It was a great disappointment to Dr Christine and her husband, and to Celia Renes when, at Sengera Hospital in Kenya, the work had to stop for a period, while Dr Christine went home to Scotland for health reasons. The work at the hospital had been greatly complicated by the fact that, despite repeated applications, the registration of the Free Presbyterian Church had not been granted in Kenya. For this reason the hospital could not be fully operational, nor the staff accepted on a regular basis by the Government. When Mr Donald MacDonald returned from Scotland after his two weeks there, on the advice of the Foreign Mission Committee, he engaged a lawyer to pursue the question of registration. The happy outcome was the discovery that there had been a letter from the Attorney-General on file since June 1993, stating that he saw no reason why the Church should not be registered. It was said that the file had been mislaid. There was great rejoicing over the news.
Miss Jessie Coote’s presence on the Mission during Dr Christine’s illness and after she and her husband had left for the U.K. was providential, otherwise Miss Celia Renes would have been on her own. In a note Jessie says, “I am still in Kenya. The Mission at Sengera is in a beautiful spot at the top of a hill overlooking a lush green valley where the people have planted neat little fields of maize, tea, bananas, pineapples in abundance, and lots of green vegetables. We have closed the Clinic for the time being and we are packing up everything. About two weeks ago a huge container arrived from a charitable organisation in Holland known as ‘Dorcas’. It contained sufficient equipment to furnish a small hospital. There are beds, blankets, pillows, linen, dressings, bandages, an incubator, and a scanning machine.” With such a wealth of material Jessie says she cannot but believe that in the Lord’s time the work will go ahead.
Donald MacDonald is at present in Zimbabwe. He had arrived there in time for the Bulawayo Communion which he and Christine had enjoyed so much on a previous occasion. He is now engaged in the financial side
of the work there. Jessie left for Zimbabwe on December 22nd, while Celia left for a short holiday in Holland. It is expected that Celia and her friend, Truus Ringelberg, will be back in Kenya by the end of January 1994, to begin work in the Clinic.
We await news from Zimbabwe and trust that prayers have been answered for those who were seriously ill. J.N.