Thanksgiving

Last week I celebrated my first ever Thanksgiving here in Uganda. I had fun learning all about the history of the pilgrims, The Indians and the Mayflower ship. I loved being a part of the fun and excitement baking and preparing dinner for the 30 or so Americans who came to GSF to celebrate with us. My favourite part was dressing up as an Indian!!

But….there was something missing. In all the fun, excitement and joyfulness of the day it was a stark realisation that part of my heart is missing. I am here and having an awesome time but I desperately miss my family and friends and just wished they had been here to celebrate the fun day that we had here at GSF.

Before dinner we took the time to share for a moment something that we were thankful for. I shared a little with the group but had so much more in mind that I was thankful for that I didn’t have time to mention.  Thanksgiving gave me a purposeful opportunity to stop and take time out to think of all the things that I am thankful for and am blessed by each day.

I am thankful for my wonderful family. For my mum, dad, brother, nan and all my aunties, uncles and precious family who will do anything to help me, support me and keep me encouraged with phone calls and essential supplies. They make me smile and get me through the good and bad days that I am going through here even if they don’t always understand every cry or complaint that I make about all that is living in Africa. They are the ones who have helped mould me into me and taught me how to love others and serve as Jesus taught us to. I will be forever grateful to them for teaching me the values I have and for loving me unconditionally.

I am thankful for my best friends who walk beside me on this journey and keep my feet fixed firmly on the ground. They tell me when I am crazy, support me on difficult days and listen for hours on end to my stories of life in Uganda. They are a support, encouragement and amazing part of my journey here. They have such sweet hearts and spend so much of their time caring for me.

I am thankful for all my supporters and friends who have enabled me to be here doing what I was called to do. For all the times they have opened their homes to me, hugged me, spoken words of encouragement over me, sent money, prayed for me and shared their lives with me. I am so thankful that they have allowed me to journey along with them as I have fundraised and been on the road to Uganda.

I am thankful for the blessings I have in my life. I am thankful for the simplicities of water and electricity. For my health and for the fact that I have been privileged to have been brought up in such a loving family, with kind, honest friends and in a developed, safe country. I am also thankful to God for having brought me here to GSF and that I am able to serve Him in Uganda. My eyes have been opened to the poverty and sadness that life can bring when you are born into underprivileged family in the village in Sub Saharan Africa. I am thankful to our God who is in control and in whom I can trust even when I don’t fully understand the how’s and why’s in the situations that are before me.

Each new day I am to be Thankful for the days that are before me still. I am only a short way into my year here and every day brings unexpected joys and blessings. It’s exciting what the days ahead may bring and I am pleased to be able to continue to share it with YOU who are as much a part of this as I am.

I am Thankful because I am blessed and pray that I can, with God’s guidance and help share God's love and bless those that are brought into my path.

Philippians 1:3 "I thank my God every time I remember you".

New Children

In the last 3 months we have welcomed 3 new children to our home here at GSF. 

Kenny is around 2 years old and his mother can no longer care for him so he has come to live with us. He has cerebal palsy and some learning difficulties and came with some health problems. In the last month he has settled in well, is growing fast and is being much loved by all. He is a happy boy and we look forward to watching him develop in the future. We were recently blessed by an American physiotherapist and a doctor from one of the hospitals in Kampala who came to visit us and have measured all of our special needs children for specialist equipment. They are delivering it this week, all paid for!! Kenny has been measured for a standing frame and a chair. It will be great to see him being able to interact better whilst being properly supported. He has the best smile but sadly I can never get it on camera as he cries whenever a white face comes near him!! 

Little Jeremiah and Baby Ketty Miracle also arrived this month (see previous blog). They are also settling in well and Jeremiah especially is enjoying the fun of living with other little boys his age. The day he arrived I took a bottle of bubbles over to his house so that he could be distracted whilst I did his malaria test. He loved them and I presume from his reaction had never seen them before! Now every time I go to his house he gives me the biggest grin and always makes me weaken - we have gone through a lot of bubbles since that day!! Baby Ketty Miracle is thriving and a joy to cuddle and watch. Thank you to all my supporters for your prayers for this family. The children are doing really well. 

Be Prepared - Part 2

On Friday, Keren, our Social Worker again came to me asking me to accompany her to the village. Aha! I thought, I am prepared and know exactly what I need. This time I grabbed my water, bag, money, camera and medical kit and hopped in the van ready to go. I would not be caught out two days in a row!!! 

Just before we left Keren explained the story. A neighbour had come to GSF to express how concerned she was about a local lady who she knew who had 'produced' (as they say in Uganda!!)  a baby last week. The mother already had a 2 year old and since the baby was born she had been locked in the house not letting anyone in or anyone help her. Before having the baby the neighbour was helping the mother out, as she had been sick. The neighbour was becoming concerned that the mother was not coping and that the baby had not been fed for days.

We rushed to the local home not knowing what we might find. As we arrived the mother was sitting just outside the doorway unable to walk or stand. She had a very obvious and nasty wound to her leg, which was covered, and I mean totally covered in flies. We got out of the van and stepped carefully towards the hut. The ground was covered in faeces and was very smelly. I walked into the hut to find the mother's 2 year old boy sitting on the floor covered in all sorts of not very nice things. We then came across the baby who was laying naked on a piece of cloth on the mud floor. The baby was also covered in dirt, faeces, the remains of the afterbirth and looked as though she had not been washed at all since being born.

I scooped the baby up and found that she was very dehydrated and floppy. This family needed to go to the local hospital. We carried the baby and 2 year old into the van and found that the mother not being able to stand or help herself had to also be lifted into the van. In the van I gave the baby some glucose and the mother explained that because of her wound she had been unable to mobilise at all since giving birth. This meant that she had not been able to prepare food, collect water, get outside the hut for the toilet or to get to a hospital to give birth. She had been managing at home alone all week.

We arrived at GSF and bathed and fed all 3 of them on the way to the local hospital. When we arrived at the hospital the mother had to be admitted and both children were declared medically ok to leave. One of the doctors stated that they could keep the baby for observation and 2 hourly feeds but that would have meant that someone would have had to stay with her in hospital and it is a very busy, crowded place. If at all possible we choose not to stay in some hospitals as they are not great places. We chose to bring her back to GSF and observe her there.

We arrived home and took the baby to it’s new home where my housemate, another girl and I hatched a plan to share getting up every 2 hours during the night to feed baby Miracle as she had temporarily been named.  We had a tough night. Our beautiful Miracle did not feed well.  She weighed only 5 lbs/2kgs and had not really fed for a week. Miracle struggled to take enough feeds orally so I passed a feeding tube. Amanda and I then set our alarms and woke every 1 ½-2 hours to feed and check on her. She was sleepy and even during the next day did not get enough energy even with the NG feeds to wake and suck. I made the decision the next afternoon to take her to a hospital we know in Jinja where she was admitted and treated with antibiotics to treat for suspected neonatal sepsis.

Amanda and I arrived home tired and drained but hopeful that as a team GSF had been able to intervene in time to help this family.

Update – The mother is still in hospital. She has had surgery and is on IV antibiotics. She is likely to be there for quite a few weeks.

Jeremiah (2yrs) has been treated for malaria and a chest infection. He is clean, happy and thriving in the toddler house.

Baby 'Miracle Ketty' has been discharged from hospital and has returned to us for continued feeding, love and care.
Please pray for this family as they recover, gain strength and heal. Also for the team at GSF who have to assess if and when the children will be able to be reunited with their mother.

I discovered during Friday that even with the learning experience of 'Being Prepared' on Thursday I will never be prepared for everything. I went into this situation physically prepared but nothing will have ever prepared me for what we saw. Our Social Workers state that it is the worst condition they have ever found a family in. Personally, I have never held children who smell so awful and are covered in such awful mess. The situation was heart breaking. The mother sadly was just physically unable to provide the care her children needed and had no way to get help for her family. I am today still processing what I saw and what we found. I have not gone into fine details in this blog as they are best left as a memory. I am grateful that we were alerted to this family and pray that we will be guided in the best way that we can help and assist them in the future.

Answer to Prayer – as I was compiling these blogs I was also preparing to write an email to my Church family, Supporters and Friends to ask for financial assistance to help Peace who has the burnt hand. On Saturday I had spoken to a doctor who is based in Kampala. He agreed to see her this coming Friday to operate! It had been playing on my mind that I had promised this family that I would help (we are told never to make promises here). Now that I had an appointment booked for her plastic surgery I needed to find the money asap in order for her to get the treatment. I then received a phone call from my mum who was on an Alpha weekend. One of the guests had donated £500 towards the ministry here. How amazing!! The money can go straight to pay for the operation and to provide transport, accommodation and food for Peace and her grandmother whilst they are in Kampala! God is good!

Be Prepared - Part 1

Be prepared. That’s the girl scouts moto. It’s a shame I was never a girl scout as I could have done with being prepared this week.

On Thursday I started off my morning down at the clinic. Here I saw a number of babies who had been brought by their mothers and grandmothers to attend the feeding programme and get their weekly supply of milk and grocery’s. I treated a handful of children with chest infections and malaria and the morning went by quickly. At 11am Keren, the Social Worker asked if I would be able to come to the village with them to see a child. Keren and her team wanted to assess the home situation where they knew a child with special needs was living and whilst there thought that I could medically check the child over. Here at GSF we live in amongst the villages and often ‘pop’ to the surrounding villages for a number of varying reasons each week. I was keen to go, as I love getting out and about into the local areas so I locked up the clinic and hopped in the van. We then drove…and drove….and drove. We were not going to a local village!

The van drove into the forest. When it stopped I realised my first mistake. I was not prepared – I did not have the correct footwear on. I was informed that the van could not drive to the house, as it was deep in the jungle so we would have to walk. There I was in my pink crocs, which I had thrown on in the morning to mooch about GSF in and then found myself trekking in the jungle! We walked and climbed and slipped up and down step inclines, over streams and in and out of tiny paths through the trees (all the time praying that I wouldn’t get any jiggers in my feet!). I was having a bit of a jolly to be honest and very much enjoying my adventure until I noticed that the two Social Workers I was with did not look as though they were having quite as much fun as me.  I enquired what was wrong as they looked very nervous and our new SW who has come from the big smoke in Kampala replied that she was frightened of the forest. I asked her if this was because she had never been deep into the villages having lived in the city all her life. She replied quite clearly that it was not that but because the cannibals live in the forest and might come and eat us!!! Slightly taken aback I tried not to think about this too much and spent the next 15 mins trying to work out if I should politely smile at the locals we were passing or whether I should totally avoid their gaze! Another mistake – do not ask if you are not prepared for all possibilities of answers!

We reached the hut (unscathed!). There we found the family we were looking for. A grandmother who was caring for her daughter’s two children.  They were living in a simple hut and cooking outside on a fire in a makeshift cooking area. Here I assessed the 6 year old who has severe learning difficulties and malnutrition. She weighed 7 kgs and we initiated them onto the feeding programme. Whilst we were with them a number of other families appeared with their babies and children looking for help and answers to their problems. Third lesson – be prepared to disappoint. This was a hard decision but between the SW’s and myself we had to ‘choose’ whom we thought we would be able to help and those for whom there was little we could do. Feeling like the bad guys we were preparing to leave when I noticed the 7 year old sister of the girl we had initially assessed. She was beautiful and staring at us with an enormous smile. I put out my hand to shake hers when I noticed an injury to her right hand. We were told the story of how she was helping the grandmother to cook and the kettle handle broke burning all the fingers and the back of her right hand. This had happened in April and she had never been taken for medical treatment as they were too far from the hospital and the medical costs were too high. Her fingers were now partially healed fused together and bent so that her dominant hand was now unable to be used. Peace was now leaning how to do daily tasks with her left hand and was actually very keen to show us all that she could do. I knew that I could not walk away without doing something. I gave Peace some Paracetamol. Yes, I know this would actually not have made much difference 6 months down the line but as a ‘Nurse’ I needed to help. It looked so awful and Paracetamol was all I had in my bag! Fourth lesson – be prepared to have to act on something when your conscience and heart is stirred. I have seen a fair few things since being in Africa and not that I want to gloat or be ‘tough’, generally I can walk away and not take work home with me. However, I knew in my heart as soon as I saw Peace that I should action this problem. On the spot I informed the SW that we would fix this problem. I would supply all the funding needed to get Peace to a hospital in Kampala to have plastic surgery on her hand. As we walked away I started to form the email in my head that I would have to send to my supporters after promising money that I did not have.

We got back in the van after a fast, hot and nervous walk back through the forest! We had no water. No-one had expected our journey to take us so far out and we had nothing to drink We started to drive and Keren said we had to call in on another family who they were trying to help. As we were in that area it made sense to visit them also. We drove a long way and eventually after a few wrong turns found the area we needed. The SW’s conducted an interview with a family there and I got to meet lots of beautiful children who were amazed by meeting a ‘Muzungu’! We prepared to leave and I waved to lots of smiling faces. As we returned to the van I was reminded again that I had not been prepared for this trip. Never wear a white t-shirt when going to the villages. The orange soil here stains everything!!

We drove home, on the way stopping back at the local hospital to collect a grandmother and her twin grandchildren who we would drop home. I volunteered to hold one of the scrummy babies and got a sharp reminder that nappies are not used here. I have been advised that when holding a baby at the first sound/feeling of them wetting you have to be prepared to hold them over the floor so that they can finish their business there and not on you! I was not quick enough much to the amusement of the others in the van as it looked as though I had wet myself!! I was pleased to get back and eat some very late lunch, have a drink and go over all I had seen that day.

Moral of the story part 1 – always be prepared for any eventuality and never, ever in Africa believe that you are being taken on a quick anything!

Peace

Tidy Clinic

At the end of October I had some very special friends come to visit me at GSF. Gavin and Kirsteen were here for a week and helped out in my clinic. They did an amazing job of helping me to sort, tidy and organise the nursing clinic that we have here on site. As you can see from the photos it looks lovely and I have been very happy working in there since.

 They also spent time meeting and playing with the children, helping out at Sunday school and taking me out and about to be a tourist which is something that I haven’t done any of since arriving! I enjoyed having them here and showing them my home, friends and the work that I am doing. 

Gift buckets

About a month ago all the GSF staff were called together and given appreciation gifts for all the hard work they do here for the organisation and the children. They each received a buket, some rice, salt, sugar, soap and a new pair of flip flops and 1 item of clothing. Everyone went away very happy as you can see from these photos!