All in favor, say "Eye"!

We have spent the last three days in Jinja. We left our new apartment early on Wednesday morning and went to Life Giving Streams Tabernacle in Jinja. This is the church that our friend, Pastor Henry, leads in Jinja. This is also the location of my first exposure to this great country in January of last year. On Wednesday and Thursday, we saw children from the Good Shepherd school that is associated with Pastor Henry's church. We saw about 420 kids from the school, before they were released for the Easter Holiday.

Two kids Jayne was able to lead to Christ.

On Friday, we saw people from the community surrounding the church. We were able to care for 80 community members and we saw 7 professions of faith through this Friday clinic! We had to close the clinic a little earlier than we normally would so that we could get back to Gaba. David is involved in a Good Friday presentation at church, and needs to be there by 5:00pm. This trip was a diversion from our normal schedule that we are following with the Renewal Health Network (RHN). They do not have a relationship with Pastor Henry, but they were more than happy for us to spend the time and supplies to go help another Christian doing good work for the Kingdom. This is one of the many things that we love about RHN, Africa Renewal Ministries, and Gaba Community Church. They understand that we (Christ followers) are all on the same team! Pastor Peter, the head of all three of these ministries, has done an outstanding job of instilling an understanding that there should not be competition between Christian organizations. We appreciate this tremendously!

One of the most exciting parts of our trip was meeting a 9 year old boy named Jamil. We had heard of Jamil from a friend in Gaba. This friend had met Jamil while on an evangelism trip to Palisa. Palisa is about 100 km East of Jinja. That makes Jinja about half way between our home and Palisa. We had made phone and email contact with an adult friend of Jamil's and had arranged for him to come see us while we were in Jinja, so that his drive would be shorter than traveling all the way to Kampala. Jamil has a tumor behind his right eye. He lost vision in this eye 3-4 years ago, and it causes him some significant pain at times. He was seen, in Kampala, last year in September. He had a CT scan and was told that he needed to have a surgery to remove the tumor, and likely the right eye. After making the trip to Kampala (4 hours) and paying for his doctor's visit and CT scan, there were not enough funds to move ahead with the surgery.

The adult friend, named Fred, was able to get Jamil to Jinja last night about 7:00 pm. We had gone to dinner, so they just met us at the restaurant. Fred splits time between Kampala and Palisa. While in Palisa, he helps with a school project there. Fred had a business associate with him and was continuing on to Kampala last night. Jamil was also accompanied by an uncle named Pious. Jamil and Pious joined us for dinner, ordering about 30 minutes after we did. Our food came before there's, so I gave Jamil half of my fries and Jake gave him 2 pieces of pizza. When his food arrived, Jamil ate a large plate of rice and a bowl of chicken stew. He is an eating MACHINE! After dinner, we took Jamil and Pious back to our hotel and got them a room for the night. After showing them how some of the modern things in the room worked, we left them for the evening, a little concerned that Jamil might have some stomach upset from his eating! The next morning, we were relieved to know that Jamil had managed all of the food that he had eaten without difficulty. He managed to put a pretty big dent in the breakfast buffet too!

This morning I was able to examine Jamil and review his records a little more thoroughly. He has seen a private opthamologist in the Kampala area and this doctor has reviewed the CT, seen Jamil and offered to do his surgery. Jamil is healthy besides his right eye. He has no vision in that eye.

I plan to get Dr Martin's help and call the opthamologist by Tuesday (Monday is still a holiday here) and see what we can arrange with them. Hopefully, the eye doctor can look back at the old records and not require another CT scan. I will inquire as to a price for the surgery, and lobby for the doctor to be able to re-examine him and admit him for surgery on the same day/trip to Kampala.

This looks like it could be another starfish (refresh your memory on the starfish story) that God has put on our beach. I will be giving more specifics on the need and how our Due Unto Others supporters can help, as I learn more. Please keep Jamil and his family in your prayers. Please pray that the opthamologist will be open to making the transition to surgery easy, even though it has been 6 months since the last exam or CT scan. Since we are praying for Jamil, let's go big and petition our God for sight restoration in the right eye as well.

We have seen miracle healings in Uganda already, all in favor of another one, say "EYE"!

Thank you so much for your prayers. They are palpable.

Jay