Kampala

Today most of the team is headed to the water falls for a night together and away from Soroti. Two of our summer short termers are headed back to the states so from there Beckie and I are taking them on to Entebee by way of Kampala to the airport. We also have to have our car looked at and get Beckie's passport back so we will spend a day (or two) before we head back to Soroti. We hope to be back to Soroti by thursday afternoon but that is if things go perfectly as planned. The car needs brake work and the electrical system looked at and Beckie has to spend some time at immigration. On the up side Kampala often has a faster internet connection so possibly I can post more pictures....

Gweri

I know that when I write about seeing these handicapped kids it is hard to picture what I'm talking about. So I'm going to try to give you just a glimps of what I'm talking about.

First- on our way out to the homes of these kids. To call it a two-tracking would be misleading because it implies that there is more than one track. Most of these homes are found at the far end of a not so straight foot path through the bush. But our little car took it like a champ.

This is Mary. She is 10 years old and was one of the kids that actually seemed happy to see me. Mary is able to feed herself and sit up on her own, making her one of the highest functioning kids that I saw the whole day.

This is David. Not so happy to see me at all! (White skin can be pretty scary if you've never seen it before.) David's mother told me that she was in labor a long time and that he is like this because "he was pulled."  David can't seem to hold things in his hands at all, though he can sit with minimal support.

At most of these homes I had only been there a few minutes when an audience formed. The blue outfits are their school uniforms as they just got home. Notice the huts on the left and the right. We are sitting under a big shade tree in the middle of their clan compound.

This is the house of one of the families (though it is just like the houses of all of them). The little girls are just siblings watching me, possibly the most entertaining thing that will happen at their home all week.

At all of these homes we were invited to come sit in the shade and occasionally asked to sign the guest book. Both of the men on the right came with us. Steven is in blue and he is the one that has worked really hard to help me to see these kids. Mike is in white and he is the coordinator for work with handicapped in all of Gweri. Both of these men are phsically handicapped themselves and have a big heart to share with parents that their child is not worthless because of their struggles. The back of the head in the picture is Lisa.  Once again- thanks Lisa for joining me on this adventure even though we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into!

The last child we saw of the day was Lucy and her parents deserve an ovation for the care that they have given her. She is the 8th of nine children but when I asked if her siblings are around to help her aging parents her mother said that only 3 of them are still living. Lucy can't hardly even swallow but her parents have lovingly cared for her for 13 years. They asked for a little help from me- they would like a mosqueto net for her. In the states she would have a peg tube and diapers and a lift to get her into and out of her electric wheel chair and meds to keep her easy to care for. Here she has a mother who feeds her very carefully and a father who carries her because she is too heavy for her mother.

 I hate it when I've gone so long without blogging. I have too much I want to write about....

Gweri- this is big on my mind. On Tuesday I went to Gweri (a sub-county, I think) outside of Soroti. In about 4 hours I visited about 9 homes and 11 physically handicapped kids. They have issues ranging from severe epilepsy to mild cerebral palsy. So I clearly have a job to do now. Including these guys, in the past weeks, I've met about 20 kids that have special needs. I need to hunt for meds for some, bug nets for others. Talk to doctors, design chairs. I need to begin to in earnest educate myself on their different diagnoses and then figure out what it means in this unique setting. I want to come up with ways to encourage the parents of these kids and figure out what resources are available locally. It all seems daunting when I pile it up like this but I'm excited about the challenge. I know that working with these kids is going to be discouraging because even in the states there is very little that we can do. And a few of these families got so excited that I came to visit their homes and I'm afraid that they think I have a way to cure their child. I want to improve their quality of life and for some I'm not even sure I can do that. So, I'm asking for your prayers in this. I know many of you have been praying for discernment and purpose for me and I think God has answered that even though this isn't what I expected at all. Now, I'm asking for wisdom in this job that He has given me.

This was what we pulled up to at one of the houses we stopped at. Three families waiting for us.

The kids- I would like to write that now that school has started back up that many of the kids that were always at my house are here less but that doesn't seem to be the case at all. In the 3 weeks that school has been back on there have been two holidays without school. Another day Betty was here all day because she said that her teachers were all in meetings all day and she didn't have to be there. Around the middle of last week one of the government teachers was killed suddenly and so that day there was no school and the following day ALL of the government schools were closed. Betty has been “home” sick twice (so why was she at my house?!) and Abella and Dorcus have both been “suspended” until they pay their school fees. We have been forced to make the rule that our house is off limits during school hours no matter what, otherwise I feel like they would be find reasons to NEVER go to school. Most evenings they are all here to make banana bread or watch movies or just hang out. Last night after playing football (soccer) in the yard until dark I fed them supper. Sunday afternoon Abella's little brother climbed up our mango tree and harvested all of the ripe, nearly ripe and really not ripe at all fruit from the tree. 

 Opio up the tree to collect mangos.

The group waiting for me to eat.

From right to left around the circle- Betty, Joyce, Martin, Abella, Opio, Calvin, Emmanuel and Ivan

I guess that's what I've been up to for the most part and thats all for now. Until later.

A little Soroti wildlife

Just a few pictures today:

This spider was HUGE- the picture doesn't even begin to show it. And its web felt so tough and indestructible.

 This brown lizard was just chilling in the sun. These orange and black lizards are everywhere, not all that small and super fast. Usually, they are just a little startling.

These purple flowers grow in the fence on the side of our house.

My on going battle

So I go back and forth.  I go from being sure that God is calling me into working with handicapped Ugandan kids. He has given me teaching resources, placed people in my path that are already working with these kids, and keeps showing me more and more kids that have special needs (practically daily right now).  And still I waver. Yesterday I went to see Lazaro again. He has a bad infection under the skin on his head that is draining pus and has matted his hair to his head. We (thanks Lisa for joining me in another adventure!) shaved his head and cleaned all of the sores. Then just sat a little in the shade with him, his many siblings and his mother. There was no one along to translate this time so communication was very limited. We tried and tried to get Lazaro so smile without any success. He seems SO depressed and I just know he is neglected. The flat spot on the back of his head just keeps getting worse and worse it is clear that he is left laying on his back all day. He is possibly more nourished than his siblings but that still isn't saying much. I just don't know what to do to help him and his family. He needs to be held and smiled at and sung to and given fun toys and little treats. And instead he gets to lay in the dark inside the hut alone all day. He can't roll himself over and won't even reach for things. It is so sad it made me feel physically ill while driving away. So then I say to God "You can't possibly be calling me to this, can you?"  And I just don't know what He is saying to me. I'd only been home a few minutes when Amecet (the baby shelter) called to ask me to see a child that had just arrived there that the mother was trying to leave. A 3 year old paralyzed from the mid back down with limited shoulder movement but no elbow, wrist or hand control.  He is also blind and deaf. The mother seems like she cares for him but just doesn't know what to do. He is getting too big and heavy to carry on her back all day but he will clearly never walk, talk or even feed himself. He isn't really sick so can't stay at Amecet though the mother is convinced that he has malaria. And physically handicapped kids are hard to take care of in the states where we have tube feedings and nice motorized wheelchairs and special schools and day care programs and good doctors and cribs. What am I supposed to do for this struggling family?!

Makes me laugh

On a much lighter note I find it really funny that it is 95+ degrees in the house and still the little cat that I'm taking care of for a few days sleeps on the hot voltage regulator as if it were January in Michigan.

Thats going to be a lot of bread

24 kg of flour and 50 kg of sugar... this may not bode well. They are going to need more bananas. What have I gotten myself into?!






*If you don't know what I'm talking about see the post on May 18th

(Deep sigh of relief)

So the travel visa that I entered the country on expired yesterday.  Well, sort of. I paid for a 3 month visa from the Ugandan embassy before I left the States but turns out that if when you have traveled for 36 hours and are too tired to ask and they scribble some hieroglyphics inside your passport you have to renew in two months instead of three. So anyway, I had to drive to Mbale yesterday. But yesterday the car wouldn't start and the mechanic who knows about the electrical system didn't want to start working until 4pm so I went today instead. And all went well. But it wasn't without some apprehension and just a little dread that I went. This is by far the longest drive I've done yet (thanks Lisa for being willing to go along so that I didn't have to handle this adventure alone!) and also with the worst roads to travel on (worse than going out to the village). Also last time this immigration officer gave the missionaries that I went with a really rough time because they wouldn't pay the bribe. He made them get two different stamps and it took far longer than it needed to. And we ended up just getting up and leaving. So I was fearful that we would have some of the same troubles this time. But I think some zucchini bread saved the day. I had made two loaves at around 6 this morning to give him as a “wedding gift” (last time he asked us for a wedding present even though he was married in January). Anyway, he laughed, asked me what date I needed stamped on it and let us go (still though he would only give me two more months instead of the standard three). But Lisa and I even managed to squeeze in an hour of triathlon training in a resort pool before heading back to Soroti. Thank you Lord for so many blessings!

Trouble

So this is just a little side project that I've got going on.... Angie found five, one day old kittens in her yard with no mother cat around. The next day when she checked on them and four of them were dead. So I rescued the last one and have been syringe feeding it and keeping it warm. (Who would have thought that necessary?! I live in the tropics right?!) I was afraid for a while it wasn't going to live but we seem to have made it to the one week mark and now it has a name. Trouble. It still gets me up several times a night.  Its eyes and ears are still sealed shut. But I think we are going to make it.

New opportunity?

I spend a lot of time praying about what I'm supposed to be doing right now. There is an opportunity to work with physically handicapped kids. Many of these kids are seen as useless and just a burden. Nothing is done for them and over and over I hear stories of how they are just left to lay on the ground all day with no interaction, stimulation or care. There are no expectations for them and some are even abandoned. But I'm learning that there are so many kids with physical handicaps here in Uganda. Cerebral Palsy is frighteningly common because there are so many things cause damage to the developing brain from poor prenatal care to malaria in the first months of life and little medical care as prevention or early treatment. On top of that there is Polio, genetic deformities, injuries that cause loss of limbs, the list seems to go on and on of things that cause handicaps. There are opportunities for me to encourage these families, to provide nursing care and resources (like specially made chairs) and increase awareness. This is the most apparent and open nursing opportunity I have had yet. There are several Ugandans I can partner with who are already involved in this work and I've encountered several of these kids already so I start to get a little excited about meeting this need. But then I think how poorly equipped I am for that particular job and I hesitate. This is not something I've ever worked with in my past nursing experience and I know so little about how to help. It also gets so discouraging as at times so little can be done.  I always pictured myself working with HIV/Aids or hospice care. I wonder if this is the driven side of me that needs to be doing something, anything task related with a purpose. Should I continue to wait? Am I supposed to be more patent? Why all these hesitations and reservations?  These kids are precious in God's sight and could use all help that they can get. I should just dive in. Right?

A kitten?!

Sorry all, I seem to be doing a really poor job posting lately. I'd like write about day to day stuff but time seems to just get away from me. I keep thinking that soon I'll get into a routine and life will level out but that doesn't seem to be about to happen. We have several visitors here, girls from Calvin college who are all here varying lengths of time but around a month each. I'm doing things with them each day and Beckie is still in Kampala (for more than a week yet). I'm without my car as Tim took it when he headed to Kampala. Today was a perfect example of how I just get to the end of the day and look back at the day and kind of shake my head.

I was up nearly every 45 minutes in the night with this little bundle of trouble last night. I should possibly have thought it through better before I “adopted” it but while watching it struggle over the bodies of its deceased siblings yesterday I wasn't really into balancing a pro/cons list.

 

Anyway, I finally managed to get us both up, bathed, and fed and met the group over at Amecet. Mid-morning we headed to I-team's resource room (a nice little library with resources for pastors and others to study. There really is nothing else like it here and it is a very needed place as most don't even own their own bibles let alone other resources) We wanted to clean and organize but on the way we received word that one of the ministry partners (and a lady who is becoming a good friend) was in the hospital possibly having a miscarriage in her 8th or 9th month. So back downtown to see her and pray with her. Then back to the resource room after the spending some time at the hospital. Lunch break at 1:30pm but first we needed to get lunch stuff so off to try one of the little shops- “none here- go just there”, “no- across the way”, finally with a little food in hand, lunch. Wrap up in the resource room and home by 3pm. Betty and Dorcus both arrived shortly after they got out of school. A little time with them, dishes that I hadn't done in days, to market quickly for potatoes- my contribution for food for game night. Peeling and cooking 2 kilos of potatoes and off to Rachel's house. Dinner at 7 with Ugandan, Canadan, Congo and American friends who live in the area. Then about an hour of games with them. Now I'm here at my computer. I can't help but wonder what I'm doing here in Uganda. Don't get me wrong- I love life here. But I spent the bulk of my day feeding a kitten milk with a dropper (every 2 hours) and going back and forth from town. What am I supposed to be getting involved in?! I know that I'm just tired and possibly should process some more before I post this.... Tomorrow I'm planning on spending a large portion of my day visiting handicapped kids (others like Lazaro and Abraham) with Steven. But chronically ill and handicapped kids?! I don't feel like this is within my scope of experience at all and I have so little to offer this kids. But this is the opportunity that is open to me now. And I miss nursing so I take what I can get. So... enough processing. The kitten needs to eat again and I should get some sleep while he does. Later.

ICC

I've gotten the scoop from those in the know- the day out in Obalanga with the ICC overall went well. But let me back up a little. The ICC is the International Criminal Court. (It is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes- thank you Wikipedia). They are in Uganda due to the situation with the LRA (the satanic militant group). A gathering of delegates were here in Soroti for the day yesterday. International Teams, in partnership with FIDA, works with kids that are affected by the rebels (as former child soldiers or other traumas). This selection of the court came to spend a couple of hours at the mass graves, meet 150 escaped LRA abductees, hear a few of their stories and see their homes. The 12 delegates will join back up with all the rest of the Heads of States in meetings in Kampala over the next several days where Tim will be given an opportunity to present to them more about what is going on here and Beckie will host a booth for more information. For the past several days preparing for their visit and the following conference seems to have consumed all of our time as all of this was all thrown together on very short notice (for us, not the ICC- they knew about it, we didn't.) And we were reminded regularly that this is Africa: the kids all had to be reached- and not just with a quick phone call to their parents, presentations had to be created- but not with a quick stop to office max, transport had to be arranged- really rough roads and some pretty significant distances, and so much more had to be done. I'm not going to go into the food prep for 170, reaching and mobilizing the CAAF (Children Affected by Armed Forces) committee members, running all over Kampala to get security badges and proper documentation, assembling packets to hand out, DVDs to make, and none of it as straight forward as in the states. The power fails, the internet quits, phones don't work and no one in the city carries card stock. It makes me tired again just writing about it. Anyway, Tim and Beckie (and the delegates) are all off to Kampala. We are praying for their continued interactions over the next several day. (maybe Beckie can speak with Kofi Annan) I think life here will settle back down...



These seem to be good articles to explain a little more http://allafrica.com/stories/201005240996.html , and http://256news.com/page.php?aid=1269

Kids are messy creatures

Just coming off of a 10 hour shift at Amecet and was reminded again of just how tragic these precious little one's stories are. And how really not precious and tragic their messes are. Nap time is nice though.

We are still waiting on the return of the rest of the team who spent the day with LRA kids and the International Criminal Court. I'm sure I'll post on that shortly. ( Beckie blogged yesterday about our prep work there for today- http://embracingthelove.blogspot.com/ )

Racing in Entebbe?

I've been mulling this over for a week or two now. I have not really decided but I'm thinking about doing a triathlon here in Uganda in Sept. There is a woman from Canada who works with World Vision and she was telling me about a tri in Entebee. Right away I said I'd love to train with her and shortly thereafter I came back to my senses. This is less than 4 months away and usually by this time of year I have a solid month of training already under my belt. On top of that there is really no swim-able water in Soroti and the bike I use here doesn't have a derailleur in the front or the back. But I love the thought of managing these challenges and racing in just 12 weeks. Really, at this point the biggest thing holding me back is time. I know that training can't be taken lightly and it takes time. Is this a commitment that I'm willing to make? To be tied up for several hours a week and be less available? But just the thought of creating this years training plan makes me want to lace up my shoes. So I guess here goes nothing....

Back in Soroti! So good to be home. Here are the pictures of Job and Lazaro I promised last post...

One other quick request- we have some very busy days ahead of us as the ICC (International Criminal Court) is coming to Soroti this weekend and because of ITeams' work with kids affected by the LRA we have some cool opportunities to talk with them, show them around, introduce them to the kids, and share what is going on here. Will you pray for these conversations?  Most of all we want to bring glory and honor to God.

Friday we left Soroti for the long trek to Kampala to bring some visitors back to the airport. We broke up the traveling by stopping for a night in Mbale and slept practically under a waterfall in one of the most beautiful places on earth.  

We headed the next day to Jinja and the source of the Nile and decided to spend the next night there instead of in the city. It was also so restful and beautiful. A very nice two days. Which was good considering these long days going to and from the airport and treking all over the city to get supplies and sitting in crazy traffic and just generally spending too much time in this crowded dirty city can kind of bring you down. I'm really ready to get back to Soroti.

We are picking up two more short term people tonight then back home tomorrow.

chairs

So this is a little  a lot delayed but our trip out to see Lazaro, Abraham and Job last week was a really good one. The chairs we brought them fit well (once we added a little extra padding) and I really feel like will improve their quality of life. I went back again the following day because I was concerned that Lazaro's family would stick him in the chair and just leave him for hours. He is just not strong enough for that.  He works so hard to breath when sitting up and his neck muscles are so weak he can't even hold up his own head. But he did really well in the chair for about 20 minutes. The following day when I went back I put him in the chair for 20 minutes again and then took him out and tried some passive range of motion then back in the chair for 20 more minutes.  He didn't really like it but it didn't seem to cause too much pain and I really think over time it will make a difference. Pastor Steven and I talked to his father and an older brother about doing it twice a day but I'm not sure they will. You can tell that no one ever interacts with Lazaro. He doesn't reach for anything, he won't look to either side, he never smiles, he won't bring anything to his mouth (I brought a whole package of cookies just to tempt him- his siblings enjoyed them though). Honestly this is so discouraging for me. I just don't know how to help this little guy. It really isn't a solution to take him from his home and bring him into mine but that is the kind of time that he needs.  And his little brother... his head is more swollen all the time. He'll never be able to hold his head without significant neck support. On a more positive note Job (and his mother) seem to love the chair. He smiled more than I've ever seen and laughed and laughed. His mother expressed excitement that he doesn't have to just lay on the ground all the time now. I think Steven was encouraged too but I'm also afraid that he told Job's mother that with help Job will walk....

 Abraham on the left at 9 months and Lazaro on the right at two years old. (See 4/14 and 4/16)

Pictures of Lazaro and Job in their chairs coming shortly.