O Happy Day!

Today we found out that Peace is having a boy and a girl:-)
Neltia and I were eagerly watching as the technician performed the ultrasound. Tears of joy were shed. We saw the baby girl raise her arm like she was waving. The boy was busy doing somersaults, typical boy!
Keep the prayers going. The 3 of them need it especially over the next 14-16 weeks.

Sudanese Church

Church today was quite different than usual. Cassandra and I attended a Sudanese church with Daniel, who is from the Dinka tribe. As we write lessons for the radio he records the lessons in his native tongue. He is married and has 2 small children. He also has his mother in town who is visiting from Sudan. It's her first time out of the country. About 11:30 we packed he and his family,plus Cassandra and me driving into the car and headed for the center of Kampala to pick up the pastor. Unfortunately we had to put the pastor in the very back of the car as we had maxed out. Highly illegal, but this is Kampala! We arrived at the church around 12:30 for a one o'clock start we thought. We actually started at 2pm. Again this is Africa!
Cassandra and I were given places of honor at the very front on the raised area facing the church. We were highly visible. Of course if we hadn't been at the front we would have been highly visible anyway as we were the only 2 white people in the building along with approx 400 Sudanese.
I have included a couple of photos. I wanted to add a video but it's taking forever to upload so is not possible. They had prepared a special presentation because it is now only 13 days until Southern Sudan officially becomes a new nation. Many wore tee shirts with a verse from the Bible , check it out Psalm 124 verse 1, I think the whole Psalm is appropriate. They performed a dance with song. The colors they wore represented various aspects of life. Yellow-the coming together of many tribes in Southern Sudan. Red- the blood that has been shed in wars. Black- the color of their skin. Green- the new Southern Sudan. White- for peace. There were many times that I wanted to take photos, but of course in the middle of church is not the appropriate time. Since we were seated close to the altar and around the rail where communion was served I was able to peek at so many beautiful faces. These tall, smooth skinned people talked about in Isaiah chapter 18 are so captivating.
Church actually ended around 5pm. Several stayed behind so that Daniel could read an education lesson that Cassandra had written and a health lesson that I had written to the people as we were wanting their comments and thoughts. They were all eager for the lessons to be shared on the radio in whatever part of Sudan they came from. We were able to assure them that Aid Sudan has plans for radio towers all over their soon to be new country. We ended the day by going with Daniel and his family to a place called Chicken Tonight. It's Uganda's equivalent of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The Nile

Sometimes it's just time to head out of Dodge and this weekend was it. Last week was a very busy week and the Aid Sudan family felt in need of some refreshment. At 6 am Friday morning we headed south east about 82 kms from Kampala to Jinja. We left early to avoid traffic in and around Kampala. It turned out to be very foggy so didn't see much on the way down. We arrived at about 8:30 and dropped off Cassandra at the Adrift rafting company. She was gone all day. Class 3-5 rapids did not appeal to me! Check her blog for info on her day :-) Meanwhile, Kerry, Neltia, their 3 boys and I relaxed at a place high on the banks of the Nile. After a late breakfast we sat on a terrace overlooking part of the Nile near Bujagali Falls. Monkeys played in the trees and beautiful little red breasted birds flew by. We could see the Nile as it rapidly flowed below us and we could certainly hear the sound of the water as it roared and spilled over the rocks in a couple of places upstream. Before it got too hot we walked a little way down the road to see the falls up close. It's amazing to think of this mighty river traveling north about 6500 kms to the Mediterranean. I really enjoyed swinging in the hammock outside my room and gazing at the incredible view. While I was there I called my grand daughter on skype to wish her a happy 4th birthday. I asked her if she remembered the story of baby Moses being put in a basket on the river. She said "yes" I told her that "Mema" was looking at that same river. It's amazing to think of. At night as I lay in my bed I was lulled to sleep by the sound of the falls. Aah, so peaceful :-) My bedtime prayer was thanking God for the beauty of His creation. Since there are no zoning laws in Kampala there are many loud sounds at night that you just have to deal with. As a matter of fact as I write this back at the house there is a wedding reception going on over the back fence. I mean literally over the fence. Apparently the vice president of the country is a guest. It is incredibly loud and they are only just getting started at 8:30pm. It's going to be a looong night!
I am happy to have had rest and refreshment.

restaurant peril

As we walked in to Khana Khazana Indian restaurant for our team dinner we were impressed with the lovey decor and good service, not to mention the excellent food. There is a big Indian population here in Kampala and Indian food is very popular. There were 8 of us eating so we chose a large table in the centre of the restaurant. The chairs had solid backs with a place to hang my purse. I actually weighed the options of hanging it there, but since we were no where near any other people and it was so open it seemed safe to me. We enjoyed a great meal, everyone ordering something different and then we shared family style. ( we are part of the Aid Sudan family after all ) We were sitting and talking after the meal when Neltia, seated across from me said check your purse or something similar. I turned to find my purse on the floor. There was a woman and her accomplice right by my chair. Neltia had seen the woman take my purse from the chair. The male friend noticed that Neltia had seen and he told the woman to drop it. They quickly left the restaurant. I was left with a sickening feeling. I am so thankful that Neltia noticed and my purse containing my bank card, drivers license and money were not taken. Note to self and other ladies NEVER hang your purse on the chair no matter how safe it seems. The photo is me WITH my purse as we were leaving the restaurant.

Team time

Had a great day today, visiting and strategising with Aid Sudan's director, Peter Swann, who flew in to be with the us for a few days. He saw how the whole lesson writing and recording takes place. God has big plans for our organisation and we are eager to see what's going to happen next. We were able to eat lunch together along with our Sudanese team member, Daniel, who records all our lessons.
In the evening we met at an Ethiopian restaurant and were joined by Kerry's wife and family to enjoy each others company over some fun food. We had both spicy and non spicy, vegetarian and non vegetarian with Njeera ( sponge like thick crepe stuff) As Director of Health for Aid Sudan I am always pleased to see any attempts for cleaner, healthier living so I was very impressed with the outdoors hand washing station!

another hospital visit

Just wanted you all to know there is hope for health care in Kampala. In fact the name of the ward I visited yesterday is Hope Ward. There were 4 Ugandan ladies and myself. We split into 2 groups and went from bed -bed. I was both surprised and pleased as soon as I walked through the doors and saw the brightly colored walls with different animals painted on them and immediately noticed the absence of any bad smells, the shiny floors and the next big thing to hit me was the crisp, white sheets on each bed.
I am still not clear on how you gain entry to this ward but I know it's for those who can't afford to pay anything. The first young boy we visited is named Wilson. He is 15 but looked not a day over 10. His family locked him in a house without food or attention for a year. He was just skin and bones initially. Now he suffers from seizures and is not able to walk. He just stared off blankly into space. I touched his arm and he gripped mine. I finally coaxed him in to letting go by replacing my arm with 2 cookies. His aunt was sitting at his bedside reading her Bible when we came in. We prayed for God to restore what has been taken from him. In the bed opposite we met Rogers, a five year old, whose mother died in a house fire and he suffered burns to both eyes. He seemed to be sleeping while we talked with his care giver. Underneath his bloodied eye bandages I could see the effects of the burns. It breaks my heart and I know it breaks God's.
The 2 other patients we met were clean and obviously well cared for. They actually had signs above the bed indicating some daily procedures that needed to be carried out and named the nurse who was responsible for their care.
This hospital known as International Hospital of Kampala (I.H.K) was started by an Irishman. I believe he is still the CEO.
Next week I will be at yet another hospital to join a team from U.S.A for the afternoon. Fellow Aid Sudan team member, Nathan, who is the director of the Dallas office will be with this group.

Rainy afternoon in Kampala

Today Cassandra and I had planned to spend some time enjoying the sun and just lazing around outside by a pool but it was not to be. The day dawned grey and yucky looking. This has not really happened since I have been living here. By lunch time there was rain and cooler temperatures. By cooler I mean mid 60s. We usually laugh when we see Ugandans wearing long sleeves and sweaters when the sky is overcast, some actually wear a jacket with fur around the hood! Makes me hot looking at them. Well today I felt the chill and put on a long sleeve shirt. After reading ( I'm recommending "There's a Hole in Our Gospel" by Richard Stearnes) and resting we decided it was time to venture out for the day. We headed for the local coffee shop for a while and then thought we would try to find a guy that sells DVD's. We heard he was somewhere around a Shell station and the next door ice cream shop. As I drove in I was wondering where to park and go look for this person. Cassandra calls out" there he is, he has bunches of D.V.D's in his hands, he's coming over to the car" I parked the car and he comes up with about 50 D.V.D's which he passes to us to look through. He walked away and here we sit with all of these very new, as in playing in theaters NOW movies. We were really on the hunt for "The Gods Must be Crazy" a great movie for missionaries in Africa! Our DVD dealer says he has it in the classic section and off he goes somewhere to get it. Meanwhile we have another 50 or so to look at. He comes back with a classic collection that has the movie we want plus 8 others for approx. $2.50. We bought several movies for a total of $10. We drove away feeling like we had just participated in a drug deal or something. We settled back in the cool of the evening and laughed our heads off as we watched and thought about the absurdity of how we go the movie.
I'll try to post a photo of the place where the deal went down!

Mulago visit

You know the saying a picture paints a thousand words, well, I want a thousand words to paint a picture for you. I did not take any photos when I visited Mulago Hospital today. The things I saw there are printed on my heart and my mind. This is the largest public hospital in Uganda. Some of you may remember me talking about a visit I made there in the summer of 2009. I have never been able to put that visit out of my mind. It was a lot more traumatic than this visit but this one has also greatly impacted me. I went there to join some Ugandan women who have committed to visit the sick in 3 different hospitals. We go to one a week. Cassandra also joined us this day. I was greatly encouraged to go firstly to an office that is called "COME" It is run by an Australian, but I have yet to meet her. The volunteers go out onto the wards to bathe, feed and clothe patients who have no one to care for them. You might be asking "what do the nurses do?" That's a good question that I am asking. It seems like NOTHING is the answer.
Let me set the scene; we meet up with a lovely young woman named Edith that will guide us around. Anybody wishing to visit patients to help them without being family must go with a guide. The reason for this is some supposed "helpers" went in and took patient belongings etc. Can you imagine being ill and then someone robs you at your bedside? We decided that we wanted to visit patients in the Emergenc

nightly activities

I am guessing most of you sit down in the evenings to watch TV, put your feet up and are not too distracted. Not so here. We have a nightly mosquito invasion. It happens as the sun sets which is about 7pm. We close all the doors, leaving the screened windows open as they are all day. The temperature allows for open windows day and night, year round. It's lovely :-) Next we get ourselves situated in our appointed chairs and wait for the onslaught. We are armed and dangerous however. We have our bug zapping rackets at the ready! These are rechargeable and very handy to have. You have to remember mosquitoes here can carry malaria. We are just not being obsessive! There is a funny story to tell about how I got my racket. Again we were driving through traffic and there is one section near the center of Kampala where there are a lot of people peddling their goods. They move between the cars in extreme peril trying desperately to sell you phone cards for air time, fruit, newspapers, sunglasses, maps and these bug zappers among other things. One man came over and showed me the zapper. I asked how much, to which he replied 20,000 shillings. I said "What? that's too much" He immediately dropped it to 10,000 and proceeds to shove it in the car and lay it on the dashboard. Bear in mind I am waiting for the light to change. I said" no I don't want it". He kept pushing and I kept pushing the other way. The light changed and I moved on. A few days later I did buy one for 10,000.

out and about

Strange things happen when you are driving around the city here. Take for example this next incidence. Cassandra and I needed to go to the local "mall" and I use that word loosely. I had to buy more internet time for my computer and have them show me how I could get warnings to know when my current 3KBs were about to expire, instead of it just randomly saying "your usage has expired." Not real helpful at 9pm when you sit down to work on something :-( Anyway customer service is not quite the same here. I explained the problem to the sales person. She said the system was down and she couldn't help me. I said "the system has been down for over a month" to which she rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders and that was sufficient for an answer.
I got ahead of myself in telling you about that event, I guess it's still fresh in my mind. What I started out saying was that on the way to the mall I was driving the usual route and I was nearing an intersection and had noticed a lot of cars seemingly parked on my left side. I was the first car to pull up at the T waiting to pull out to the right. There were 2 policeman standing there. They came over and the first one told me to go left and make a U turn and then I could go to the right as I had wanted. He walked away and the next one asked what I thought I was doing, why did I pass all those parked cars? He then tells me to back up, I started to until I saw a car directly behind me. This all seemed very senseless. Both police had now moved away so I quickly turned left, went along to the next street and made a U turn. I was now back waiting to turn right again. It's rush hour traffic and things are slow and busy. A woman policeman is now watching me at this corner. I am waiting for an appropriate time to pull out. All of a sudden she shouts at me "JOIN"! She is telling me to pull out in front of traffic coming at my right and to push myself into the approaching traffic from the left. I did what she said and we survived. Cassandra and I roared laughing as we said "what just happened there?" Please note the sign in the attached photo says "Drive Carefully" under the sign you will see boda bodas ( motorcycles) driving in the sidewalk with the pedestrians!