UPDATES AND REQUESTS

The world is truly a small place! Last week I had the pleasure of working with and getting to know a group of people from Bedford, VA! One couple, whom I had never met, lives just down the road from my home - how strange that I would meet them on the other side of the world here in Jinja! I was able to go out to one of the villages with them and help run a medical clinic for a day and spend a couple of evenings at their guest house. A couple of the younger girls spent a day with me visiting Amani and the local hospitals. They brought me a video camera so I can capture more of my life here to share with you when I come home.


There has been some money donated to help the people I work with. After a lot of thought and prayer I think that we should dig a borehole, which is a deep well where people can get clean water right from the tap. The villages where I work with Suubi have no source of fresh drinking water. Because of this, the people are sickly and have to travel distances to buy water. Most of them cannot afford it and have no transportation other than walking so they end up drinking water that we would not consider using to mop our kitchen floors with. When I was painting in Danita I had to bring “jerry-cans” of water just to wash out the paint brushes. Please pray that the rest of the money can be raised and that all the details will come together so that the bore hole can be finished before I leave. The estimate that I have been given is about $3,500 American dollars; I have $1,000 towards the project so am looking to raise an additional $2,500. I am proceeding with arrangements to begin work on this end in faith that the money will be raised as the process to do anything here is soooooo slow! Any project here takes forever – we have a saying here, “TIA”; this is Africa!


Please be in prayer for a little girl who has hydrocephalus, a condition where your head is about 3 times its normal size. This little girl is only 1 and her head is bigger than mine. Katie and I are looking into a hospital here that specializes in a procedure to put tubes in her head to drain the fluid. We want to get more information about hydrocephalus and the treatment, and between the two of us we are going to pay for her to have this surgery. Please pray that her surgery will be successful. If not, this girl will never be able to walk or talk and she will probably die very young.

Thanks so much

Extended Stay!

PIC ABOVE: Betty from the Light Gives Heat Volunteer house and me!
We have officially moved into the new building! It’s really nice but definitely different as we used to meet under a big tree in the village. The building is great because we are no longer weather dependent, especially since we are coming into the rainy season. My friend Katie and I spent 3 days painting the whole inside and it looks really great! I love to paint (I paint a lot at home), but I have never had such an audience while doing it. It was hilarious and fun to experience all the reactions of the village children to our work!

In my last letter I told you guys how a baby died at the main hospital. Well this month I got help bring 1 into the world (well, kind of). When I finished painting the other day, one of the 2 Suubi Ladies who was pregnant took me to see her house because she was ready to deliver any day and I had told her I would take her to the hospital. She had been to the doctor that morning and she was in the early stages of labor, she said she thought it was going to be that night. Well, about 2 hours later I got a text from her saying her pain was increasing. I tried calling her to see when she wanted me to come but couldn’t get through, so after about 15 minutes I just decided to go. I threw Stephie in the car and we headed off.

It was one of those surreal experiences. One of the other Suubi Ladies met me when I got to the village to show me where to go. I was quite a sight dragging Stephie through the village- everyone was cooking dinner outside on the fire staring in amusement at the white girl with a child running by! We got to the house and the only source of light was just a little candle - it was so dark in there I don’t know how they could see anything. By the time I got there she had just had the baby. I helped wash the baby and get him dressed while the Mom delivered the placenta… I felt really bad that I missed it, but it was really a blessing because if I had gotten there earlier to take her to the hospital I think she would have delivered the baby on the side of the road in my van! That would not have been good. Mom and baby are happy and healthy, praise the Lord! Births in the village can be so dangerous; with no sanitation the possibility of infection there is huge.

There are some volunteers coming to work with Suubi soon. I’m not sure how everything will transition with more people to share the work load – I’m so used to doing it all myself and I still hope to be involved in things. I have grown to love these ladies so much! You know, when I came here it was to work with children. When I started to do things with Suubi I thought that my heart wouldn’t be in it as much, at least not as much as when I was with the kids, but I was wrong. Each one of the Ladies amazes me every day. I love what I do with Suubi so much and wouldn’t trade it for the world! I have learned so much and been blessed in just spending time with them. Each day I thank the Lord for this opportunity.

Till next week!

Quintuplets in Uganda

About a month ago a friend of one of the Suubi Ladies had quintuplets (5 babies) at the Jinja Hospital. It’s been in all the papers and on TV; actually I was on the News bringing her some things for the babies. The mother, Dorothy, had no idea she was carrying 5 children, so as you can imagine she and her husband were a little shocked! She had 4 girls and 1 boy. They are so cute! All of them were just a little under 2 pounds, and surprisingly healthy. I have been bringing Dorothy food (there is no cafeteria at the hospital here or even a refrigerator to keep a supply)… So I am at the hospital about 5 days a week now to bring food and help feed and bath the babies. Dorothy and the babies are going to be in the hospital for about 1 more month. About 2 weeks ago the fifth baby died. It was horrible, I got there one day and she wasn’t doing very well and had had a cough that week. The day before when I was there she had been doing much better, but that day her breathing was not quite right. I had brought another girl, Katie, with me and I sent her to go find a doctor or nurse while I stayed with the baby. Dorothy gave her to me because she did not know what to do (like I did). I have very little, if any, medical knowledge but I unwrapped her and just started to look her over the best I could. Her belly was really tight and her breathing was slow, so was her heart rate (or at least it felt like it to me). I did know that she needed to be on oxygen but there was none to be had. Her breathing kept getting slower and slower, and then her breathing stopped completely. I had no idea what to do, I was afraid CPR would just crush her. She was just so little, not even 2 pounds. By the time Katie got back 10 minutes later (with no doctor) she had already died in my arms. Katie and I declared her dead. Not a single doctor or nurse had come when we left 45 minutes later. No one knows why she died; I guess that Jesus wanted that baby with Him. The infuriating thing is that Katie ran around that hospital for 10 minutes and could not find a doctor, or even a nurse anywhere. In Mulago, the hospital known for the most births, an average of 60 babies are born daily. Out of those 60, 10-die every day - because it seems that no one really cares.

I know that many of you were concerned about all the rioting in Kenya. Although we are only about 100 miles from the Kenyan border that distance seems greater in Africa than in the States. For almost a week, there was no gas to be had in Jinja as all gas in Uganda comes from Kenya and they weren’t letting any across the border. Fortunately for me, the Light Gives Heat van is a diesel and the diesel comes across the border in an underground pipeline. It was available at the equivalent of 5 US dollars! Things have settled down a bit and although the border is still closed, they are allowing gas truck to leave and life has returned to normal here.

All around things here are fairly normal, or as normal as they can be when you live in Uganda. The day Lindsay left, two volunteers moved into the house for a couple of weeks so it continues to be lively here. I’m not sure when I will be coming home. I need to stay through at least the first part of April so that I can continue my work here until I can turn them over to someone else.