Fab 40 the Recap: Sherri’s Amazing African Adventure
by Sherri Jackson
CBS 42 News
2008-07-07 14:52:58.0
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I set out to complete 40 things in my 40th year back in April of 2007. I am amazed at what took place as I moved through that list. One of the highlights was a story I was trying to track down about a mission worker from Gadsden. She was living in Bomet Kenya at a medical mission hospital called Tenwek. At first I sent Dr. Carol Spears a little camera to try and tell her story with video she shot. She and Dr. Ben Roberts, who was trained at UAB, interviewed each other and sent the camera back through a third party.
During my correspondence with Carol, I was also making plans to attend a mission trip to Tanzania with Mountaintop Community Church. Our travel dates were in October. It never occurred to me that I could actually meet Carol in person until she mentioned that she was in Tanzania studying Swahili. I mentioned to her that I would be in Tanzania in October and asked via email how far she was from Arusha. It turns out she was 8 hours away in Kenya. Once I asked my boss if it was possible to go over and interview Carol it was on.
Not only did I get to tell Carol’s story of triumph over tragedy. You can read about the miraculous turn of events stemming from an attack she and a friend endured while Carol was doing her medical mission training at Tenwek by clicking here. But I came across an entire series of stories on HIV/AIDS.
First I spent a week in Arusha, Tanzania on a fact finding mission about the AIDS pandemic and the need in that country. I saw orphans who had lost both parents to this disease and met a wonderful woman by the name of Elizabeth Mosha, who was making all the difference in the lives of these children by helping get meds for the moms living with HIV/AIDS, training caregivers, teaching job skills, and transporting the children to and from school. I also saw struggling orphanages with caregivers trying to provide for children the best they could with very little resources. In a hospital in Arusha I saw elderly women left to take care of infants whose mothers had died from AIDS.
I then traveled by bus from Arusha to Nairobi and on to Bomet, Kenya to Tenwek Hospital. Their motto is “We Treat Jesus Heals”. There I met Dr. Spears and Dr. Roberts in person. At Tenwek I saw Doctor Roberts holding bible study with patients in the eye ward to start off the day of surgeries. In the ward where Dr. Spears works as a general surgeon I saw hospital beds that were so full there were two patients to a bed. During my three day stay at Tenwek, I toured grounds where a remarkable waterfall envisioned by the hospital’s founder back in the 1930’s is now fully operational.
That waterfall generates enough electricity to allow Tenwek hospital to be self sufficient. Tenwek is a literal beacon of light in that western Kenyan community, a city on a hill in itself with amazing mission workers who shine an inner light to all the people they serve.
That is the story I was able to tell through a series of reports called AIDS from Alabama to Africa. A selection of those stories earned the National Association of Black Journalists 2008 Salute to Excellence Award for Specialty reporting in a specific tier of television markets. I am very thankful to CBS 42 for it’s commitment to telling stories that affect people’s lives and for letting me tell the stories of such a magnificent journey.
Sherri
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