She Dreams of Africa
Edna Boroff grew up on a farm about four miles south of Tiffin. She and her three brothers and a sister attended Mohawk School, Downs School and graduated from Melmore High School. She attended Melmore Methodist Church and in her senior year during a revival service, she decided she wanted to serve the Lord. Her family had already paid for her to go to Ohio State University and she went one year and then transferred to Chicago Evangelistic Bible College.
After she graduated, she trained to be a nurse in Chicago. The World Gospel Mission Board in Marion, Indiana, asked her to take a six-month course in lab work as they had a microscope at the station where she was to go but no technician.
She arrived at Tenwek Station, a hospital about 250 miles north of Nairobi, Kenya, in 1947. The hospital had mud walls and nine beds for the sick and three beds for maternity cases. The nearest doctor was in a hospital fifty miles away. She was on call 24 hours a day. No one knew English, they spoke Kipsigis. She was able to train three African girls to be aides by numbering the bottles of medicine. She soon learned Kipsigis so well that it was easier for her to speak than English.
The first patient that required suturing was the wife of a tribal chief who had cut her leg to the bone while cutting grass. The hospital had no electricity and no running water. Supply pastors came regularly from other stations. The hospital was located on a hill at 7,000 feet above sea level. There were two rainy seasons, but the temperature was moderate year round.
Her patients believed in the power of necklaces and bracelets made of wood and stone. They would bring them with them to the hospital. At first Edna took these away from the patients, but she and her aides found they were burying them on the hospital grounds, so they let them keep them. Witch doctors were very powerful, and they would often persuade Kenyans not to come to the hospital until they were almost dead.
Edna vividly remembers one case. She went in a Jeep to bring a boy who was seriously ill with tetanus. The mother wanted the boy to go to the hospital, but the husband and the witch doctor tried to pull him out of the Jeep. Finally she and the mother were able to get the boy in the vehicle. As they started to leave, the boy’s father said, ‘’When he dies, you’re going to bury him.’’ Fortunately, the boy lived and later became a worker at the hospital.
From the beginning of Edna’s work, the women were more willing to become Christians than the men. Many girls and their mothers feared the rite of female circumcision. Often the girls and boys, who were also circumcised around the age of thirteen, would get tetanus from the procedure. Some girls came to work in the hospital and were protected.
One of these girls, Rhoda, stayed at the station until a young man’s parents came to ask her to marry their son in spite of the fact she was uncircumcised. After they had been married several years, it was apparent that she was unable to have children. This was a hard thing for them to bear, and her husband began to beat her. One day she met an old woman with a half-starved baby. He was willing to sell the baby for five shillings. Rhoda took the baby and cared for it as if it were her own. Not long after she adopted two other boys and a girl. These babies had literally been thrown away because their mothers were unwed. The husband accepted the children and was happy with his new family.
Another reason the men were reluctant to become Christians was the African Christian Church rule about having only one wife. It was common for men to have three wives and Edna knew a man who had ten. He calculated that he had over a hundred children. Kenyan men have to pay a bride’s price, usually some cattle. If a man became a Christian, he had to give up all his wives except the first one and support all his children.
When Edna first went to Tenwek, the local people ate corn mush and drank sour milk. This milk was stored with charcoal in a gourd often four feet long. After a week to ten days, it was ready to drink. It was a dark colored liquid that tasted somewhat like buttermilk. Later local people were persuaded to plant carrots, potatoes and cabbage in addition to corn.
The African families were very generous to Edna and her co-workers. They brought eggs, and chickens as gifts. Those chickens ran around the yards and were very tough. It was not unusual to cook one for six or seven hours.
After she had been at the station twelve years, Dr. Ernest Steury and his wife came to work at the station. We had heard about Ernie and his wife through a good friend and fellow Heidelberg retiree, John Groce. Ernie’s wife, Sue, is John’s sister. Around that time electricity was brought to the station by a project which dammed the river. Running water was available except in the driest months. Then it had to be trucked from the river.
Edna Boroff served in Kenya for forty-two years. During that time she delivered 18 to 20,000 babies. She retired in 1989. She is glad she was able to share her experience with her nephew Joe and nieces, Janet and Sharon when they all traveled to the station in February of this year. Now all the hospital employees speak English. The new hospital has 300 beds and five doctors to serve the community. There is now a nursing school that is Kenya certified. The Bible has been translated into Kipsigis. Instruction in the local school is in English, Swahili, and Kipsigis. Now five Kenyan pastors visit the sick and tend the congregation, and two of them are women.
Edna has collaborated with Joan G Degenkolb to write a small book that tells of her time in Kenya. She is happy to share her experiences as a missionary nurse.
– Mary