Friday
is my day to visit the sick in the Nairobi, Kenya slum of Mukuru Ruben.  I
usually approach the village with fear and trembling.  I usually leave the
village with the feeling that I have passed through the wringer of one of those
old wash machines.  The name of the church there is St. Jude who is the patron
of hopeless cases.  A very appropriate name, indeed.

    I
started by first going to Kenyatta National Hospital to visit Grace Wambui who
hails from Ruben.  I had spent a day arranging for her transfer to a ward where
she could be taken for radiation treatments (cancer).  Well, she was still lying
in a bed in the medical ward.  She shared a bed with another woman, each lying
with their feet in the other’s face.  Grace is too weak to feed herself and her
daughter is too poor to make the bus trip to come and feed her.  I prayed for
Grace and gave her communion.  I tried to revive my old negotiations to get her
transferred to the cancer ward where she can be brought for radiation treatment,
but my heart was only half in it.  I told the head nurse in radiation: "I don’t
think she will make it.  If I were the doctor, I would give her pain medicines
and try to ease her last days as best we can."  I couldn’t stay longer for I was
late for my tour of Mukuru Ruben where the health workers were waiting for me
and where I know we would give out many vouchers to sick people who still had a
chance to live.  But I did formulate a plan to give her daughter a little money
for bus fare and some money to buy a fruit drink heavily laced with sugar.

    In
Ruben we started off for the section called "Row A" where we would visit the
sick and check on the construction of our latest “choo” (Swahili for “toilet”). 
We visited Ernest Chege, an 11-year-old boy who has suffered from a stroke.  He
is not making much progress, but he managed a smile.  We prayed for a young man
who was paralyzed from the waist down.  He had been a guard at a factory and was
shot by bandits trying to break into the factory.  I gave him a voucher for
Kijabe Hospital, hoping that St. Jude could somehow help him.   Forget about his
employer.  He was a causal worker and they don’t usually get much help from the
employer after initial emergency treatment.  He thought maybe that the employer
would give him a ride to Kijabe Hospital.  Next we prayed over a group of five
people who were assembled together.  I gave vouchers for free medical care to
most of them.  I refused one man who was obviously languishing with AIDS but who
was following us like a shadow.  The health workers pleaded that I give him a
voucher so that he could at least get medicine to ease his diarrhea.  The
hospitals don’t like to have AIDS patients taking up their precious beds.
 

    Then
we toured the older part of the village and that’s where we really needed St.
Jude.  One young girl was supposed to go on a follow-up visit to St. Mary’s
Hospital, but her legs were too swollen.  She couldn’t walk to the nearest bus
stand.  I told the health workers to see the parish social worker who, I know,
will push them to take her and even pass the hat to get some of the bus fare.  I
just don’t have the toughness to do that and I refer to the one who has those
gifts.  We visited Samson, a young man in his late twenties, who had his arm in
a cast.  He was hurt in a bus accident.  He got emergency treatment at a
hospital, but he complained that the job was poorly done.  I sent him to our
social worker in the hope that she could push him to push the bus owners to get
him follow-up treatment.  If my friend Dr. Wend Schaefer,

   
In addition to
praying to St. Jude, I prayed to our Blessed Mother who had to stand at the foot
of the cross, powerless to do anything to help the suffering Jesus. She will
help us.