The Clinic Experience

I thought it would be fun to give you all a glimpse of what our clinics are like.

The nurses take each patient's temperature, blood pressure and weight prior to the patient moving to seeing one of the physicians or physician assistant.  The physicians evaluate the patient with the help of a translator and then tell the "pharmacists" what medicines they need for the patient.

Blessings,

Becky



Musoke Has Surgery!

I am elated to report that our friend, Musoke, had much needed surgery this past Tuesday and will be in the hospital for a week.  Musoke is a old friend of Henry's.  He is 71 years old and was in an auto accident a year and a half ago.  He broke his femur and he should have had surgery when it happen to repair it but he didn't have the money to go get treatment.  Dr. Dietrich said it would take him 30 minutes to fix it in the surgery and this poor soul suffered for a year and a half!

Henry reported on Thursday that Musoke is doing well and we appreciate your prayers throughout his recovery.  We are very thankful to the sponsors of Musoke's surgery!

 

Blessings,

Becky

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Hopefully you'll think this blog post was worth waiting for.....because it's going to be a long one.  Tuesday, September 25th was our last day in the Karamoja area.  We did a lot during this day so you may want to grab a snack.  :-)

Tuesday is market day in Matany so everyone who wants to sell things they've made, items they've grown, and/or livestock brings them into town to sell or trade.

In Kayapas on Monday we saw how they made these baskets.  They use them to store beans, corn, and sorghum.

We were heading out of town to the village and these people were heading
into town with their cows and other things to sell.

Our first stop of the day was at a Local Health Center.  These health centers are closer to the villages than the people going all the way into Matany to the hospital.  We were not aware that these health centers existed until this trip and found it to be quite interesting.  This is where the nurses and Simon that helped with our medical clinics work.

This health center sees over 150 people a day.  The services are free and the medications are free.  The government sends supplies and medicine every couple of months but sometimes they run out of the medicines and have to wait until the next shipment.

The goal of the hospital in Matany and of the local health centers is for pregnant mothers to go to the health centers to give birth instead of delivering in the villages.  The health centers have 6 beds to be able to keep people inpatient until they are stable enough to go home or if they are too sick they can call an ambulance from St. Kizito Hospital Matany.  There are not any surgical procedures performed here.

The Outpatient building at the health center.  There are 2 rooms and this is where they treat over 150 people per day.

Ronnie playing kick ball with the kids while we were on a tour of the facilities.

The inpatient building

Ward that can hold 6 people who need to be inpatient.  Mothers who deliver will stay
overnight and if they are stable will go home the following day.

Birthing table

After we toured the health center we went on to the village of Kokorio.  Since a lot of the women had gone to Matany to the market they decided to take us on a tour of the inside of the village where the home are.  This is an entrance way into the village itself.

The village surrounds itself with thorn bush branches to protect them from raiders who come to steal their cattle and goats.  At night they pull a branch of thorns into the opening.

The entryway to the village

Corn on the cobs drying. They'll take the kernels off and to grind them for flour and other uses.

A food storage basket that's handmade.

Basket full of sorghum

Basket full of bean

Corn being stored

The food baskets are covered with a thatched roof to keep them dry.

You think this kid is thinking "Hey, I think I've seen you around here before."

This is a honeymoon suite.  The woman and man who live here were recently married and they will live in this house until they have 2-3 kids and can't fit in it anymore.  It would be interesting to see how 4-5 people could live in here.

Gabriel showing off the mattress from the home above.  It is cowhide....yup I said cowhide.
Can you imagine sleeping on that every night?!?

Inside of the home.  The green mat and cowhide is what they sleep on.

The inside roof of the hut.

Bible on the wall inside the home.  :-)

The doorways are very small but once you get inside it's actually quite tall.  Dr. Dietrich is over 6 feet tall and he could stand up comfortably.  All of us took turns going in.  Thank goodness no one took pictures of the entry attempts and just the exits.

Joelle

Brandy

Rebecca

Becky



Dr. Dietrich

Gabriel

After our tour we got to work and did a medical clinic.  Kokorio is a large village and people from surrounding villages also come when we are there.  On this day we saw over 250 people.

When the Mercy Uganda team was in Uganda in early August they distributed about 300 pillowcase dresses.  It was exciting to see that they were still wearing them and they looked so cute!  A lot of them also looked clean which means they've taken care of them and used the well water to wash them.  Very encouraging!

Dr. Maceluch evaluating a patient with Pastor Philip translating for him.

A lot of serious faces in Kokorio.

The cows were around and it was encouraging to see how big and healthy they looked.
However, it also means that they brought tsetse flies....

Pastor Paul's son

Look at that face!

While we were treating patients Henry and Pastor Paul were keeping the people occupied by asking them questions and telling Bible stories.  If someone got a question right they got a "prize" which was a pair of shoes, underwear, toothbrushes or toothpaste, cups, bowls, plates, etc.  This has been something we have been wanting to do since we started going to Uganda.  Usually we are so busy with the clinics and short on translators that evangelism gets missed but not on this trip!

Near the end of our time in Kokorio Henry and Pastor Paul asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus Christ into their life and as their personal Lord and Savior.  Praise be to God!





Pastor Paul praying over the children and a few adults that decided to commit themselves to the Lord.

Pastor Paul and Pastor Simon Peter
Pastor Paul goes to Kokorio and Kayapas and does Sunday church service under the trees.
He is working on raising money to build a church in the area.

Another beautiful pillowcase dress from the Mercy Uganda trip.

Love this grandmother walking with the little one with a precious pillowcase dress on.

Henry distributing new shoes

This is Paul.  He is paralyzed and usually gets around on a tricycle with pedal handle bars.  His bike is broken but a sponsor has donated a new bike for him through Mercy Uganda.  Today he got a new blanket and a mosquito net.

More tire shoes!

Before

After





Rebecca's mom and some friends made these adorable little boy outfits.

Becky's Godson, Nick, sent some shirts that he outgrew for the children.

More adorable boy outfits

Rebecca's mom and friends also made a lot of pillowcase dresses

Just as we were finishing the storm clouds started rolling in.

After the rain storm passed the ladies went to a Primary School near Matany.  The point of us going was we were going to distribute the cloth sanitary pads and underwear to the younger girls.  We also had some soccer/kick balls, shoes, toothbrushes, toothpaste to distribute for the boys.

Heading into the school office to sign the Visitors Book
(Rebecca is taking the picture)

Henry started by asking the children questions about Ugandan history and if someone got the question right they would get a prize.  Henry was most definitely in his element.

He started with "If I was born 45 years ago when was I born?"  Of course all the students were guessing different years 1968, 1969, 1997, etc.  One boy was very confident and said 1967 and Henry said "No".  The ladies were looking at each other saying it is 1967.  Henry said "if you can tell me the answer to the question I will pay your school fees for 1 year." So the answer was supposed to be 25 September 1967!  Such a trick question, Henry.  He then turned that into a lesson and spoke about how they need to listen to the question and know what the person is asking before guessing.

The next question was "Who was the second Vice President of Uganda?".  He said if anyone could tell him that answer he would pay their school fees for 3 years!!!  Several students guessed and were wrong.  Then one child stood up in the back of the group and GAVE THE ANSWER.  I think we were all shocked.  But that is a smart kid that's for sure!  The boy got a soccer ball as a prize and Henry said he will pay his school fees.  Turns out the boy's father has died and his mother has had a very difficult time keeping him in school.

Another question was "When did the current regime come into power?"  Another boy tried several times to answer the question and got the year correct.  He knew the year but Henry said he was wrong.  So then the same boy stood up again and said the exact day, month, and year.  We were so happy for this boy.  He tried to answer every question and actually seemed like a overly confident kid but finally he got it right.  He had caught the eye of Brandy and myself early into our time at the school.  Brandy and I then decided to talk tot he boy and found out that he's 18 and his father has also died.  His mother is also struggling with paying his school fees so we decided to sponsor him.  Loske Paul is his name and the overly confident looking boy was quite shy when we talked with him.  When we told him we wanted to sponsor him, he hung his head, let our a big sigh and said "Thank you".  He is a doll and we pray that he will make us proud in school and study hard.

The children that were there this afternoon are all the children who board at the school.

We also had some pillowcase dresses left so we were able to give those to the girls.

Real men aren't afraid to wear pink shoes!

During our time at the school Henry did the same thing as he did in Kokorio earlier in the day.  He had Pastor Philip help him with translating and they talked about the Lord and how you need to live your life.  Henry said if any of you want to accept the Lord as your Lord and Savior please come stand over here.  EVERY SINGLE CHILD STOOD UP AND STARTED MOVING!!!

Pastor Philip prayed over the children and they didn't translate into English but Pastor Philip would say something and the children would repeat it. 

At the end of the day I said "The Holy Spirit got a hold of Henry today!"  It was amazing to witness it.

Brandy and I with our newly sponsored student, Loske Paul

Pastor Philip and Henry praying for the children.

While the ladies were at the school the men went to the
church to visit the priests refrigerator again.

After returning to the hotel Joelle, Brandy, and Rebecca asked Henry to take them for a ride on the boda boda (motorbike).  Henry then made Joelle and Brandy DRIVE!

Gabriel presented the team with this wood carving as a gift for our work in Karamoja.

So, this wraps up the work we did in Uganda this trip.  The last two days consisted of us going to a safari game park for one day and then heading back into Kampala to packing our suitcases and making last minute rounds of souvenir shopping.

We are incredibly blessed to serve the people of Uganda and in particular the people of Karamoja.

Blessings,
Becky