Jarretts Ministry

Jarrett’s Prayer Letter

Volume 5, Number 8

March 28, 2004

Dear Friends and Family;

Thanks again for your prayers. We are doing well and continuing to spend a lot of time and energy working on the materials for the WGM retreat next weekend. I’ve used up a bottle of ink refill for the printer\copier for all the materials that Marty and the girls have put together. And Gretchen Dickson has been busy with the sewing machine getting some crafts put together.

Thanks for your prayers for Julie Six, our pregnant missionary who was due next week. We are happy to report that she has safely delivered her little girl, Haven Acacia, who was born on Thursday at Tenwek Hospital. I had been “on call” for the past several weeks, as we anticipated an early delivery. The timing worked out well with missionary nurses available this week to do private duty care, whereas next week would have found them all in Nairobi for the retreat. And I was available despite having three major surgeries and two minors that day. We utilized the private room on the maternity ward for the delivery, which worked out very well. Of course, it was more expensive than a regular room, and the total hospital bill for Julie’s labor and delivery was $38.00; fortunately, they had 80% insurance coverage which reduced the out of pocket cost to $7.50. Naturally, that didn’t include the birth certificate which was an additional 50 Shillings [$0.67]. By comparison, Julie’s sister-in-law recently had a hospital

Jarrett’s Prayer Letter

Volume 5, Number 7

March 18, 2004

Dear Friends and Family:

Thanks for your prayers for our family and guests. Gretchen and Joanna Dickson arrived yesterday without major difficulty. They brought our remaining suitcases save for one bag that is lagging behind somewhere between Indianapolis and Nairobi. We turned in the claim and anticipate that it will appear one day soon. It contains primarily clothing for orphans.

We are now getting rain most days, and we have had hydroelectric power for 24 hours a day for the past week. The generators are sitting idle, and we appreciate the peace and quiet. Our generator worked very well, and we anticipate that it will be a blessing in the future as well.

The work at the hospital has been busy. I have been blessed to have an OBGYN resident, Dr. Brian Myers, with me for the past month. I’ll be very sorry to see him go this weekend. We are praying that he and his wife, Jane, will be able to return as long term missionaries after completion of his residency in 2005. The workload with two staff level doctors has been much more reasonable, although someone’s principle would state that the work will expand to fill the available time. It would be nice to do more preventative care than is currently possible.

The matatu crisis would seem to be waning judging from the size of our clinics the past two weeks, although many people are still experiencing hardship throughout the country. Two patients that

Jarrett’s Prayer Letter

Volume 5, Number 6

March 8, 2004

Dear Friends and Family:

I wanted to write an “official” prayer letter to update all of you. Those of you who have E-mail have received several requests in the last few weeks, but you “snail-mail” friends may think that we’ve fallen in a hole somewhere. Well, we’ve driven through a few holes recently, but we’ve always emerged on the other side. We’ve just been too busy with our family visit to take time to write more than those urgent requests.

Our visit with our family was as wonderful as it was brief. Two weeks just wasn’t long enough with precious grandchildren and children, but it will have to do until our return home later this spring. We had time to visit orphans, schools, and the pediatric ward as well as paying a visit to the lions, cheetahs, and all the herd animals down on the Masai Mara last weekend. We drove the family into Nairobi on Friday for their flight home, but before they left, we took them shopping in the shanty complex where we have a Bible distribution ministry. The family had a great time bargaining for souvenirs and visiting with our friends in the market. I had an hour just to sit with some of the Christian storekeepers and encourage them. Pat and Lisa arrived home safely in Noblesville on Saturday evening.

Our son, Patrick, helped make two construction projects successful. We installed a generator which is running when the power is shut