"The Answer Lies with the Midwives"

The never-ending flats of Pipeline

Exciting things have been happening here in Kenya and it’s such a blessing to be taking steps forward toward growth and development.  I believe development is positive, strategic growth towards God’s intentions.  I also believe God is a developer Himself, and that He has given us the responsibility and commission to be developers too, whatever that may mean in each of our unique, different contexts.

Recently, God has helped us make positive, strategic steps toward creating a safer, cleaner, more comfortable, and more private place for the women of Pipeline slum to have their babies!  Without a doubt I know that is one of His good intentions for women everywhere in the world!  For EXACTLY a year Mama Christine (the Traditional Birth Attendant I work with in Pipeline) and I have been looking for a new house for her.  She’s been living in a tiny little 10' x 10' room with several relatives, orphans, and even recently, a mother who delivered her baby there 2 months ago and hasn’t left yet!  The mothers deliver in this stuffy, stifling hot, tiny, dirty, cockroach and rat-infested place day after day.  They continue to come because Mama Christine gives them kindness, compassion, dignity, nurturing, and love – something that’s nearly impossible to find in any birth place around here.

Mama Christine's and her neighbors' houses on the 4th floor of her house

Inside Mama Christine's house,
with a laboring mother on the couch where all moms deliver.

The women have very little privacy in that very little room, and it’s even worse when they need to go out to use the toilet, which is shared by 15 other families on the floor.  They feel humiliated to labor in public, in a culture where all things surrounding pregnancy, labor, and birth are considered extremely private issues.  Of course there is also a huge risk of disease with the splashing that occurs at the public “squatty potty”.

The community toilet

When I started talking to Mama Christine about finding a self-contained house with actual bedrooms and its very own bathroom, she informed me that the only houses like that were on the 9th floor of the poverty stricken flats that span Pipeline.  Self-contained houses are the penthouses, if you will.  I asked her about moving to a different area and she told me she could never leave Pipeline because the women who need her most are there.  And indeed, she is well known, well respected, and well loved by thousands in the community.  I didn’t know how we were going to pay for such a place anyway, so we added the need for the actual house to our prayers for the finances to pay for it.

And one year later, practically to the day (maybe it even was), God provided the house AND the starting funding for it!  Not only that, but it is on the ground floor!  A brand new apartment complex was just built at one of the far ends of Pipeline and it is full of beautiful, 2 bedroom homes – with their own toilets and showers!  It has security and a huge water tank and pump that pumps water into all the apartments!  Where Mama Christine has been living, we’d have to line up in long lines for hours and lug buckets of water up the 4 flights of stairs whenever water would come.

I did have to spend about 2 hours debating with the landlord and caretaker about the “liabilities” of a midwife living in their complex.  Funny enough, they were far more concerned about the attention it would draw from curious neighbors than the safety of mothers and babies.  I do imagine this is a battle I will be fighting on a regular basis, but changing views on midwifery and its unmatched, untapped value, is definitely on my development to-do list.  Another one of God’s good intentions, I’m sure.

As for the financial side, we’re working hard to keep that development minded as well.  Heaven forbid we add to the destruction of dependency!  Mama Christine will continue paying the same amount she’s been paying for rent at her previous house and we will make up the difference each month for the new house for one year.  I think of it kind of like capital to help her expand her “small business”.  I have no doubt that once she’s in this beautiful new place her clientele will rapidly grow, hopefully enabling her over time to be able to pay the entire rent all by herself.  In the meantime, after that first year we will slowly reduce the amount we contribute over time until it eventually tapers off completely.  Very generous, compassionate donors have already given the down payment and first month’s rent, which we paid today!  A very exciting day indeed!

I’m excited, and a little nervous too, to see how this first little “pilot project” will go.  I’m hoping in the future to do similar things for midwives all over Kenya, and maybe beyond.  The requirements to be involved in such a project will also be things that will help insure safe birth practices for the sake of mommies, babies, and their families.  Oh the good intentions the Lord has!

This past month I was with a beautiful Kenyan woman who works with pregnant teenage girls whom she helps rescue from the most horrific situations of abuse, and even incest in the largest, poorest slum in East Africa.  She told me, “Jannekah, you don’t have to do something huge to make a difference.  The answer is the midwives!  If you can bring unity and networking among midwives and among the women who need them, and help the midwives to truly help the women, all these problems are solved!  You don’t have to do anything big.  The answer lies with the midwives.”

Mamma Christine's new home:

The living room of the new house is bigger than the house she's been living in!

Two big, beautiful bedrooms!

Nice, clean, private bathroom IN the house!

Everything is clean, pretty, and well secured

The big huge underground water tank and pump!

Much Love, Jannekah, Ezriel, Amariah and Martin Guya