We have just finished a great clinic day in Ishaka, in SW
Uganda. We held the clinic on a piece of
land where Ishaka Community Church will be located. They had set up 3 tents for us. After a few hours of seeing patients, it got
cloudy and started to rain. Everyone
scrambled to get out of the rain and then to keep the roofs from collapsing. This was an adventure, but did slow our
clinic flow a little bit.
People, fairly frequently, ask me how they can specifically
help Due Unto Others in the work that God is doing in Uganda. Today, I would like to share a few of the
special “That One Person” friends that we have met over the past week or
so. I will write about the others in the
days to come. See if God might speak to
you about specifically helping with one of these cases.
Emmanuel is a 5 year old boy that lives in Bwambara. He has a clouding and enlargement of his left
eye. This has been slowly growing over
some time. He can no longer see out of
the eye. It causes him some pain, but is
not debilitating, at this point. His
underlying problem is likely an eye tumor.
Pastor Elisha had met Emmanuel and his family when making some home
visits in the village. He invited the
family to our clinic that we hosted there, earlier this week. Emmanuel reminds me our little friend, Joseph
of Mytianna, who passed away in 2012 after a bout with a facial
rhabdomyosarcoma. What is also uncanny,
is that Emmanuel’s father reminds us of Joseph’s father Elya. We have made arrangements for Emmanuel to
travel to Rukungiri on Saturday for an initial evaluation. He will likely then be referred to the
regional hospital in Mbarrara. If this
can happen early enough on Saturday, we might be able to attend his appointment
in Mbarrara. We will be in town that day
with a day “off”. The estimated expense
for Emmanuel is $500 (US dollars).
The next opportunity to change a child’s life is
Pamela.
She is 10 years old and also
lives in Bwambara. She has recently
dropped out of school because she can no longer manage to walk to school and
carry out her normal activities there.
We feel that this is related to her heart. She has a loud murmur and needs to have it
evaluated. The Due Unto Others team, in
association with the Rukungiri Community Church, has made arrangements for
Pamela and her mother to travel to Mbarrara on next Tuesday (June 24) to have
an appointment with the cardiologist, get an x-ray and an echocardiogram. If she has a surgical problem with her heart,
we will then need to bring her to Mulago Hospital, in Kampala, for a heart
surgery. The initial work up for Pamela
will be about $100. Any additional
expenses will be determined by what her diagnosis is found to be.
The last “That One Person” for today is Polite.
She is a 4 year old girl that fell into a pot
of hot posho (think malt-o-meal that is really dry, bland and sticky). She suffered a burn on her right hand and
forearm, up to the elbow. She has
significant scarring of the right hand, to the point that she cannot close the
hand. We have seen tremendous progress
with Kevin and Shakib when they were treated at CORSU hospital in Entebbe. We are making arrangements for Polite and her
mother to travel the 8 hours to Gabba, hopefully next week. They will spend the night at Wentz Medical
Center and then be taken for a consultation at CORSU the next day. I suspect that she will need 2-3 operations to
get the hand at least semi-functional again.
Polite was not even seen in our clinic in Bwambara. As we were packing up to leave and meeting
with the parents of Emmanuel, Jayne was playing with and loving on the local
kids, outside of the church. She noticed
Polite’s hand and brought her in for us to see.
The trips from Bwambara to Entebbe will be a little costly, but our
estimate for Polite’s care is around $800.
I am constantly reminded, by God, that one of the only
things better than God answering your prayers is for Him to use you to answer
someone else’s prayer. If you would like
to give towards one of these cases, please contact me at dueunto@gmail.com. Even small amounts will help us to make a
difference for these kids. Please
continue to pray for each of these beautiful children by name too. This is a great opportunity for the Body of
Christ to show His love.
This past week has been quite fruitful for us finding
TOPs. I have several more to tell you
about in the next couple of days.
Preparing for “Due Season”,
Jay
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