We have already had several busy days on site at Open Arms Village. We have a team of 13 Westerners here, mostly from Oregon, but a few from Texas. We went to the feeding program on Tuesday, and we were amazed at how large and developed the program has become, feeding 150 children 4 days a week, and meeting with 40 mothers weekly for mentoring and training programs.

On Wednesday we set up for the medical camp on some school grounds in an area called Kipkaren. Kipkaren is a slum area between Open Arms Village and the city of Eldoret. I have visited this area many times when Cheryl and I lived here, but this was the very first medical camp we have done here. It was interesting looking at the area, realizing that there were no shambas (farms) in the community on which people could do subsistence farming. This meant that most, if not everyone living in this community was living in extreme poverty, most of them not able to find jobs, and most of them not able to provide adequate nutrition for their families since they didn't have any farms nearby. Although many people did have chickens and a few people had some pretty fat pigs which we almost ran over with our bus.
We had a great turnout at medical camp for the first day. We saw about 500 people, mostly students at the Kipkaren Elementary School (not Open Arms Academy). It was definitely a worthwhile and busy first day and a wild burst of rain at the very end of the camp flooded the pharmacy tent - no damage, but a wet mucky tent and tomorrow morning we get to move the tent about 10 feet further North so we are not dispensing drugs at Lake Med. The prayer tent also got quite a bit of rain and especially mud.
We also were able to give out anti-worming pills and toothbrushes to about 700 other students at the Kipkaren School. Something tells me tomorrow we will be swamped, and I'm not just referring to the rain.