Rehemah

One of our sponsored children, Rehemah, went to Danville, CA, a couple of weeks ago in order to have eye surgery.   I just wanted to send out an update so that you all could be praying for her.  This is the update from Linda, who she is staying with:

 

An update on Rehemah. Her corneal transplant surgery on her left eye went well today, she was in surgery for two hours and in recovery for two hours past that. We arrived back home in Diablo at 4pm and she is resting. She is a trooper and did great. We will return to Santa Rosa tomorrow for a recheck. The doctor visited Mary Ann and I for a short visit between his surgeries. He reported the DALK procedure punctured the "bubble" protecting the corneal tissue requiring him to use a different transplant technique. The alternate procedure is still not as invasive as the PK procedure and did not require him to disturb the inner most corneal tissue. That is good news. He was very hopeful for a positive outcome, we will learn more tomorrow. Please continue to keep Rehemah in your prayers that the donor tissue is accepted by her body, no infection develops and the healing process continues as God has set forth in his plan to restore her vision.

Bible Study (Wednesday Dec 2)

I'm so excited!  Risa and I got to have a Bible study with four girls yesterday.  I invited about 10 girls since they are all out on holiday now from school.  A lot of them go back to their villages for the holiday so there were four that showed up.  It was perfect!  We started studying the book of John together.  The girls that came were: Brenda, who is sponsored by the Dillows, Eron, who is sponsored by Deana, Joweri, who was in my group from camp the first year I came, and another girl Josephine, whom I didn't invite but it was awesome that she came J  We read half of the first chapter together and then I started asking them some questions about the passage.  Brenda understood my English the best and so she answered a lot of my questions and sometimes would translate for the other girls.  (Next week I will have the questions all typed out for them.  I had them typed out this week but they were split into 3 groups which we didn't need to do since there were only 4 of them.)  I asked the girls if there was anything they did not understand in the passage.  Brenda said yes verse 19, what is going on there.  Why did they think John was Elijah.  Risa and I were like that's a very good question...we will have to get back to you on that.  (He was an incredible prophet that God used to perform miracles through but other than that I'm not sure why...)  We also explained what the word Messiah meant.  We both thoroughly enjoyed the time we got to spend with those girls discussing Scripture.  I am so thankful that I got to spend that time with them and look forward to next week's Bible study J

Thanksgiving Pictures

Here are a few pictures from our Ugandan Thanksgiving, it was SO fun. The only thing missing was cranberry sauce and our families of course, but it was fun having our Ugandan family over for dinner.

Samuel, Joseph, Rogers, Paul, Dennis' Aunt, and Dennis

Risa, Vicky, and Mary (and my food to the left :) )

Vincent, his wife Molly, Teo's roomate (Rose), Rehema, and Maureen

Here's our little 10 lb turkey. Joseph went and found a man to sell us his turkey. The man asked to be paid before he killed the turkey and skinned it. Nothing like an organic turkey :)

Our thanksgiving spread: green beans, sweet potato casserole, onions, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, stuffing, turkey, and Bonnie made a really good chicken dish (chicken, potatoes, and veggies wrapped in banana leaves and cooked over coals).

Junior Achievement in Kampala

Wednesday November 25th Risa, Dennis, Vicky, and I took about 25 students up to Kampala to attend the 2nd Junior Achievement Exhibition in Uganda. There were about 15 companies from various schools represented there. Some of the businesses that students had started up included: hair salon, selling popcorn, selling chapatti, selling fruit salad, selling paper bags and book covers for school, and embroidered cups, shirts, and pens. We arrived at the event when all of the schools were being judged on their businesses. So our students went around to each of the companies and asked them questions. After lunch we heard speeches from all of the companies regarding their successes and failures. Then they had a man come and speak (who had clearly spent a lot of time in the states because his accent almost sounded American!). He is a prominent businessman who shared with all of the students about the first company he started when he was 16 years old. He found a need and met it and was able to employ other kids and earned enough money to fly himself to Nairobi to go shopping! He said I know that Uganda has a lot of problems and a lot of poverty but you need to look at the problems as opportunities to make money! He did a great job of encouraging and inspiring the students to go out and create their own jobs in a country where the unemployment rate is high. Our students left that afternoon with some new ideas about businesses that they want to start creating here in Jinja. This afternoon (Dec 5) a group of the students that went to the event came over to the guesthouse to create a name for their new company. They are going to start producing “dirt shirts.” They have a lot of work ahead of them in terms of creating a business plan but they are creative and eager to start. We are so excited for these kids who are involved in our Junior Achievement Program.

This is the chairman of JA in Uganda, giving the overall award to this group of girls who's business was embrodiering mugs, pens, and shirts.

This was one of the many "companies" explaining their business. They were selling paper bags.

I LOVED the slogan on the bottom of this poster. This company made chapattis at school because kids could not get them at school. The slogan says "Try me once and buy me always"

This is one of our students who is in the JA program. Isn't she the cutest ever? She was modelling all of the things that one of the company's made and sold.