Boultons in Keyna: Update

Bryon and Stacey Boulton and their family are currently working at a Christian hospital in Kenya, Africa.  Below is a mid-trip update from Bryon:  
We arrived safely at Tenwek hospital in the evening of 12/30, and then were able to worship together with the Kenyans and missionaries on Sunday.  Monday was a holiday and work began on Tuesday.  Stacy has been very busy delivering babies.  She has found her work very challenging to manage the acuity with such limited resources.  She asks for prayer for Thebet, a mother of 3 who developed a severe complication of pregnancy and is now on life support.  Bryon has been busy as well, performing 7 heart and thoracic surgeries, and thankfully all the patients are doing well as they recover.  He asks for prayer for the team as they make decisions selecting the surgical patients for next week, as they will unfortunately have to make some difficult decisions as not everyone will be able to be offered surgery.

Fortunately, two of Bryon’s ICU nurses, Lillie and Jenny, who are Christians, were able to join us on our trip this year. Below is a picture of our post-operative ICU team.  Please pray for Lillie as she is recovering from a bad GI bug, and Jenny as she recovers from working the extra shifts while Lillie was sick.

We are thankful to be able to serve Christ as we work alongside the Kenyans and full time missionaries. We have seen God work, answering numerous prayers, and seeing His amazing sovereign hand at work.  I was in awe of Him walking before us in just the first heart surgery I performed.  Once the heart was stopped and open, I found a congenital birth defect that can not be diagnosed pre-operatively with the current Kenyan capabilities.  While I was selecting and packing some donated cardiac surgical instruments before we left the states, I came across a special instrument that I initially excluded because I didn’t think it would be needed, but went back and added it to our collection as I knew they likely didn’t have it in Kenya.  It turned out that that was the exact instrument that I needed to correct the birth defect, and without it, the correction would have been much more technically difficult.  An excellent example of His fore-knowledge, and daily grace and mercy.  I reflected that it is such a small reflection of Christ, who was the stone the builders rejected, but the cornerstone of our faith.

Also pray for Stacy as she is working all weekend long, both as a word of thanks that she can give the full-time missionaries a much needed weekend off, but also strength for what will be a very busy weekend.In Christ~Bryon J Boulton