In need of Godly wisdom

The question given to us last night at dinner: What do you do for a child who is sponsored who is 22 years old and has sickle cell?  He is in S3 and probably misses a lot of school due to his illness that is not curable.   COG helps him out with his medical needs right now because he is a student.  The only thing I can think about it, is what would I do if he was my child?  Everyone of these kids that God puts in our path here are loved by Him so much more than we could ever love them.  They are all made in His image.  So what is God requiring of us?  Please pray for wisdom for the COG staff.

My Wednesday and Thursday

Yesterday I had the privilege of going out with one of the mentors,
Dennis, to a couple of the schools that we have sponsored children at.
The first
school we went to was St. Andrew's. The little girl that I sponsor,
Rashida, goes there. It was SO fun to see her again. She has grown!
I
thought she was younger than she really is, I now think she is more
around the same age as Gloria. So therefore we are inviting her to
come to camp
:) After we encouraged the nine students there to do well on their
exams we made our way to the next school. Mpumudde Estate. As we
drove there it felt like we were out in the country. It was quite a
distance out there. There I got to see one of my best friend's
sponsored child :)

Next we went to Mpumudde Methodist, which was started by Methodist and
is now a government school. Since the government wants all kids in
school, the Primary 2 and 3 class sizes are RIDICULOUS! The Head
Master, who used to be one of Dennis' teachers, told us that there are
200 kids in a class with one teacher. WOW! I can not even imagine!
As we sat in the office two of our sponsored children came in to see
us. They are sisters, Gloria and Diana. We found out that they
"live" with their dad who is gone a lot during the week due to his
business. Their older sister sometimes brings food by for them to
have supper but not every night. Their mother passed away but we are
not sure how long ago. Upon looking at them in their tattered school
uniforms both Mary Ann and my heart just broke. They are not
performing well in school and it's not wonder with their living
conditions. I think we might take them shopping this Saturday. They
need some TLC!

After there we ventured back to the office where everyone got out of
the car that Pastor Godfrey is driving us in and we headed on to the
Guest House to pick up Simon and Gloria. I took my two little ones to
the clinic to have a check up on their health. We got there around
3:15 and Dr. Emma was not there so I found his phone number and called
him to see how much longer he'd be, he said 20 mins. So we waited.
When he came he had both of their blood taken and he checked out
Simon's chest since he had pneumonia previously. After a little more
waiting we found out that both of their hemoglobin counts had improved
and D. Emma said they were well enough to go back to school. So off
we went to Simon's school on our way home to pick up more books for
him so that he can catch up on his school work.

This morning we decided to take Gloria back to school but forgot to
also tell her that meant we were taking her back home as well. She
was all dressed in her uniform and ready to walk to school this
morning around 6:45am when I saw her. And I told her no you are not
walking to school. So she sat and waited for all of us to get ready.
And then I told her she needed to pack her clothes so we could take
her home as well and she was like oh I thought I was coming back.
(AWW! :( ) So we loaded into Pastor Godfrey's car this morning and
went to Gloria's house where I met her Aunt Milly. And then on to
school where we told the Head Master that her long school days need to
be shortened because we don't want her cd4 count dropping again! It
was so sad to take her back, I totally started crying. I miss her
already! I'm going to miss her saying my name 5 million times during
the day. I'll have to make many visits over there...

This past weekend in pictures

Update on the building project: The wall started going in yesterday!! It's so exciting to watch the progress everyday. (Sorry I forgot to rotate the picture before I uploaded, so just tilt your head to the right and it'll make more sense :) )
We went to Colin's mom's church this past Sunday. The women were peforming a song during worship time. It was AWESOME. I love their outfits!

Saturday we ventured to Kampala with Simon and Gloria and took them bowling for the first time. What a joy it was to be a blessing to them and share in this first experience with them. (Also I showed Gloria what a hand drier was, that was another new fun experience :) And on Risa's blog you'll see a picture of them on their first escalator:) )

I am so blessed that God has put Gloria into my life. I want to keep her forever!

Aww, Simon is so cute! He loves Jesus so much and loves to dance. Please pray for his body to continue to gain strength back so that he can go back to school. He really wants to go back to school but we are not allowing him to quite yet. He gets tired too easily still.

Pictures of the Girl's school I visited a few weeks ago

Me and Jalia at her school
Jalia's bed. I can't believe she sleeps on her bed with her trunk!

The girls told us that they were really "squeezed" in their dorm so I went to check it out. Sure enough they were not lying, look how cramped that space is! It's so ridiculous. It's no wonder they all get sick.

As we were walking away from the dorm I took a picture. Their dorm is up their to the left.

Two of the girls talking Teo's ears off as we walked through their school property.

Thank you for your prayers!!!

I am SO excited today to let all of you know that I went with Gloria
to St. Francis Clinic this afternoon to get more medicine for her and
to check on her latest cd4 count. I am SO happy to report that her
cd4 count went up to 318 (from being75) !!!!!!!!! She can not go on
the ARVs until her hemoglobin improves so please be praying for that.
So for the next week or so she is still going to live with us so we
can continue to provide her with good nutrition :) It's going to be
difficult to take her back home, I have grown quite attached to her!

Some updates through pictures :)

Me and Gloria the other day. I told her to make a funny face haha. I've grown very attached to her and I think it's likewise. She says my name like 50 times a day!
Aww! So precious! Saturday afternoon we took Gloria and Harriett shopping for some new clothes. This was taken Sunday before little Harriett went home.

Aww they are too cute!

Aww! Harriett tried on all of her new dresses when we got home Saturday afternoon from the market.

Just a picture of the progress that's been going on with the new building next to the guesthouse.

Some realities here...

The reality here is so different from what I have grown up in or could even imagine in the school system.  Yesterday one of the sponsored girls was going to be reprimanded for not having all of her books (she should have been given all of her books because COG paid for them).  Mary Ann went to the school and told the Head Master there that he had better not even think of canning her for something that is not her fault or for any reason for that matter!  The head master was silent and sort of agreed that he would not cane her.  Five hours later the office got a call from the little girl's guardian telling us that she had been canned at school!!!!!!!!!! OH MAN!  We were all livid!  I wanted to personally go over there and cane the person who canned her!  Mary Ann immediately drove over to the school to inquire about what happened.  The head master said he did not cane the girl but someone else did.  It just so happens that Mary Ann knows the Director (owner of the school) and so she talked to him about the situation and he assured her he would get to the bottom of it.  If things do not change Mary Ann will pull all of our 22 sponsored kids out of that school!

 

I woke up this morning thinking about the fact that we can not change the Ugandan school system but we can make a difference for that one girl that God has entrusted us with. She will most likely never forget about the adult (Mary Ann) who stood up for her when she was telling the truth.  Please pray for the Uganda schools and that we as Children of Grace would continue to be able to impact them about the correct ways to treat children!

 

Another reality I was faced with today in the school system is the sadness that comes with losing a classmate.  We went to Shield Standard this morning where Risa taught the class about the long and short o.  We sounded out words like poke, nose, and home.  Before the class began the teacher told us that last week one of the children in the class, Simon, was sick and then she heard a few days later that he had passed away.  These kids are probably about 8 or 9 years old.  I can not imagine losing a classmate at that young age much less a parent (which is also a part of the reality here).

 

Uganda's schools

I have a strong disliking for some of Uganda's schools!  Yesterday I heard about a conversation with a Head Master at Highway Primary School.  When asked about how he treated the children he said, first the children are treated as our friends.  Then a few minutes later a couple of children brought him his lunch and he yelled at them for coming in and "interrupting" his meeting!  Last time I checked we don't yell at our friends and demand them to wait on us hand and foot!  Oye! 

 

Ugandan school teachers "used to" cane students for discipline which often includes a child with a wrong answer or one who does not answer the question asked of them.  While canning has been outlawed it still happens sometimes because no one enforces the rules here.

 

Children of Grace is trying really hard to be a light in this dark world through the school system here.  We are trying to reeducate these teachers to help them to see that positive reinforcement is much more effective for the learning environment then hitting children.  Sometimes it can seem like a problem that is too large for us to tackle.  But we believe it starts with one teacher learning to change and others will see the difference and follow.  And on top of that, we pray that our children who are sponsored will grow up some day and become teachers who encourage students in stead of hitting them.

 

Something that we can not change that makes me SO upset is that the schools here do not want to put forth the money to treat the water to make it OK to drink.  Therefore a lot of our children suffer from Typhoid!  Water that is so essential to human beings should not be making them sick!  Yesterday they had to take a girl from school to the clinic because she suffers from Typhoid.  How are they supposed to do well in school if they keep getting sick from the school?!

New family members in the house

Thursday I was so excited to go back to the ministry guest house and
see Mary Ann and Mike McCoy, founders of Children of Grace. They will
be staying with us for the next two months. I am SO excited to spend
more time with them because I already know that they have such great
hearts! I cannot wait to learn even more about Children of Grace (as
I feel I learn more and more every time I talk to Mary Ann). Seeing
them and having them live here now is just another taste of America
and the people that I miss there so I am just so grateful they are
here now. (And Mary Ann brought a Bible study here from the states
that they are doing at CPC right now and Deana just told me how she's
been thinking about me so much while she's been doing the study. I am
SO excited to start doing this Bible study with the staff here!!) And
the McCoy's got a lot of GREAT food from Kampala. I had chicken
breast for dinner last night (Friday) – Thank you Jesus!!!

The night they got to Jinja the staff all came over and started
debriefing Mary Ann on some of their kids. My heart broke as I heard
the story of a girl who is HIV positive with a CD4 count of 75! Her
CD4 count was at 800 only 6 months ago! Immediately Mary Ann jumped
into action and said we are going to go pick that girl up tomorrow and
have her come and live with us. She is so susceptible to any kind of
illness with her CD4 count being so extremely low, therefore we do not
want her in school right now much less staying in her house that is
not as clean as where we live. The clinic told us that she needs to
receive more nutrition because she is also anemic before we can start
sticking her on the ARV's. This is why I love Mary Ann and I have so
much to learn from her and the heart God has given her for His
children. She is all about ACTION. So now I have a new little sister
living in the house with us. She is so precious! I taught her how to
play phase 10 this morning :) And today is her 14th birthday so we are
having cake! :) Please be praying for her CD4 count to go up quickly!

No more sickness, no more pain...a hope and a future

A couple of days ago I was sitting in the office working on Quickbooks
when I heard a guardian come into the office weeping. A few minutes
later Risa came into the office I am in to tell me that a 10 year old
girl just passed away that morning. We just sat there and wept. I
can not imagine the heart ache the guardian was feeling as I heard her
sobs. All I could think of was the fact that there will be a day when
there is no more pain and no more suffering. Hope. I have hope in
the future because I know that Jesus is up in Heaven seated at the
right hand of God the Father and He promised us in His Word that He
went to prepare a place for us. Heaven will be like nothing I can
even hope for or imagine here on Earth. It is unfathomable. The
Bible says that it cannot even be fully described. That is how
amazing it will be. I'm excited that I am working for an organization
like Children of Grace that desires to give kids hope and a future.
Please join me in praying for the family of this young girl and for
all the children here, that they would all come to know Jesus as their
Lord and Savior so that they will some day be with Him forever.

Some more pictures.

We were teaching Lydia how to make dough for pizza :)
Empowerment Program Meeting that we went to in Mbiiko.

The living room where we live.

The Kitchen.

My messy bed.

Pictures!

My backyard friends who steal the bananas!

A class at St. Abel, there are probably over 100 kids in this class. What kind of manageable class size is that!? Teo and Lydia do a great job of teaching phonics to these kids.

Joseph and I walking to work. It's almost a mile to the office from our house.

Aww cutie! This little kid just climbed up on my lap and sat there while Risa and I observed an empowerment meeting that Vicky was having with some women. They collectively are working together to pay back a loan that they were given.

The first Friday we were here Risa and I went out in this truck to help distribuit food to the COG kids who are in the food program. That is Godfrey there with us, Risa's family sponsors him.

Chicken Wrap!

So I have been craving a chicken wrap from Ozzie's in town ever since we arrived here.  It's quite expensive (Mzungu prices) so today we splurged for lunch.  Chicken, avocado, and chapatti what could be better?  Oh I know!  The connections we made while we were at Ozzie's. (haha)  At the table behind us we met a woman who runs a babies home in town.  They have 0-5 year old kids and have had about 40 over their time being here who have been adopted by Americans and Ugandans.  We told them where we lived and they said we lived right next to a woman who works at their Orphanage!  So next on the agenda, make some good old cookies and meet the neighbor!  Speaking of connections Risa and I made many over this past weekend.  First, on Saturday we went over to the Nester's house.  They have been missionaries here for the past 5 years.  Jen DeVries and Erin Beck met them in town when they were here last year.  Guess where they are from...Virginia!  LOVE IT!  Roanoke actually so they are HUGE VT fans, GO HOKIES! J  We met some other mzungus there who work at the YWAM base.  It was really refreshing to meet some other mzungus here.  Then comes Sunday...Risa and I ventured to Kampala early Sunday morning to go to a church there called Life Church.  Risa's friend Allison knows the pastor and his wife, who are from Oregon.  We got to Kampala around 8:30am and met up with our friend Colin at the taxi park (the crazy taxi park you've ever seen).  Then we got on to a taxi to go to the church.  A guy on the taxi told Colin he was going to the church we were headed to so we decided we would follow him.  Lo and behold a miscommunication occurred because he was not taking us to the church that Risa had been given directions for (when we found this out Colin said "Saved by the bell"  Risa and I died of laughter).  So we asked a boda boda driver on the road and he pointed us further down Entebbe Road.  We made it to Life Church and absolutely LOVED it.  I wish it were in Jinja!  They had a really cool blend of Uganda and America going on in worship time.  I really like the pastor and how much he knows the culture and used examples from the culture in his sermon.  We went to the newcomer meeting after the service and we were given sodas, yum!  After the service we met the pastor and his wife.  They have been here since January at the church.  His wife grew up as a missionaries' kid in Uganda when her dad started a church in the 60's!  So their breath of knowledge of Uganda is vast.  I really enjoyed asking him about the intertwining of witchcraft and Christianity that happens here.  After church we walked around Kampala with Colin and he brought us to the only Movie Theater and bowling alley in Uganda.  Some day we will go bowling with Colin J

Water

"Water is life, and because we have no water, life is miserable." –a voice from Kenya

This week Risa and I have been drinking a lot of water that we have to buy at the store.  We go through about 2 liters each a day because our bodies are not used to living here.  We can easily tell when we start to feel dehydrated.  As I sit here during the day drinking a lot of water I am so conflicted in my heart as I daily see  kids carrying water from who knows how far away daily.  Water is so essential to life.  I am reading "The Hole in our Gospel" by Richard Stearns right now and in this chapter he is talking about the problem of water around the world.  If we as Americans even stopped using water one day of our lives we would start to realize how much we use it.  We use it so much without thinking about it because we know that it is safe for us to drink.  But for a majority of the world that is not the case.  If suddenly our water supply was shut off "finding a way to get water would begin to consume our lives."  The book says as many as 5 million people die every year of water related illnesses.  (Joseph, the 19yr old who lives in the house behind ours, just told me one of his friends in school died of Typhoid-a water related illness.  He told me many people in the villages here simply do not even know that they need to boil their water to make it safe.)  Richard Stearns goes on to say that thousands of hours are lost seeking and hauling water, especially by women.  This task affects children too because millions of them are unable to attend school because of the hours they spend fetching water.  Richard Stearns then goes on to give an example of a community that was changed as the result of a borehole well that World Vision built in Ghana.  The well was built right near a school.  Before the well was built there were 40 students attending the school and now there are over 400.  This is because the women and children would spend five hours of their day fetching water several kilometers away.  This community is no longer riddled with Guinea worm disease either because that was in the contaminated water.  Clean water has improved their health.  There are also women now making skin lotions that are being bought by Bath and Body Works in the States.  (The only thing the women had needed to create this business was time and clean water, both of which were now available.)  Wow!  Water is life here in Africa.  May God lead us all to find ways to put an end to this water problem!

Friday, October 2, 2009

So far this was one of the best days that I have had here.  I started the day by going to Shield Standard with Risa, Teo, and Lydia for the phonics program.  Teo taught the class about the letter "I" and the sound that it makes.  Teo does a remarkable job at teaching these kids something that is totally new to them and her!  Then Risa and I went into town to Park Villa (a hotel that serves Ugandan food that we go to frequently).  After lunch we waited at the office for Vicky because we were going to go with her to her empowerment program meeting in Mbiiko.  Right before we were about to leave for the meeting, a girl with her guardian came into the office.  She looked extremely weak and had just come from St. Francis clinic where they had given her medicine.  We put her in the Director's car (she could barely get in there because she was so weak!).  Then we got a ride in to town and the Director to her and her guardian home.  She has medicine for malaria and typhoid.  (I just about lost it in the car sitting there with her.  She was crying because she was in pain and I thought about how horrible I feel when I have a fever.  I can't even imagine how she must feel!  As I started to tear up looking at her, I prayed for her and thanked God that we have medicine and that she is able to get medicine because she is sponsored!)  We then went with Vicky to Mbiiko and sat with six women who showed Vicky the books they were keeping.  We got to see one woman's store.  With the loan that she received from COG she was able to purchase larger quantities of poscho and rice so that when she sells them she can actually make a profit.  Every week Vicky visits these women and they are expected to pay back 5% of the loan.  These women have become a team.  One of them didn't have a big enough house to store logs to sell so another woman is letting her store her logs at her house!  What a blessing this program is to these women and the kids that they take care of. 

Next I had the privilege of going to Nakanyonyi Girls School with Mary and Vicky because the sponsored girls there wanted to tell them about issues they were having with the school.  (I went for two reasons, 1.Because I wanted to see Jalia (she is one of the girls who left a forever impression on me the first I met her at the January 2008 camp) and I wanted to see Deana's sponsored girl, Eron, and give her Deana's gift.  2. Because I did really want to see how the meeting would go with the girls and what their concerns were.

We opened up our time in prayer and then Vicky asked the girls to tell her what they were unhappy with.  None of them wanted to voice their opinions so we had them write their opinions.  Then Vicky and Mary read through what they had written and the discussions began.  Their lists included: electricity was out for three days so they were unable to work on their studies at night, there is not enough medicine in the nurse's station and they run out quickly, about 12 of them have not received sweaters that come with their uniform and they are cold, they are too squeezed in their dorm, and a teacher is not being very encouraging and helpful.  We talked through the issues with the girls and told them that we would bring up some of the issues with the school administration.  I absolutely loved how Mary and Vicky handled the complaints.  They gave a lot of great responses to the girls and at the end I told the girls how blessed they are to have Vicky and Mary and just reiterated things that they had said.

My first week of work:I love the Children of Grace staff in Jinja!

My first full week of working here has been incredible.  We have felt so very welcomed by the staff at COG.  I already feel like I am a part of their family.  The other day Vicky gave Risa and I Ugandan last names!  A couple of days this week I have gone into town to have lunch with the staff.  The great part about being here and working here is that I have the privilege to really spend time getting to know the staff each individually.  I also now have the ability to physically go with them and see everything that they do out in the field.  I am continually so impressed by them and how God uses them daily to care for the children who are sponsored.  Whether it is taking a sick child to St. Francis, checking up on a guardian, meeting with students at a school to hear their complaints about the school, making sure kids have new shoes, teaching phonics at a school, or meeting with women in the empowerment program, they are constantly out serving the children and have their needs as their number one priority.  I amazed at how they remember all of the intimate details of every single kid.  I can ask them about a girl that I know from camp and they instantly can tell me about how that child is doing.