Water well update

3 of the well drillers in the middle surrounded by community

Just back from Karamoja again.  Unfortunately, the purpose of this trip was to pack the guys up and get them out of there. The UWA (Uganda Wildlife Association) has accused the village of living in protected wildlife land so supposedly they are not allowed to put in boreholes there.  We have maps that show this isn't true but they have to go through the correct governmental channels and in this country that means a lot of time. Meanwhile, the guys have been threatened so we had to pack up. Late at night, in Soroti, as I was doing last minute packing I was really nervous about how the community would take it. They've been waiting and waiting for water. They've lived there a while now with promises that water was coming and over and over they've been disappointed. Now again a big setback. But the day was overall positive. There were negatives expressed (all in a language I don't speak but anger and frustration is pretty easy to interpret) but the village leaders gathered as we were leaving and we prayed together and promised we were coming back as we discussed what they needed to do for the land dispute.  Please keep praying!!



Rachel praying before we go.

Tom (well guy) and Kodet (CLIDE guy) explaining to the community the land dispute.

 

On the upside the ladies gave me another necklace. :-)

 

Amecet

My fellow missionaries over at Amecet are grieving the loss of a baby that they had really worked hard to save. Little baby William was born Aug 12th and went to be with Jesus only two short months later on October 2nd. He arrived at Amecet after his mother died and the Dutch nurses there worked very hard to give him a good chance at life but it wasn't to be. Will you be praying for them and their hearts as they continue to care for the remaining children?
William's first post here

Heartbreaking

Well drilling update....

Just got home from Lormoruchabi (where we are trying to put a well Karamoja).  We just had a really nice day of worship and rest and let me tell you, these 6 guys have earned a rest. They have given up on the drilling technology and have taken to hand digging.  I honestly don't know how long they will keep trying. It is hard, hot, dirty work. (Possibly dangerous too. Don't tell OSHA.)
I had to got the privilege of preaching this morning and a few adults of the village came along with 110 children.



Scorpion....not sure how this picture got posted...

My little blue tent in the middle of the village. Also not sure how this picture was in the batch.

I have some more pictures but I'm just to tired to figure out why I keep getting random ones I haven't selected or why most keep posting sideways no matter how many times I rotate.

The essence of this post  is keep praying. I personally have another full week ahead of me and as long as these guys are still attempting their craziness when next weekend rolls around I'll head back up with more food and supplies for them.

 

Oh, and pictures of Friday or Saturday's teaching in Kabermido. 

Well drilling

So much good stuff going on! I'm so busy I really don't have time for a good update but here are a few pictures to tide you over while I catch up.

We are digging wells in Karamoja!! The village where this crew is working (Lormoruchabi) is in desperate need of clean water so we can't wait for it to be functional. Please pray! They are doing it all by hand and it is HARD work. They are far from any access to their supplies, transportation, parts, equipment, etc...

 

 

Cold rainy mornings!

 



My next few days are very full teaching days (in Teso not Karamoja) and if I finish with enough hours of daylight left I can go back up tomorrow afternoon to bring them more supplies and see how the progress is going. Please pray for teaching today and tomorrow, that the community will be open and receptive. It is an area I don't have many relationships yet and a new language group (Kabermido) but they invited me and I am excited to see what God has in store.

Walked with the kids to get water from their current source.

The long walk home.

New drilling site. Hit an impenetrable rock layer in the first and second one.

 I also need lots of prayer at the moment. When I get so busy traveling, preparing lessons, packing and working I neglect my source. But it is when I'm so busy I need time with Him more.  Pray that I don't miss important interactions with people in my busyness and that I would be attuned to the Holy Spirit speaking to me.
Thanks for your support everyone!!

International Teams

Was in the spotlight last week....

Lots of teaching lately...

This was a busy week with lots of teaching and I'm tired tonight but I have to give God glory as overall I think they were very productive days. I know that in the past few years I've really improved as a teacher (all credit going to the best teacher!) and I think can really make a lesson more relevant and applicable here than when I first started. Wednesday was a youth conference with kids aged 9 to about 19. I talked about making choices that honored God.  There were about 100 kids packed into the church and it was 100 degrees  But God helped me hold their attention (after a highly active game with lots of water and laughter) and the visual demonstration that really seemed to bring it home for the kids was an idea I got a midnight the night before.  They were still talking about it on Sunday so I hope it helps them as they mature into adults.

 

Then this weekend was a "conference" on family planning. Honestly, this one is the one I like to teach the least as I have absolutely no personal experience to pull from but it is the one that is requested the most. Also, I find it the hardest as I know the good biblical reasons and good biological reasons for child spacing and waiting to get pregnant until they are a little older (19 instead of 17) but I absolutely don't know how to help these ladies actually do it. Very few of the normal prevention methods seem effective here and for most of them, their husbands are not cooperative. 

Short skit

Anyway, I'm committed to continue to teach the biblical foundation of quality care of families and let God work out the rest. I added a drama this time to the teaching to help them discuss abortion.  It was a pretty serious drama and the actors did great but the audience laughed through the whole thing. I'm still trying to figure out culture here. 

Also the questions I get still never cease to amaze me like "Sometimes I feel like a male goat. Does that mean my wife is in heat?" And "At what age should the children stop sharing the parents house?" One of the things I teach is how there are specific times a month that a woman can get pregnant and they are shocked. They all say it is the first time they've learned that.

Butch

Just an amazing little not so little thing I'd like to share with you:
We are in the midst of the rainy season which means that mosquitos have become little heat seeking missiles that have the power to ruin a perfectly good nights sleep, even if you have a mosquito net.  If at any point in the night you come in contact with the net they will bite you through it. (I currently have 16 bites on the side of my arm)   I'm also not sure how they do it but a least a few make it into the net and hide until you are sound asleep. Then they will wake you up again and again and again with either the buzzing or bitting.  It was driving me crazy. I was trying to keep all windows and doors closed in the evening but was suffocating without the evening breeze. So I was dousing in repellant but it always wore off by morning. Then I tried to re-treat my net by am unable to get permethrin here in Soroti. Even sitting at my desk in the evening was enough to drive me nuts. (That is actually my excuse for the lack of post lately)
So God provided this praying mantis for me. His name is Butch. He has been living in my bedroom for about 4 days now. He sleeps all day and eats bugs all night. The first night I actually heard him chewing. I've slept soundly every night since. Wikipedia reports one this size will eat around 800 bugs in his short life. I'm good with that.

Saving the world

There is a great blog post up at "A life overseas" about a missionary having a conversation with someone who hates missionaries. She says...

 I have never believed my job was to ‘save the world,‘ nor is it to convert others to a brand Christianity that looks just like mine. I’ll try to leave convicting and the converting for God to do. My job is to love with all my heart and obey the God I say I serve and worship. I try to love and serve the people He places in my life the very best way that I know how. If in that loving, God gives me opportunity to talk about Who He is, what He means to me, what He’s done for me, why I do what I do, what i read in the Bible about how to be in a right relationship with Him… I want to do so truthfully, graciously, gently and kindly.

May this also be true of my life and yours, no matter where you are serving. The story of the conversation is here.

Thats one sick little kid!

Last week I was up in Kangole with the intention of spending a few days working with the VHTs but had heard over and over about how bad the road was and how I would get stuck and not make it out to Nakayot. I had other things I could do in Kangole but really had the feeling I should go. Friday morning after praying,  I felt increasingly convicted that I had to at least try. I packed extra drinking water, a tent, tarps, tow straps, boots and shovels and headed out thinking at least if I got stuck and had to sleep out there it was what I was supposed to do.  After some significant off-roading (thinking the whole time “People pay money to do this as a hobby?!” ) We reached the village. They seemed genuinely happy to see me, or at least see the medications and supplies I was offloading. 

But we’d only been there 10 minutes when the question was translated for me “There was a sick child that the father was refusing to take to the hospital. Could I help?” I said I would try but I didn’t want to make the father angry. A very few minutes later a group came running up to me carrying what appeared to be a dead child. The 6 year old wasn’t conscious and barely breathing.   With sternal rub be stopped being flaccid and started exhibiting the most classic decerebrate posturing I’d ever seen. His skin was so hot it felt he could practically leave blisters on my hands.  When he was moving air (which wasn't as often as I would have liked) he had adventitious lung sounds that could be heard without a stethoscope.   HR was more than 200 and I didn't take time to get a BP.

Trying to find a dang 22g cath.

I laid him on the tailgate of my truck and, through one of many miracles that was going to happen in the next 24 hours, got an IV in on the first try. I had rocephin and fluid running as fast as I could and then told the family that I felt the hospital was the only thing that would save the child. Amazingly the father agreed right away and 20 minutes later we were back on the road. Several times on the way the child stopped breathing but each time he started again. The mud was thigh deep in several places but the way around, through the bush, was somewhat clear and we made it to the hospital in less than three hours.  I know, in the vehicle, both of my translators  were continuously praying for the life of the child (and my rather reckless driving) and somehow he was still alive when we arrived.



The treatment room later after everyone had cleared out.

It was after 4pm so triage was closed, we carried him straight into the treatment room where afternoon meds were being administered to 40 other children. We cut to the front of the line where valium, glucose, fluid and more antibiotics were given quickly by the nurses and he was admitted to wait for the evening doctors to come see him. All we could do was pray again and head back to my house in Kangole.

The following morning I had several responsibilities and couldn't get back to the hospital as soon as I liked. I realized that I didn't even know the child's name and if he had died in the night the father would be gone already.  However, I headed into "ICU" and found the patient right away. Still obtunded but breathing! I got an update from the nurses- they were treating for both meningitis and cerebral malaria. (I suspect they didn't have the equipment for an LP. ) One of the guys I like working with the best was free and I had asked him to come along to translate. We (meaning they  mostly because the conversation wasn't in English) sat and talked with the father for a while. He told us he had given up on the child and refused to let the mother walk the two day trip to the hospital. (Mostly because it would cost him 5,000/= , money he didn't have. ) But when we arrived and he saw me giving medicine and praying he thought maybe the child could survive. He wondered if God was telling him to have hope.

 

The ICU. (Sorry about my finger, I was trying to be discreet.)

Finally responsive!!

We encouraged him and Elupo  spent a long time talking with him about God's plan for us and salvation. I was really wondering if we were sent to Nakayot for this little boy and his family. On Sunday we didn't make the trek to the hospital but on Monday morning when we arrived he was awake and talking!! His dad said he is confused but able to eat so they had taken the NG tube out. Again we prayed with them and gave them money for discharge when the time comes.

 

I'm back in Soroti now so I don't know how they are doing but please pray that God continues to speak to this family through all of this. I made the father promise to come find me the next time that I'm in Nakayot to give me an update.

 

My team

Have I mentioned recently how much I love my team?

 I'm continually thankful to God for blessing me with them!!!!

Update on some kids...

Lets start with a positive update first...
Abraham- This is a little kid that has G6PD deficiency and a complicated medical history that I've been involved with for a while. Back in December we finally got a diagnosis for him. (Story here).  Today, I've happy to report that he seems to really be thriving! He hasn't been sick since we got the diagnosis and has finally put on a few pounds and some inches.
He was happy to show me how big he is getting!





Sarah- I just discovered I haven't written about her since 2010. Oops! She is a determined young woman who has Osteogenesis Imperfecta (also called brittle bone disease).  She is bright and willing to work hard. She expressed desire, so two years ago we go her into the handicapped school where she attempted to finish 3rd grade.  But she had missed so much school because of her inability to get around and constant injuries, and at 18 years old she just didn't want to spend more time in primary school. So she transferred into the tailoring program. She is doing really well and says she is enjoying it.

They have modified a machine for her that sits on the floor and she can run it with her arms. It is a little funny to see her working at a sewing machine is almost taller than she is but she's quick and it is a skill she can do even with her handicaps. She has completed one year and has one year to go.

Today her boarding school let out so I took her the 20 kilometers back to her home in the village. She proudly showed off her work to her family and her brothers tried on the patterns that they stich in paper first as practice.

Lazaro-
 This little guy still makes me so sad. He is Sarah's little brother and also has Osteogenesis Imperfecta. I wrote about him here and here. He is surviving but that seems to be about all. He is 5 years old, going on 6 and he still can hardly sit. He was able to feed himself this bit of banana but he didn't get any teeth (as a result of the disease) so anything else he could feed himself is too hard. His arms are too twisted to use a spoon. He doesn't talk and can't really hold his own head up without support. But he isn't sick at the moment which is actually huge. He usually has sores or a respiratory illness. No broken bones right now which is also significant. If he has made it this far he may be able to move around a bit like his sister.

Please forgive my camera woman, she is a bit inexperienced. And I get busy and don't take the time for pictures.

 All three of these kids were together in one post last year too. April 2012  Thanks for praying for them! 

One last picture, this is Sarah and Lazaro's mother. Her husband left her for a new wife and she has 9 kids to care for. I always pray with her and try to encourage her. 

God's power

OK Christian friends. I have been feeling challenged lately and I want to challenge you also.

Do you believe God is all powerful?  Do you really believe He can do anything?  Do you believe He wants to show us His power? (Romans 1:20, Ephesians 3:20, 1 Corinthians 4:20)

But do we live like we do?  I find myself picking projects that I know I can accomplish. But if I only do things that I have the ability to accomplish He doesn't get to show Himself powerful. I want to go so far as to say God ENJOYS the impossible!

God wants to show His power! Don't believe me?  Do a keyword search for powerful in the bible. (Or click here.)

Do you know the story of Gideon?  (If you don't like my paraphrase you can read it yourself in Judges 7:1-25)  Gideon was called on by God to defend the land that God and given to the Israelites from the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples. This was a huge group of people attacking Gideon. And so Gideon gathers together 32,000 men to fight the battle and he has to be thinking to himself "Great, lets do this thing!". But God interrupts and says that he has too many men and to tell anyone who is afraid to go home. So 22,000 men hightail it out of there. Gideon might have been doubting a bit by then but maybe is thinking "God is on our side, we've still got this thing." But God says he wants to thin them one more time and God has Gideon get rid of another 9,700 men. Leaving them as an army of 300.  Against a huge multitude. And it gets better. God then arms them with trumpets and clay pots. No actual weapons. God made it so that there was absolutely no way Gideon could win the battle. But that is the point. The soldiers in their strength could not do it. God has to have won the victory for them! He desired to show how powerful he was.

How about the story of Lazarus?  Jesus got word he was sick.  He could have gone right away and healed him. But maybe few would have heard. Or maybe some would have doubted that Jesus actually did it and that Lazarus was going to get better on his own.  So Jesus waited until he was four days dead and decaying. You don't generally come back from that. THEN God showed His power.  No one would doubt that it was only the power of God who raised Lazarus from the dead.

There are lots of stories in the bible where God showed Himself powerful.  How about Elijah?  He said "Get that altar extra wet. I don't want anyone thinking it was an accidental brushfire that got this party started!" (Also my paraphrase- you can read his actual words 1 Kings 18:22-40).  There were 12 buckets of water poured on it, so much so there were puddles forming. But you don't see Elijah thinking he bit off more than he could chew. I'm afraid, if that whole thing had been my assignment I would have gone about it a lot differently. But in the end people might have just wondered if God had a hand in it and certainly no one would be reading about it three thousand years later. Instead, there is no doubt God did it and He is powerful.

So, I've started to pray that God would show Himself powerful in my life and ministry. And I know God answers prayer. That possibly means I'm going to start acting a little strange. Like trying to start a big bonfire after I've poured gallons of water over it. Or waging battles, but rather than recruiting more soldiers, I'll be sending most home. I'm being a bit tongue-in-cheek.

But also I'm being sort of serious. I want to be an instrument of God's power at work around me for those who are suffering and lost.

How about you?  Will you also accept for God to show himself powerful?

Worship sunday

This is just a fun little comparison. On Sunday, in the morning service, my friend Ronnie participated in worship in our little church in Obulle.

Another friend, Karen, also participated in worship in an afternoon service in a church in Soroti town. Same idea, little bit different look and feel.



The pictures of the service Karen was in are dark and grainy because I was outside the church. To say it was standing room only would be an understatement.

Karen's blog is here if you want to hear more about Sunday from her perspective.
Ronnie writes here if you want to hear more about their ministry.

His faithfulness

 

Psalm 91:4

He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

 

 

 

We keep chickens here, mostly for dinner. There are often chicks running around and I think of this verse when we have a mother with a brood. A good mother hen is able to protect her chicks from hawks and even though a chick is technically able to feed itself from day one a good mother hen calls her babies when she finds food. She teaches them safe places to hide and shelters them under her wings. When it gets cold (falls below 70 degrees) they huddle up in her feathers.

God compares himself to that. 

Pumpkin Muffins

(A few weeks back I posted about a cooking challenge. This is a continuation of that)

I’ve started out cheating. But I guess if it is my game then I get to make the rules. So it is now a new rule that it has to be a smitten kitchen recipe but it doesn’t have to come from the cook book. I had a pumpkin and this last trip up to Karamoja I searched her whole book and the only pumpkin recipe is Marbled Pumpkin Gingersnap Tart which looks and sounds wonderful but I can’t even begin to list the things I don’t have up here from cream cheese to a tart pan. The rules of this game allow many generous substitutions as long as the intent of the recipe remains but for this one it would have been lost. Maybe in Soroti it will be possible. But back to the pumpkin. So I found a recipe on her online list for pumpkin muffins. I wrote it in the back of the book and decided it was perfect. Muffins can’t be cooked in my cooker so it became sweet bread loaf. But dang, after four hours of work it really hit the spot. And the upside is that it is a recipe that the ladies here can replicate. My afternoon plans fell through and earlier the ladies from the “women’s union bakery” had seen what I was attempting and so with the extra time and left over pumpkin they also made two loaves.

It really was a lot of work though. The pumpkin alone took two hours by the time I got the fire hot enough and boiled the pieces until soft and then cooled and shelled it. (Do you shell a pumpkin?  Seems like it. Wasn’t there a nursery rhyme character who “…put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well.”?)  And baking here is more time consuming too. Fires just don’t maintain heat the way an oven does and needs frequent tending to keep the coals hot enough. But as long as time allows it is usually worth the work because there isn’t anything else even comparably nice to eat here. 

Peaking at it in my "oven".

Esther giving it a try.
 

The women's union cooking theirs.

Roller Coaster

It really seems like these 6 weeks that I’ve been back in Uganda have been full of ups and downs. Mostly lot of gut wrenching downs with some sideways twists and turns that have left me feeling dizzy and nauseated. Within my close Soroti team we’ve had a lot of division, deceit, discouragement, and even depression that Satan has seemed to send in order to destroy the work that is being done. We have had 3 families leave Soroti and International Teams in the past 2 months.

My first trip back up to Karamoja was good in that it was easy to settle right back into my home up there and the ladies seemed genuinely excited to see me.  However, out in Nakayot there was anger and dependency all around. Their fatalistic attitude was overwhelming and discouraging. There has been next to no self-motivation and within moments of our arrival, they were demanding that we take care of their problems for them.

Twice in less than two months I’ve had to race to Kampala to try to get necessary medical care for team mates and been frustrated both with myself and lack of ability and with our lack of access to anything helpful closer than 7 hours away.

Honestly, today is probably one of those days I shouldn’t be allowed to blog because I’m feeling sick and tired. But that is how it is right now. Please pray for my team and our ministry.

Love of the Karamojung

I know that the Karamojung are a struggling, hurting people. I know they desperately need the gospel. I know that they are God’s children and He grieves that they don’t know Him. I know that this is the place I’m supposed to be serving. I know I’m supposed to love them. But some days all this knowing doesn’t help…

Yesterday, we had a sack of empty water bottles when leaving the village of Lomoruchabi. These are a hot commodity, mostly for the children, but the adults also like them for their homemade booze. One of the ladies I was with handed the sack to an adult and suggested she distribute them. She just tossed them over her shoulder into a group of gathered children where immediately a cloud of dust rose over the fight that broke out.  Have you seen those videos where meat is tossed into a calm, drifting school of fish and suddenly the water turns into froth as the piranha rip into the meat?  It was like that. As the dust settled, several of the biggest girls were laughing over their water bottles as they walked away and two little ones were laying on the ground crying. I’m not exaggerating.  To make matters worse, one of ones that had gotten hit and kicked to get his bottle was laying in the road as we were trying to drive out and so to get him to move they started throwing stones at him.  I know it is a dog eat dog world here but do none of them have compassion for each other?!

It makes me so angry! Why do they choose to behave as savages?

I find myself praying often lately that I may have love for them.