Manassas couple heals, preaches

By BENNIE SCARTON JR., Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger
Published: May 1, 2008

A Manassas couple, who for years have wanted to help with the development and education of women in Third World countries, finally got their chance earlier this year.

The Rev. Lee Ann Machosky and her husband, Stefan Hakon Pomrenke, spent five weeks in Kenya and Tanzania doing missionary work and providing medical services.

"It had been in our minds for a long time to go and when we were invited by a physician in Kenya to come on over, we decided to go with the generous support of Bethel Lutheran Church congregation," said Machosky.

Their journey started in Nairobi, Kenya.

"We spent the first week of January visiting and making friends with neighbors, including Christian mission-aries, OB/GYN physicians and a Muslim retired reporter from BBC," Pomfrenke said. "We also par-ticipated in neighborhood organizational meetings for security and learned history of tribal power systems and economic disparity through our gracious host, Dr. Peter Ndege, who works for the national drug abuse authority."

At the same time, there was political unrest with riots and protesters in their neighborhood.

Pomrenke, who will graduate this month from the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth Univer-sity, worked in Kenyatta National Hospital emergency room for a week. He treated several patients with riot-related injuries, specifically machete-inflicted wounds. He also discovered many public health complications due to the political instability, such as the large HIV clinic not being able to adequately treat patients.

At the same time, Machosky aided in food distribution through the Lutheran church in slums without previous food access, due to discriminatory practices. She also worked with a mission to increase the vocational skills of girls at a sewing and knitting school. This will allow girls to gain an income and become relatively independent.

By mid-January, riots increased and the security in their neighborhood decreased. Ndege noted that with the increas-ing scarcity of water and food, he felt it best that the couple leave Kenya for their own safety.

Machosky preached a final message of hope at a Nairobi Lutheran church and through a connection made through the church, they left to work in a Lutheran hospital in Arusha, Tanzania.

"We got a chance to view the beautiful landscape, catch a glimpse of Mt. Kilimanjaro and see our first glimpse of the proud, brightly dressed Maasai warriors protecting their cattle. We arrived in Arusha under the shadow of the volcanic, majestic Mount Meru," Machosky said.

Pomrenke spent the next week working at Selian Lutheran Hospital in the internal medicine unit, seeing the toll the HIV and TB epidemic has taken on the local people. He started a daily 6-kilometer walk to the hospital as part of a daily commute, making friends with local shopkeepers and learning about the Tanzanian economy along the way.

Machosky worked with the chaplains at Selian, meeting with U.S. Lutheran missionary representatives. Together the couple spent time at hospice day care, providing spiritual and medical care to female patients on chronic anti-retroviral therapy for their ongoing HIV treatment. This service allows women to take care of their children, instead of creating more HIV orphans.

Machosky then spent a week with the Rev. Herb Hagermann, a missionary pastor who has worked with the Maasai people for the past 40 years around Morogoro, Tanzania. She traveled to remote villages to baptize 78 Maasai, preach and serve communion to countless other Maasai.

"I also had some unusual experiences such as the healing of a woman possessed by a demon, witness a wedding and eating goat meat," Machosky said.

At the same time, Pomrenke got to go on a safari in Arusha National Park where he saw giraffes, water buffaloes, zebras, waterbucks and monkeys.

He spent the next two weeks witnessing surgeries to correct obstetric fistula, a complication related to young maternal age and a condition that can cause social alienation. He also learned firsthand of the many responsibilities women have in the community that do not allow for social advancement or education.

"All the while, I was keeping up with the political instability in Kenya," he said.

During the last week of January, the couple visited a children's orphanage modeled after a village. Orphans would be in houses of ten with a house mother. Together they visited and formed relationships with other Americans and international medical students who rotated through Selian hospital. They also talked with a Kenyan who fled the political instability because of his tribal affiliation.

Pomrenke was given the opportunity to work on pediatrics service. "I saw first hand the affects of malnutri-tion, lack of immunization and HIV on the health of the children," he said.

He also had what he calls "the most meaningful and memorable experience of my trip" as he went on a flying medical service for three days.

"This was the only way to bring medicine to those in rural areas—through bush flying. Over three days, we landed at seven different remote clinic sites," Pomfrenke said. "We conducted prenatal exams to check if the pregnant mother had any signs of impending maternal or fetal disease. We found one woman pregnant with twins and flew her back to Selian hospital for a C-section. It's likely she would have had a birthing complication if she had to labor in the rural area.

"I learned of powerless position of women over the health of their bodies because her husband was not pre-sent [he was finding work at a distant mine], the men of the community originally refused to let her go to be treated at the hospital and only through determination that she was allowed to go."

At the same time, Machosky went to the Maasae Girls School—a secondary school for girls who would otherwise have no option for an education. She arranged to start a pen-pal relationship with their peers in Manassas, watched an English class and preached at morning devotion.

Their stay in Tanzania ended on Feb. 17 and with the political situation stabilizing in Kenya in the intervening five weeks, returned to visit with Faith, an 11-year-old girl that Machosky has sponsored for the past six years through Compassion International. The couple drove to Mount Kenya, where they visited with Faith and her family and toured the family's church and school.

On Feb. 21, they flew back to the U.S.

"What we gained the most out of the excursion was there is power of hope in every situation," Machosky concluded.

Machosky is a 2001 graduate of Valparaiso (Ind.) University and the Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., in 2005. She was ordained on July 23, 2005, and began serving at Bethel in a month later.

Pomrenke is a 1999 graduate of Osbourn High School in Manassas and the University of Virginia in 2002.

The two met at the church, found out they both wanted to do world missionary work and were grateful they had the opportunity to do it together as a couple.

Staff writer Bennie Scarton Jr. can be reached at 703-369-6707.