I love this painting, the Good Samaritan by Vincent Van Gogh.  He painted it in 1850, while a patient in an asylum.  He was struggling, and found solace and direction in his artistic meditations. 

The painting is dense with meaning.  The Samaritan is himself struggling, awkwardly pushing the ambushed and injured Jewish man onto his donkey.  The Samaritan has given up his place of relative comfort on the donkey and has emptied his chest treating the man with oil, wine, dressings, and clothes. But the Samaritan man isn’t glorified.  His face is in shadow, and his leg serves as a step-stool for the Jewish man. 

The injured man doesn’t even appear to be particularly grateful to the Samaritan.  His countenance is heavenward, which is more appropriate.  The priest and the Levite, who should have stopped to help a fellow Jew, pass by on the road, ignoring the need and the struggle. 

Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan after a Jewish lawyer asked,  “Who is my neighbor?”  After telling the Parable, Jesus asked “Which of these three proved to be a neighbor…?”  The answer was, “The one who showed compassion toward him.”

Let us be compassionate toward our neighbors, regardless of where they are and regardless of their acknowledgement and regardless of the attention of others.  The One who sees and remembers our compassion is He who taught us about compassion and showed the greatest compassion of all.  

Partners Joining in the Program

While we're going through all of our preparations here in the States, sometimes we tend to lose visibility of all the preparations going on in Kenya.  Then we receive very encouraging updates like the one below, which is an introductory letter to potential partners over there.  

Information about Chogoria’s involvement with Kabarak U. Family Medicine Residency and the coming of Dr. Jim and Martha Ritchie

In July 2013, PCEA Chogoria hospital, along with AIC Kijabe Hospital and Tenwek Hospital, signed Memoranda of Understanding with Kabarak University to become the core collaborating teaching hospitals for the new  Family Medicine residency program. This four-year, M.Med- Family Medicine post-graduate degree will prepare Kenyan medical officers to become the “primary care team consultants” for both church and Ministry of Health, county-sized hospitals and health centres.  Traditionally these have  been staffed by posted internship-trained Medical Officers who aspire to ongoing post-graduate training. 

In 2005, the same hospitals, with the assistance and collaboration of the Nairobi-based Institute of Family Medicine, partnered with Moi University, Eldoret Kenya, to begin Kenya’s first family medicine residency program.   To date the residency has trained 18 graduate family doctors with another 12 currently enrolled.   Chogoria’s initial registrar, Dr. Patrick Chege, started his training at Chogoria, finished at AIC Kijabe and has now gone on to become the first Kenyan Chair of Family Medicine at Moi University.

In preparation for Chogoria’s new start as a family medicine teaching site in 2014, Dr. Franklin Ikunda has come as its first  family physician.   In the new year Dr. Ikunda will be joined by  Dr. Jim Ritchie and his family from Virginia USA, who will come to assist in the teaching as Chogoria begins family medicine teaching again with the new Kabarak program.  Dr. Ritchie has had many years of experience in residency educational  administration while serving in the US Navy medical services.

The Ritchie family with Jim’s wife, Martha, and three of their younger children, will be relocating to Chogoria in early 2014.  You can follow their blog at http://www.chogoriastories.blogspot.com/   They will be sponsored by World Gospel Mission who are beginning their 81^st  year of service in Kenya, much of which has been concentrated at Tenwek Hospital..   Housing on the Chogoria campus for the Ritchies will be rehabilitated with a generous grant from the Medical Benevolence Fund. 

We are inspired to be part of a much larger work of the Lord!  As we plan for upcoming events, like the Comprehensive Advanced Life Support class in December, the COMPASS course in Colorado during the entire month of January, and our upcoming support-building trips, we're grateful for the work and support of so many in the US and Kenya as our nest is feathered and the work is prepared.  

This semester, the kids are learning more about Africa as part of their formal school curriculum, and we're adding Kiswahili language training.  

Onward, upward...