. After devos, the first subjects arrived and off we went into a morning of perpetual circles around the school dirt road. 10 names stared at me from my list in the morning and by tea time only 5 remained. After lunch I finished off the last 2 subjects and loaded the last of my heart-rate data. I looked up from the computer to realize we had done it! And with relative peace and ease! A day that I expected to be totally frantic and cra...

Sunday evening I began to feel the unwelcome symptoms of either really bad allergies (which I never tend to have) or a cold: sore throat, itchy eyes, stuffy/runny nose, and a general "cloudy-ness". As the evening wore on I felt even worse until I finally forced myself to crawl into bed. This morning I woke up feeling better but my nose and throat were still not cooperating. We headed to Joytown to complete what we estimated as our LAST DAY of data collection! Each of us had only two or three subjects to see and complete wheelchair skills tests with. We had our plan set out for the week as far as what needed to be accomplished with data and presentations. Everything was packed away neatly and on track. But, of course, Kenya (and research) happens... Singing and devos went by swiftly as we were all assigned in pairs to summarize and comment on a specific chapter of Hebrews. After devos, Ms. Rispin called us four students to a mini-pow wow about something new and urgen...

Waking up at 6:00am is a lot easier when you are waking up to the sun rising brilliantly over majestic Mt. Kenya and your own personal watering hole scene. Waking up this way set the tone for a whole day of awesome sights. By 6:30 we were heading out across savannah roads on a second game drive. The day's amazing moments started with stumbling across a family of elephants feeding along the roadside. We originally only saw three little baby elephants munching away until momma elephant emerged from the bushes and began marching slowly and intensely toward our car, flapping her ears as a not-so-subtle warning to back off. Other amazing moments: Taking time to watch a family troupe of baboons as they wrestled, danced around, and groomed each other, eager for picked-tick snacks. Visiting Kenya's only chimpanzee sanctuary that was started by Jane Goodall herself. We were introduced to a major portion of our hairy genetic relatives by one of their caretakers who expla...

When we set off this morning at 7:30am from Thika to visit Ol Pajeta Nature Conservatory for the weekend, I didn't know that we'd be visiting heaven! Four hours later, we pulled up to Sweetwaters, a tent resort. After being welcomed with cold hand towels and fresh fruit juice, we were paired up and led to different tent "rooms" that look out onto sprawling savannah land stretched beneath Mt. Kenya complete with zebra, waterbuck, warthogs and a watering hole. After settling in to our incredible home for the night, we set out in our pop-top vans to go see the animals. Highlights from the day include: Crossing the equator! Several times… Fighting off the highway souvenir vendors at the equator which at one point were attempting to hook me into their shop by offing to trade items for my pony tail holder. Watching a pride of lionesses lounging in the sun together. Loosing a spare tire off the back of one of our vans and watching driver Joseph get out and stick i...

  Both last night and this morning the four data-collecting students (Matt, Anna, Nicole, and I) had a team pow-wow about our progress and plan for the day, one of the last days of data collection. We arranged all our subjects, times and wheelchairs to be used and sent each other off with a smile. Today went pretty much nothing like our plan. We had forgot about Murphy's strong residence in Africa. ;) After a bizarre chain of our subjects being either sick, gone on school trips, or just plain unable to continue I found myself walking down the road with Ms. Rispin to our Joytown secondary school (high school) neighbors in search of extra people to help fulfill our study. However, regardless of plans, today went amazingly! I really enjoyed spending time with the high school-ers who have some pretty awesome dreams for the future and similar interests. I talked with one pair of girls about music and the different instruments they would like to play if their school had...

  Karibu! No not the animal, the Swahili word meaning 'welcome'. Today was significant in that I finally felt welcome as part of the community at joytown and no longer a visitor. I've built relationships with the BethanyKids therapists and am able to recognize/name a large portion of the kids. At the end of the school day around 3:30, we have an ever growing number of kids inching into our work building and crowding around our stations, usually centered around a computer. I guess I never really expected to build friendships with therapists at Joytown, my perception of it was always centered around the research and the children. However, I am so glad for our relationships so far! Today we continued with data collection but with the interesting component of the mobile clinic visiting day. Surprisingly, besides moving the location of our 10:30 tea and 1:00 lunch, the clinic did not interfere one bit. On the contrary, it provided some awesome opportunity for conversation ...

It was a rather calm/sleepy day of data collection at Joytown. There was a mellow cloud that seemed to hang around the team. But the day must have taken a toll on us because by the end of it, four of us were jumping into the school swimming pool to cool off. Devotionals this morning with the BK staff were really cool this morning as it was lead by two of our very own team members! We sang hymns (in both English and Swahili) and then heard from Anna and Matt as they read from 1 Corinthians 12:4-26 and shared about the struggle with jealousy and pride in relating to others. They emphasized the point that each person has been picked by God as a specific part of the greater functioning body of Christ. We should each stop worrying about comparing our actions to others or trying to do everything on our own. Rather, we should instead focus on doing what we CAN do, and make sure to do it well. This was a cool point for me because I often get caught up in the futility that can be found in...

Today we started another week of data collection from our long and full weekend. It was a bit tougher than I expected getting back into the swing of things and finding the rhythm we hit this past Friday. Yet at the end of the day the team felt really confident about the accomplished work even with a few minor "Kenyan hiccups". But hey, this is Africa and Kenya happens. ;) Several of the expected high-school subjects didn't show up. One of our testing grounds (around the school pool) is finally being used as a pool and was crowded by children, towels and wheelchairs. A 5-minute errand to find a specific kid to finish one tiny question on a research survey turns into a 20-minute trip around campus pushing kids to various locations, saving a kid who had fallen out of his wheelchair, chatting with the therapists, ect. Our driver disappeared to the market when we were ready to head home for the day. All in all it was an awesome day with the kids. I was really stru...

  So this is gonna be a heavy one... Today Matt, Anna, Nicole and I got to step into the world of neurosurgery at Kijabe Hospital as we shadowed Dr.  Leland Albright  and team on their morning rounds and then observed surgery on a 2-week-old  Spina Bifida  baby. I cannot even begin to describe what an amazing opportunity this was. One I was glad to wake up at 5:30am for. Rounds at the pediatric neurology ward of the hospital really opened my eyes to the unique aspects of practicing medicine in other countries, especially ones where quality medical care/resources can be scarce. Each bed that we visited introduced something new: The Spina Bifida infant who is potentially stuck on oxygen for life due to a shrunken lung taught me that cases are often much more complicated than in the United States. Spina Bifida is rarely just Spina Bifida and is accompanied by a range of issues from head swelling ( hydrocephalus ) to missing kidneys. An infant and mo...

So I didn't go to church today. I didn't go to a building where I sang worship and listened to a message for a couple hours. But I worshiped God today. As I floated accross Lake Naivasha among stoic hippos and dramatically patterned birds. As I stood in awe among a field of wildebeest, impala, giraffes, and zebras. As I peered into a den of baby pythons. As I stared around at the rolling green hills and proud mountains, rich with acacia trees stretching their arms across the bright blue sky. As I bounced along a dusty, pot-hole-riddled road winding through the ridges, towns, and small rivers of the valley. As I sat on a house porch eating pancakes and surrounded by laughter and friends. As I joined in the student-led worship of a Kenyan boarding high school ( RVA ), voices from all over the world lifted together in a moment of praise. I worshiped by enjoying God's creation. I worshiped in my conversations and relationships with people and friends. I worsh...

The long-awaited weekend is here! Not only will we have the chance for some good sleep and rest from the research at Joytown, but we are taking some time to have a little fun and enjoy the beautiful nation that is Kenya. Today was a travel day to the Great Rift Valley area and the cities of Naivasha and Kijabe. No road trip is complete without a snack run so we stopped by our friendly neighborhood  Nakumatt  to pick up food stuffs for the weekend. From there, reunited with our two drivers Peter and Joseph, we headed out to Kijabe with a few stops planned along the way. First, we drove up to  Brackenhurst Conference Center  to enjoy the beautifully landscaped gardens and a nice lunch. We also made sure to get all of our car wiggles out, even Ms. Rispin... Who says professors can't be kids at heart? As we winded up higher into the valley country-side, we stopped at a popular look-out spot. Before our two van-fulls of mzungu 's (white people) came to a stop, w...

Data runs went so well today! It was a joy finishing up with some of the same high school students from yesterday as they already knew the flow of the wheelchair skills tests. Ms. Rispin came over at one point and commented that the whole team seemed to be much more calm and peaceful today, that we were finally settling into a routine and realistic picture of the (doable) work ahead of us. We had another "man down" today as Momma T stayed home sick after throwing up all of her breakfast. This makes the third day in a row that at least one member of the team has been taken out of play due to sickness: first Matt, then Connor and now Momma T. I think we need some prayer to nip this weird wave in the bud. Also I could use some prayer against the unidentified bugs that are turning my ankles into a buffet line... A blessing from the past couple days has been the morning devotionals with the Joytown Bethany Kids therapy staff. One member of the staff will usually read a p...

As a third day of data collection came to a close, I was all over the place with heart rate data on watches and spreadsheets and papers. My head was about ready to explode when I though I'd lost a whole afternoon's worth of data. But my brain survives to think another day thanks to my cheerful team, calming prof, and the super tech-savy David (A part-time student member of our team who happened to be in Africa this summer with his son and came to visit us at Joytown). Today we worked with students from the secondary school (high school) next door in our studies and it was a total blessing! I was weary at first about how the wheelchair runs would go with them because of my experience with U.S. high school students/youth who generally tend to put up the attitude of "I'm just too cool for this". But I found a group of bright, engaging people who were reletively interested and excited about participating in our studies. I was surprised when asking someone's birt...

Today was the first full day of data collection at Joytown. The crazy thing about our "study" here is that its actually 4 different studies linked together by our team: One study looks at the condition of the wheelchairs that have been in use by the kids at Joytown for several months or years prior. Another study gathers the opinions of Joytown's wheelchair technicians on the design of this year's two study chairs. Another gathers the opinions of students at Joytown who have been using the study chairs for a few months prior to our visit. and  the last but not least study measures the comparative effort or energy cost of using the two study chairs with a series of " wheelchair skills tests" (i.e. rolling, wheelie,  curb, figure 8 , ect.) These four studies are taking place  simultaneously, in the same space, with similar groups of subjects.  Fun stuff indeed. A real logistical dream. ;)  I have been working mostly on wheelchair skills tests (runs...

Today was our first visit to Joytown and the first day to start setting up and collecting data for our research. We had breakfast at the SACDEP ("hotel" where we are staying) dining hall then loaded up the van a little after 8:00am for the 5-minute ride over to  Joytown Primary School . We arrived at Joytown and joined the Bethany Kids therapy staff in their morning devo. As soon as we stepped in the door there was a flurry of greetings and handshakes and smiles. The handshakes and waves of jambo  continued as we toured around the school campus and met with the headmaster. The staff expressed their excitement in our presence and work at the school and invited us fully into their space. Looking around, I'd catch the eyes of different kids staring at me and would watch as my smile turned a stern or blank face into an explosion of light and joy contained in their shy, excited returning smile. Joytown is quite different than what I expected. It's that feeling that com...

I'M IN AFRICA! Now I've had limited sleep in the past 48 hours (I wont mention an exact number for my mother's sake...) and am pretty dead tired so I really will keep this post short. Highlights from the first two days in Africa: Sleeping for 4 solid hours on our 8 hour flight from London to Nairobi and waking up to a hot tray of four-cheese tortellini airline pasta. Arriving in Kenya and getting my first travel visa! (A.k.a. a nice sticker in my passport) Meeting our drivers Joseph and Peter at the airport and figting the urge to respond to everything in Spanish... my brain was still stuck in the last time I was in a foreign country (Mexico). Getting a flat tire on the way from the airport to our "home base" in Thika and learning the true meaning of the phrase "T.I.A." or "This is Africa". Spending 4 hours in church (In two different services and one Sunday school class). Eating Ethiopian food for the first time. The moment I reali...

So I'm not sure how long my internet will last at this crazy airport hotel, but here goes... Day two of London was a full, and I mean FULL, day of sightseeing and public transportation. :) We traveled from one end of London to the other by train, bus AND boat. We started our morning early with breakfast at our lovely little bed-and-breakfast-style hotel and then a bus into Central London. We hoped on a city cruse boat and rode down the River Thames to the London Tower. So much history and so many people! The sheer number of tourists and shuffling feet and snapping cameras kind of zapped most of my enthusiasm for the sights of the Tower. But nevertheless, I got to wander around the White Tower and learn more about the place where so much history (and be-headings) took place. We also got to catch a glimpse of some sort of celebration parade with the Royal Navy as they marched around and through the Tower grounds. Next we caught another boat up the the Thames to Greenw...