Thank you so much for your prayers regarding this accident. I talked with Jesse a couple times and he told me to thank all of you on his behalf. They are very encouraging to him.
As I write, three of the 5 who were involved in the accident are in Arusha, actually within 50 meters of me! They are Per (fellow
missionary) and the two Waama teachers (Israeli and Pastor Mao). Per is back home now and his wife and three children are very happy to have him back. The two teachers are heading back to Waama tomorrow. Actually Adela and I will join them so Adela can see Waama before she flies back to Minnesota on Saturday. Per is doing really well. He just has to be patient for the cuts on his head to heal. Israeli seemed to be doing really well - stiff and sore but well. Pastor Mao has a broken collar bone and he said that he can still hear it grinding if he moves the wrong way. I saw all three of them and talked with them. They seemed to be in good spirits all things considered.
It was decided that Jesse would stay in Nairobi with Pastor Dallei. I talked with Jesse last night and he seemed really down emotionally. I talked to him a couple times today and he seemed a more upbeat, but he complained that he had many hours of sitting around doing nothing when there wasn't visiting hours. So please pray for him as the temptation is to blame himself or somehow feel responsible even though everybody agrees that it was not his fault at all. He knows it wasn't his fault, but there's always the what if's. Pastor Dallei is still in pretty bad condition, but seems to be better than yesterday. When I last talked to Jesse, Pastor Dallei had just seen an eye specialist who said that the double vision was caused by pressure to some of the nerves near his right eye (where he sustained one of his fractures). So she prescribed some strong medicine to help reduce the pressure. She seemed quite confident that if the pressure was successfully reduced then the double vision would clear up. The general consensus is that as soon as Pastor Dallei is better stabilized and all the "specialty" procedures are done (exams from eye specialists, neurosurgeons, etc. and any possible surgeries), then he'll be flown to his hometown of Haydom, Tanzania (about 1.5 hours from Waama) to finish his recovery there. This would not only put him near his wife and 3 daughters, but there is a Lutheran Hospital at Haydom that is significantly cheaper than the Nairobi hospital. When Pastor Dallei returns to Haydom, Jesse will return to Arusha and from there to Waama. There are a lot of logistics that will need to be worked out when that time comes.
Thanks again for upholding these men in your prayers. Thanks to many of you who have written encouraging notes. May God bless you,
Ben
