I'm an Excellent driver

It is now Monday afternoon in Uganda.  We are back from Jinja.  I have told you about Thursday and Friday of our trip.  I will give you an update on Saturday and Sunday. 

On Saturday, we went to work with Katie Davis at Amazima's “land” outside of Jinja. 

We were able to attend the bible study and worship service. 

Then we helped to serve the 300 or so Amazima sponsored kids a lunch of beans, rice and chicken.

We got a lot of time playing with and loving on the kids. 

We developed some friendships with some of Katie’s girls.  Katie has a monkey that normally runs around free at this location, but she puts it in a cage on Saturdays, because the kids tend to torment it a little.  She did get it out for Jayne. 

We were there from about 10:30 until 4:00 and we had a good time.  We hope to be able to help Katie again in the future and she has taken my phone number, in case we can help her with any of the fine people with medical difficulties that seem to find her in Jinja.

On Saturday afternoon, we did a little touring of Jinja to see the city and for me to show the family where I stayed with the group from Henderson Hills last January.  We had dinner at a local pizza place that had “real” pepperonis and Dr Pepper!  We see Coke, Fanta, Mt Dew, and Sprite pretty commonly, but this is the first Dr Pepper sighting.

On Sunday, we went to Pastor Henry’s church for worship.  It started at 10:00am and was over about 1:30pm.  We met many people and I was able to recognize many that I had met in January of last year.  One of them was Joyce (girl on the left in the above picture).  She is a little girl who hung out with me quite a bit when I was there before.  She is the "owner" of the hand that is in my hand on our website picture.  The above is an updated picture of our hands.  She was a little surprised when I asked her if she was Joyce!

Our van was not ready to go to Jinja last Thursday.  In fact, it is getting the last of the seats in it today.  Dr Martin was nice enough to send us to Jinja in his personal van.  So I drove from Thursday until this morning, without a Ugandan “proctor”.  To quote the great American philosopher Rain Man, "I'm an excellent driver.  I like to drive slow on the driveway".  Along the roads in Uganda, they have places where the police randomly stop cars for license checks.  I got pulled over once going to Jinja and once after we got back to Kampala yesterday.  I have misplaced my international driver’s license, and could not find it before we left.  So I handed them my Oklahoma Driver’s license and tried to kill them with kindness.  They let me go without any hassle.  Today, I found out from Dr Martin, that he normally only has liability insurance on his van, but when he sent me driving it, he called and increased to full coverage.  It is good to be trusted!

Today, we have worked in a slum area on the north side of Kampala, called Kawempe.  We saw about 100 students, that are sponsored through Africa Renewal Ministries, for health screenings.  We saw one little 1 year old from the community, named Joy, that required IV fluids and some malaria medicine.  Please keep her in your prayers.  We let her go home (still getting use to this) and she will be coming back for a recheck tomorrow, while we are there.

Tonight, we are having dinner with Pastor Peter.  He is the leader of Africa Renewal Minstries and is the pastor of Gaba Community Church.  He will also be hosting our friends, the Gash family, and the rest of the Africa Renewal Ministries team.  We will also be joined by the Fitzpatrick family from Thousand Oaks California.  They are supporters of the Renewal Healthcare Network and are in town for 3 weeks adopting a boy from the baby's home.  We hope to get to know them better and facilitate them meeting the Gash family.  Turns out that their homes are only about 20 miles apart in California.

We will be returning to Kawempe for the next 3 days.  When we have completed the student health screenings, we will go do some home visits in the community.

Thanks for your continued prayers.

Jay

An Xtreme day in Jinja!

Today was an Xtreme day in Jinja.  We woke up early and went to the Nile River for some relaxing............Bungee Jumping!  That's right.  Jared, Jake, Jill and I jumped from a tower of 145 feet over the Nile River.  This was on my Bucket List, but is not there any longer.  It was a little nerve racking to scoot to the edge of the platform, with your feet tied together.  Jared and I "tandem" jumped and did a "water touch"

We have a ton of pictures, but I just posted me and Jared because we are the only ones that did a water touch and we thought the pictures looked really cool.  We have some video of our jumps too that we will try to post before too long.

When we completed the Bungee jumps, we loaded up to go white water rafting in the Nile!  This is my third time to do this and it never ceases to impress.  So much water, with so much power.  We only had one "unintentional" boat exit.  This was Jill getting ejected from the front Left seat on the boat.  I figure that she was bobbing through the rapids for about 45 seconds, but according to her internal clock it was at least 3 minutes!  She was rescued by one of our rafting team in a kayak. 

When we finished rafting, we hurried back to Jinja to our hotel to meet with Katie Davis (Kisses from Katie blog and book author) and her lovely family of girls.  We played, talked and enjoyed the pool for several hours at our hotel.  They then stayed to eat dinner with us here.  We really enjoyed meeting them and getting to visit about Katie's heart for Uganda.  We will be joining them to help with their Saturday Bible study and school children feeding tomorrow.  I will be taking my stethoscope and otoscope with us tomorrow, just in case we come across some sick kids while we are there.

Going back one more day, on Thursday, Jill and I met with Pastor Henry, in Jinja.  We hope to work with him and his church on a few clinic projects around Jinja while we are in Uganda.  We also plan to worship with Henry at his church on Sunday.

We will update you on our day with the Davis family tomorrow.

Thanks for all of your prayers and support!

Jay

Remaining focused!

As we are in Uganda longer, we find ourselves having to refocus frequently.  It is easy to become distracted by the need while trying to address it.  I guess that seems complicated but we find that as we become physically tired from providing needed medical care, it is easy to get overwhelmed by how much we see that needs to be done.  It would be easy to just throw our hands in the air and decide that there is no way that we can even make a dent in the need.  A budget the size of the US government could not solve the physical ills of sub-Saharan Africa, so how can one family from Oklahoma?  We have to remind each other, frequently, that God is in control and that we can only do what he empowers us to do.  It is a fine line between thinking that some of what we see is acceptable and not letting it drive us crazy.

On our toughest day yet, last week in Mubende, we were driving in the van from Kachungwa to Mubende with a project director from Kachungwa.  We were headed to the hospital in Mubende to check on the sick little girl that we had rushed there earlier.  Dr Martin asked this director what usually happens with kids in Kachungwa when they are sick and can’t travel to or afford health care.  He said very matter-of-factly, “They just die”.    That caught me off guard.  It made me feel uncomfortable.  And looking back, I am glad that it did. 

This past July, when we were working the medical clinic with Watoto, we saw JN.  JN made my sick kid radar start sounding very loudly!  Myself, and the other medical people from Oklahoma, were worried for his life, but the staff from the local clinic were moving around like business as usual.  I don’t want to get desensitized to what we see, but it is hard to soak it in and not allow it to break you down.  How do we keep that fresh sense of life and death need without being overwhelmed?

God has shown us, through prayer and wise counsel, that we have to address the need one person at a time.  Like the starfish story, that our friends the Gash family named their website after, we really must not look at all of the starfish on the miles of beach.  We must help one of them at a time.

We have to stop the van to help the kids like Jonathan, without being overwhelmed by the kids stacked in the “ward” at the government hospital.

We have to help the widows like the Ja Ja in Bethany village, without getting avalanched by the physical need of the millions of fine people that could lead more normal lives with something that we would consider a routine surgery in the US.

We have to risk our hearts in helping kids like Eddy, without worrying that our hearts will be broken when one of those kids dies, like the young girl in Mubende.

So a prayer request, for our family, is that we continue to be “disturbed” by what is wrong with what we see in Uganda, but that God gives us the ability to understand what we can do to help.  We pray that He will bring starfish into our path that we can help individually, and that He make our arms strong enough to toss them to the water!

Jay

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!