Weekend and Monday Update

Today, we got to see some 1 and 2 year olds in the Africa Renewal Ministries Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC).  These are some of the cutest kids on the planet.  A few of them were snotty, one had pneumonia, but all of them were playful and a joy to be around.  We got to see the routine that they had each morning and got to try their “Posho” or porridge that they had for breakfast.  I would eat it, if I was hungry enough!!  After we had done the health screening on all of these kids, we went to Wentz Medical Center to eat lunch and fill a handful of prescriptions that the kids needed.  We also took the little girl that had pneumonia to get some IV antibiotics.

On our way back down to the kid’s school, we stopped in and saw Jonathan. 

He continues to do well as he is almost completely recovered from his burns.  I still believe that his healing is a miracle.  We saw a little girl in the ECDC that had severe burns on her legs in the past.  Her left knee would not straighten out completely due to the scarring.  So she currently and likely permanently going to limp on this leg.  This is exactly what I feared would happen with Jonathan’s arm.  But now, I don’t think that he will even know that he was burned, when he gets older.  We introduced Jonathan (now 3 years old) and his mother, Jennifer, to the Africa Renewal social worker.  We are hopeful that he will be admitted to their primary school and can be in their sponsored child program.  In that program, the child has his or her school paid for, health care covered, breakfast and lunch on school days, school uniforms, a Christmas gift, Summer Camp, and a new pair of shoes each year.  All of that for $35/month!  If anyone is interested in us finding them a child to sponsor, please let me know.  I am sure that we will discover other kids that need that hand up as we move forward and we would love to connect you with them!

We had a surprise visit from Paul today!  We were wrapping up our work at the ECDC and he came walking up.  He looked snazzy in a black suit!  I did not recognize him at first, because he looked so……WELL.  You might recall, he is the pastor that was brought in by 3 friends in Kachungwa.  Paul was very near death when we saw him and today he is alive and well, to God’s glory!  He said that he was feeling great and that he would never forget us!  He is in Kampala this week for a pastor’s conference.

Above was Paul when we saw him in Kachungwa

                                                               Paul today!

I also need to tell you about this past weekend.  Our friend, Rogers, from Watoto, got us tickets to the Watoto production of Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames.  This is a drama that shows different people from different walks of life, coming to the end of their lives and standing in front of the Lamb’s Book of Life.  Those that have accepted and followed Christ, are ushered into heaven and those who have not accepted Christ are thrown into the Lake of Fire.  At Roger’s recommendation, we got there 90 minutes early to get a seat.  They crammed us into this place like sardines.  When we sat down, I thought that we were sitting too close together.  Then, they added two more people to our row.  They had all of the windows and doors closed to keep it dark in the auditorium.  It was definitely not a place for the claustrophobic!  Before the show started, I texted Jim twice.  The first one I said, “well, it looks like they have the Hell’s Flames part down”!  Then after I noticed the lines of people standing along the walls on both sides of the building, I texted “Do they have Fire Marshalls in Uganda”?  There was plenty of oxygen in the room, it was just all clinging desperately to carbon atoms making carbon dioxide!  If I had to guess, I‘d say that 1500 people saw the production at 5:00pm on Saturday.  At the end, there had to be 300 at the altar giving their lives to Christ!  It was incredible to see the Holy Spirit work.  We forgot pretty quickly about the heat, the seating arrangements and our selfishness leading up to the performance.  My hat is off to Watoto.  They run this production all week and have seen a great harvest for the Kingdom!

I heard, over the weekend that the Garage Sale to support Due Unto Others will be March 17^th.  If you have anything to donate, please contact RawChurch to see where you can take it.  Please tell your friends about the garage sale and let them know that the proceeds are going to fund the medical supplies in our van!

Thanks for all of your support.

Jay

TIA

TIA is a something I hear quite a lot from our group.  It is an acronym for This IS Africa.  Today, the lack of power got us in two ways:  First, David (see previous post) was editing our video that we had hoped to upload to a dropbox before 8am Oklahoma time.  This was to be shown at RAWchurch this morning. We had also made one for our Advocacy Team, that has a meeting soon.   Before the editing could be finished, David’s power was out!  TIA!  

Then this evening, Jim, Joline, and Jay and I had been out doing some errands.  We had called the kids to meet us at the front parking area of our apartments.  Every evening, the Royal Suites, fogs for mosquitoes.

This is quite a site, from the man running with the machine as it is pointing behind him, at times with flames shooting out, to the THICK dense fog it leaves behind that takes your breath away.  (We’ve joked, but somewhat seriously, about the commercial that plays in the US about if you have been around asbestos and have mesothelioma call such and such law firm.  The commercial that will get our attention in 10 years will be,  if you were at the Royal Suites in Bugolobi, Uganda and were exposed to the evening fogging etc......)   When we turned into the parking area we heard and could see the fogger to our left.  When we looked right, our 6 kids are jumping nervously for us to hurry to beat the fogger to them.  We closed the doors to our van just as the fog began to engulf the outside of our vehicle.  (So, the song, Tonight’s Going To Be A Good Night runs through my head!)  We had decided to go eat at Nanda’s.  It’s kind of like Uganda’s fast food from a food court you’d see at a mall in the states.  Except there are 5 options: Bread, Pizza, Chicken, Burgers, and Ice Cream! (Those who know me well, surely aren't surprised that I have found a suitable ice cream place.)  We get there, most of us order, and power out!  I really expected it to come right back on via a generator.  A couple of us received our orders in the dark,  but an hour later the power was still out and no food.  TIA!  Those left without their orders were able to get their shillings back (money) and headed to the bread counter.  No ice cream tonight!  I am really thankful for electricity and that we do live in a place, most of the time, where we have it thanks to the generators.   TIA can have a positive connotation too, at least for me.  We are headed to Jinja on Thursday through Sunday.  While we are there, we hope to visit Pastor Henry’s church on Sunday.  We also get to meet up with Katie Davis, Kisses from Katie, on Saturday.  Also during this trip we hope to white water raft on the Nile, and a few of us might even Bungee jump over the Nile. TIA!

  Tomorrow, we head back to Gaba to begin the health screening of the cute kiddos in the Early Childhood Program of Africa Renewal.  TIA!!!!!  And, I love it!


Look up Renewal Healthcare Network page on Facebook!  Like it and you will find more pictures and updates on what we are doing in Uganda.

Jill

Team Member Profile - David

Here is my next Due Unto Others/Africa Renewal team member introduction.  Today, I would like to tell you about David.

David wears many hats with our team and we are so delighted that he took some time away from his budding business to work with us while we are here.  David has a history of driving for and hosting many mission teams in the past, he drove an ambulance for Wentz Medical Center and had a transportation business of his own.  He has recently sold out of that business to buy the equipment to start his new business of photo/video production.  David is in his mid twenties and lives in Gaba, fairly close to the Wentz Medical Center (our home base).  Dr Martin had introduced us to David in our first week here, and Dr Martin actually had him take us home one day.  We bonded with David quickly and we lobbied for him to be our “driver”. 

David is an excellent driver.  He can maneuver our van into and out of places that make me want to close my eyes!  But he is much more than that to our family.  He has been our teacher, teaching us about Uganda, teaching us some of the language, and teaching by being a model of patience for us.  David has a great sense of humor and has been holding his own with the smart mouths that we have assembled in our family!  David is willing to help the team in any capacity.  Last week, while in the Mubende area, he served in roles ranging from translator to racing a dying girl to the hospital, performing CPR along the way.  He has been helping us to assemble some memories by taking excellent photos and videos over the past 2 weeks.  On Thursday, he helped us film a video and will be working to edit this over the next couple of days.  David has officially been with our team for only about 10 days, but he has become a fast FRIEND to our family. 

We hope to work with David to do some documentaries and some other forms of media to get the word out regarding the need for medical care in rural Uganda.

Please keep David in your prayers!  There are a few reasons that he needs your prayers.

1.)    He has to put up with us for the next 5 months!

2.)    He has not felt well the last couple of days.  We have him on some medicine and pray that he gets well soon.

3.)    Please pray that God blesses his business.  He is taking some time away from this business to work with us.  We hope that through some of the work that he does with us, that he will have doors opened to him for bigger projects.

One month behind us!

Sorry that I have not done much updating this week.  We are finishing our first month in Uganda.  The time has already flown by.

We rested on Monday and worked on laundry and getting back into our exercise routines.  Tuesday, Jill and I met with the Africa Renewal administration to discuss our schedule for the next few months.  We are mixing in about 4 more road trips and much work that is close enough to day trip from our apartment.  We are trying to mix in the arrival of our guests and keep in mind our budget.

Wednesday and Thursday, we made another trip to Bethany Village.  We finished the health assessments on their school kids. 

The number was right around 200 kids over the two days. 

Wednesday, we were able to deliver a wheel chair to the Ja Ja (grandmother) that we had met at our Bethany Village clinic 2 weeks ago.  She had broken her hip about a year ago, and has only been able to get around by scooting herself around on her bottom.  She was overjoyed!  A video of this encounter will be available later.

Thursday, we finished our school children exams and were able to make some home visits.  We visited Jane.  She has been doing pretty well.  She does not find the strength to dig and work in the fields, but she has gone for her HIV labs and is awaiting the results.  Her CD4 count will determine if she can start on her ARV medications.

We visited Eddy.  Eddy was on death’s door 2 weeks ago.  He had malaria and his blood count had dropped to a hemoglobin of 6.  We brought him, by boat, back to Gaba and he was admitted to the Wentz Medical Center and had IV fluids and antimalarials.  He had improved and had been back to his normal self.  But over the last couple of days he had developed a runny nose, fever, and cough.  He did not feel well today, but he looked WAYYYYYYY better than he did the last time I saw him.  We arranged for him to get antibiotics and some cough medicine.

We continue to be blown away by the people of Uganda.   I just wish that I had a more robust vocabulary to try to describe them to you in a way that would do them justice!

Latest update from a busy week.

We are on our way home from Mubende currently.  I have given you updates on our two incredible days in Kachangwa on Wednesday and Thursday.  We spent Friday in Mubende at Jabez Nursery and Primary school.  We did health screenings on 330 of the cutest kids you would ever hope to see. 

 Jake, Jared and Jessica have gotten very familiar with the pharmacy. 

They really enjoy the lab, but there was not much lab to do on this trip.  So they have spent the time gaining more skills that will serve us well the next few months.  Friday night at the hotel, a thunderstorm came in about 30 minutes after we got back.  It chased us into our little rooms, and of course, knocked out the power!  The power was still off when we packed and left via flashlight this morning.

Today, Saturday, we spent in the village of Muleete.  This was a free clinic open to the village.  We saw about 300 of the friendly village people today.  This brings our 4 day total to over 1,250 treated by the Due Unto/Africa Renewal Ministries team.  We had to restock on some medicines each day and our supply is overall pretty low now.

This week is the kind of medical work that I felt God calling me to in Uganda.  The rural people of Uganda are so gracious and appreciative of what we do and they have a significant need for health care access.  I think that we will try to stick to more 3 day trips in the future as the 4^th day of seeing so many patients has left us pretty worn out.

Early next week, Jill and I will be meeting with the leadership of ARM to map out our schedule for the next few months.  We will do some more full on clinics like this week, but we will need to spread them out some because they use a lot of resources quickly!

I debated about if I should share this or not, but I think that it is too funny not too share.  It is somewhat gross, so I apologize in advance.  Friday night, we took our Doxycycline capsules like we always do after dinner.  We take this for malaria prevention.  It can upset your stomach, so we take it after our evening meal.  It can cause some skin rashes when you are exposed to the sun, so we take it late in the day, so the peak is at night while we are asleep and out of the sun.  Anyway, as I took my capsule, it felt like it stuck in my throat.  So I kept drinking water trying to get it to go down.  Well, eventually, I burped and this doxycycline “dust” came up my throat and into my mouth.  I think some spewed from my mouth like a Sevin Dust sprayer.  My eyes watered and I coughed and sputtered to the point that Jake almost gave me the Heimlich!  I finally recovered but woke in the middle of the night with my uvula (hangy down thing in the back of your throat) on fire!  I thought that I was getting strep throat, but it was gone by morning!  I think that I will stick to the tablet doxy from now on!

We are off on Monday, so I will try to update more then.

Jay

Driving, ME?

It is now Thursday night in Mubende Uganda.  We have power at our hotel, for now, but not water. (This is Jill, and while I began reading this blog to proof it, we now have no power as well.)  It went out in the middle of showers this evening.

Today, we went back to Kachungwa for our second day of clinics there.  We saw another large group of people ending up with 640 patients seen over the two day period.  

We found out that the family of the little girl that passed away was having a burial ceremony for her today.  We found someone to direct us to their home.  I kid you not, that we drove for 30 minutes on roads that I am sure an automobile has not been down in years.  We got to a point that I asked our driver not to drive any further.  It looked like it could rain and I was sure, that if we went further, we’d get stuck in the middle of Nat Geo Africa as it got dark.  It struck us how far this family had traveled to our clinic yesterday.  We had told them to go home and come back at 5:00pm, but there is no way that they could have gotten home and back in that amount of time.  It had to be 8-10 miles.

Pretty soon after our lunch break, I heard Jill say in a concerned voice “Jay?”.  I looked up from the patient that I was treating to see 3 men carrying in an unconscious man.  They laid him on a wicker mat at the front of the church that we were working in.  It reminded me of the men lowering their sick friend through the roof to see Jesus.  Not that I am comparing myself to Jesus, but the men helping their friend to get care.  This was Paul.  He is 34 years old, speaks English but is barely conscious at my initial exam.  He had a good pulse but it was fast.  He felt VERY hot and had a temperature greater than 102.  He had been sick for a few days and actually had started malaria treatment through our clinic yesterday.  We quickly got an IV started and gave him IV rocephin (an antibiotic for pneumonia) and a shot of malaria medicine.  I tried to sit him up to take some tylenol and he almost passed out again before he could swallow them.  We watched him in our clinic for a few hours.  His fever came down and he was able to walk again.  Here I was thinking about how we get him to the hospital and it turns out that we were doing everything for him that the hospital would do.  Obviously, I am having to adjust my thinking of hospital vs no hospital.  I was just a little gun shy after the death yesterday.  Paul was REALLY sick, and could very well have died with out intervention.  

God used us to help him today.  He is actually an associate pastor at the church in Kachungwa.

We (Africa Renewal Ministries) are helping this lady to get some care.  She is an albino and has no pigment in her skin.  She has a very large skin cancer growing on the side of her face.  She was going to the National Referral Hospital today with funds provided by ARM.  Please keep her in your prayers.

I saw a boy named Innocent today.  He is 17 years old and weighs around 65lbs.  He looks like he is about 10!  He has a VERY large spleen and is likely chronically ill from malaria.  His family has no way to get to medical care.  His problem is not considered an emergency, so if we sent him to the hospital today, they would have sent him home to return another day.

You are not going to believe this, but I drove home to Mubende today!  The van has the driver seat on the R side and we drive on the L side of the road.  This is a little confusing, but I think that the only problem I had was trying to use the signal on the L side of the steering column.  Their blinkers work from the right side.  

My passengers were not concerned at all!?!?!

We have run out of some medicines.  We are hoping to restock on malaria medicine by tomorrow.  We will be running a children’s clinic in Mubende (different location) tomorrow.

Thanks for all of your prayers and continued support.

Jay

Our toughest day yet!

Let me give you a little update on the Due Unto team.  We spent Monday sorting, packing and ordering our supplies for a 4 day rural health care trip to Mubende.  We also got our van (FINALLY) off of the lot.  She is a beaut!  We’d like you to help us name it.  Our van is a 1994 Toyota that has been reconditioned and we are the first owners to bring it on to Ugandan roads.  It had lived previously in Japan.  It is a diesel and smokes a little going up hills!!  When we get back to Kampala, next week, we will get the top rack, seats and bota bars.

Tuesday, we set off on a 3+ hour trip towards the west.  We are spending 4 nights in Mubende and working medical clinics in different directions from here.  Our hotel……well, it makes us appreciate our apartment in Kampala.  Last night, the power went off, right after we arrived, and came back on at 5:00am this morning.  After breakfast, we set off to Kachungwa to run a medical clinic.  There is not a medical facility close to this village.  The last time that Africa Renewal Ministries operated a clinic in this community, they took 14 doctors and 20 nurses and saw 700+ people in one day.  We had some worries as we thought that after it was announced that a medical team was coming, that they would anticipate the same big team, and we did not have near that many.  When we finally bumped our way across the dirt roads to reach Kachungwa, there was a line of people waiting on us, as expected. 

 I was not aware of it, until lunch, but the local team had identified a 3 year old girl that was quite ill.  They asked Dr Martin to see her while we started unloading medical supplies.  Dr Martin gave her a shot of malaria medicine and asked the father (mom was not present) to take her home and to return at 5:00pm for a recheck. 

 Well, the family just hung out around the clinic all day.  We did not realize this among all of the commotion.  So the child had not had  anything to eat or drink all day.  When they returned at 5:00, the child was rushed (in our new diesel van) to the regional hospital in Mubende.  Our driver, David, obtained info from the father that she had been sick for 2 weeks and had not gone for care because of lack of money and no way for transportation.  After a long day of clinic and seeing around 475 people, we headed  back to Mubende and our hotel.  We stopped by the regional hospital to check on the little girl, on our way home.

The “ward” in this regional hospital reminded me of barns that we showed pigs in when I was in high school.  Not the fancy ones like the one in Duncan, but the cruddy ones like in smaller towns.  There were probably 50 kids stacked in beds closer together than bunks at Falls Creek cabins.  All of these kids with IVs, and looking quite ill.  That shocked me.  Honestly, this is now my 6^th week (total) in Uganda in the past 13 months, and I was not ready for it.  This whole scene was not OK with me!  Some conversation went on as we walked into the ward.  I did not understand what was said and I was in shock.  It was then told to us that the child had died, shortly after David had dropped her off.  This hit our family really hard.  We have celebrated God’s healing of Eddy and Jonathan over the past week.  We were ready to celebrate God’s handiwork again, but we, instead, received a kick in the gut.  We began to wonder, what could we have done differently?  What do we need to add to our medical van?  Our kids have been around death, with our ranch.  But they have been blessed to not have a lot of death of close relatives.  This is very hard on all of us.  One of the hardest parts of my ER responsibilities is telling families that their loved ones have died.  I have received training in this and I have been told that I do this well.  I am not sure that is a complement and I know that I would almost rather do anything than to have this conversation with someone.  I have experience with sick, death and dying but most of us do not.  

Please keep this child’s family in your prayers.  They were likely given their dead child back and then had to find a way to get home (probably 20 miles away). 

 Please keep our family in your prayers too.  We are headed back to the same village tomorrow with a more keen sense of the physical and spiritual life and death battle that we are facing every day.

There is a celebration in the same area as Kachungwa.  A team, from Camby Christian Church in Oregon, is staying at our hotel and doing some work in the same village.  They were able to speak in a school yesterday and saw 153 young people accept Christ in one day!!!  Another reason that they are in the area is because they feel that God is calling them to build a medical clinic in Kachungwa.  What a day for them to see the need!


Thanks for your prayers!


Jay