“You shall remember all the way the Lord your God has led you.” Deuteronomy 8:2. Rosemary Molyneux shares her memories from her time in Kenya.
Kenya February 2020: Traffic jams, new bypass roads, shopping malls, everyone on their smart phones. Attending a Nairobi church where the second morning congregation was a group of 4,000 people. These were some impressions as I visited Kenya again to bring closure to a project led by my late husband, and to visit friends. So different from the day I first arrived in Kenya.
Kenya April 1973: I arrived at Kijabe, very much a ‘newbie’, to begin work at Kijabe Medical Centre, as it was then called. There were only 60 beds (but often more patients), no Kenyan nurses with recognised qualifications, and only one or two ex-patriot doctors.
Then and now…
Now I can hardly take in the scale of the services offered, the number of medical and nursing training programmes, the extent of the outreach, particularly to Muslim dominated areas; with many from neighbouring countries looking upon Kijabe as ‘their’ hospital. A place where they see and hear about the love of the Lord Jesus.
But let me remember the nurses. In 1980 the first students arrived from all over Kenya to begin Enrolled Community Nurse training (later upgraded to Registered level). The vision was to offer training in general nursing, midwifery and community health. At the same time, we would teach and disciple them so that they would be able to return to their areas, staffing the rural health clinics and reaching out with the gospel to the communities they served. Probably close to 2,000 students have been trained at Kijabe School of Nursing (now called the College of Health Sciences), and are serving all over the world (I even received a WhatsApp from one in Cuba!).
As I met up with some of them, we chatted, reminisced, laughed and were full of praise to God for what he had done in the lives of so many. They hold positions of responsibility; many have gone on to further training and many are serving the Lord wholeheartedly in their different spheres. However, one of them, now the deputy principal, asked me to speak to the current students. “I want them to hear from you why the school was started – somehow we seem to have lost that vision,” he said. Would you pray for the current students and their tutors that they would “be filled with all spiritual wisdom and understanding, bear fruit in every good work and grow in the knowledge of Him” (Colossians 1:9-10)?
