August 25, 2025
Little more than a footpath in places, the trip Saturday out to Maria’s village was a once in a life time experience. We had planned to do a medical outreach and men’s bible study in the furtherest village we have visited so far into Maasailand.
We left Neema at 6am. It was rough going for about four hours, up and down the long-dry gullies, over thorny cow paths, through dusty goat-infested scrub brush where villagers had hacked a road in places between the trees so our car could pass. I was thrown out of my seat at one point.
Hope the video above doesn’t make you car sick!!
Maria’s real brother, Alias, was the first to greet us when we got to the village. I don’t know how many half brothers and sisters she has since her father was extremely old and had had eight wives. Alias who is about 33 years old, is one of 5 siblings from Maria’s mom, the youngest wife, who died during her birth.
Alias’s very young wife has one child and they live in a one room mud house with about 50 goats running around the yard.
Maria is very proud of being Maasai and loves their beautifully colored, sparkly culture. She speaks Swahili and English and is learning KiMaasai.
There were a lot of tears and hugs as Maria got out of the car. One of her sisters had married around age 15 before Maria was born and had never seen nine year old Maria. She made the 2 day journey with her baby on a motorcycle from her home to see Maria and dropped to the ground in tears when she drove up to the village and saw her little sister for the first time.
Maria’s grandmother was holding one-day-old Maria in the hospital the first time I saw her. She weighed about 700 grams and was not expected to live. A month later when we returned to the hospital grandmother had gone home and tiny Maria was still holding on to life. We started feeding her and bringing her formula to the hospital. When she got big enough to leave the hospital the villagers said she could come to Neema Village. She has been our girl ever since.
As much fun as visiting the family was, we came to do a medical mission and a Bible study with the men so we had to get set up for the day. Dr. Sarun is Maasai and loves his people dearly. You can tell with his gentle touch how much he loves people and cares about their illnesses. He saw 107 patients in one day in the middle of a forest.
They had set up for the clinic in a cleared area outside the boma. Mikayla one of our volunteers got to do triage, taking blood pressure, temps and filling out paper work. Ester and Regina were the pharmacists dispensing medicine.
Most of what Dr. Sarun saw was chest colds and some pnemonia or TB with skin sores, eye infections and high blood pressure. Many of them had never seen a real doctor before but Dr. Sarun generally thought they were all pretty healthy people.
In the Bible class the Maasai men leaned against the trees while Pastor Paul taught about how to live a Christian life as men in their culture.
It has been a hard lesson for me to learn since our mission at Neema Village has always been to help babies and women only but until we bring the hearts of men back to their families as good husbands and fathers we will do little to really change this country.
Pastor Paul took some time off from teaching for lunch. And yes they killed the chicken! We told them please do not kill your chicken but they did. It was a bit tough but we got it down.
We have much to tell you, new preemie twins come to Neema, a MAP mom in labor as I write, two of our big kids having tonsillectomies today, currently digging another water well, three babies adopted to Tanzanian families this month and 8 babies went to their new home but time is short and this blog is already too long so I will say goodbye for August 2025.
All For His Glory!!
dorris and michael
ATTENTION: Kelle says we can still use some auction items for the Neema Village dinner on Sept 20th in Fort Worth. Contact her if you have items for the auction jksamsill@gmail.com