I’m writing this as I sit in a small room with no air conditioner, mosquito net over the bed, and bugs flying and crawling all over the place. I am in Ahero, Kenya, and the room is at the guesthouse me and the other members of my team are staying. Every morning for the past twelve days or so, we wake up to the sound of a rooster; eat our breakfast of stale bread, jam, and hardboiled eggs with our instant coffee and hot goat’s milk. We load up the vans and head about an hour away to the Nayakach plateau outside the town of Katito to provide clinical services to the Luo people, plant fruit trees for orphans and elders, install water collection gutters and tanks so these people may have clean drinking water, and share with them the goodness and grace that God has for us.
About nine months ago, I was in contact with Dr. Lisa Baker about recently getting accepted into Boston University’s Master of Arts in Medical Science program. I was thanking her for writing me a recommendation and helping me throughout the application process, and being there for me and encouraging me to not give up on my dream of becoming a physician one day. She mentioned in an email that she is taking a group of Baylor students to Kenya to provide medical and public health services to the people and asked if I’d like to come along. Without any hesitation or thought to what I was getting myself into, I quickly responded “yes” and began inquiring about what I need to do in order for me to go.
I graduated from Baylor in May 2008, was a member of the football team for five seasons, but never thought about going on a mission trip to a country on the other side of the planet. The experience can only be summed up in one word, “amazing.” I’m in a country I never thought I would see, interacting with a people I knew nothing about, and learning about myself along the way. I feel so blessed to be here and experience all that I have so far. The resiliency these people have to wake up every morning in their huts made of mud and straw give me strength to hike up and down a plateau along steep and treacherous paths to install gutters on a house or plant seedlings in an orphan’s yard. In our makeshift clinic and lab, Dr. Baker and her team are working diligently to cure children with Malaria who would have died otherwise if we had not come. I am just a small part of the larger effort that is taking place here to help the poorest of the poor, the sickest of the sick, and those who otherwise had been forgotten. Thanks to Pastor Habil, Dr. Baker, and the people of Bethlehem home, orphans and elders have food, clean drinking water, and a chance to live long healthy lives. The people here opened their hearts and homes to us and welcomed us into their family. Towards the end of each day, I spent an hour or so just playing with the children, they like to be picked up and tossed in the air and spun around, and if anything, just hearing them laugh and seeing them smile when life for them is harder than we could ever imagine, has made this trip worth it in every sense. I love the Luo people and the people of the Nayakach plateau, they are my family and friends, and I will leave here knowing I learned more from them than they learned from me.


Ted Tanner
Baylor University c/o 2008, BS Education
Boston University School of Medicine c/o 2010, MA Medical Science Candidate

Currently living in Boston, attending Boston University School of Medicine and pursuing a degree in Medical Science. I graduated from Baylor in May 2008 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Education, major in Health Science Studies. I was member of the Baylor football team from 2003-2007.