A Typical Saturday?

At breakfast this morning, the day started off with a bang. Pastor Drew, our most welcomed guest made us french toast and fried bananas (an amazing treat here). Saturdays hold the possibility of not working all day, but we were soon to find out that we would be having a very long day.

Jackson came to break the news that Susan, a 27 year old patient of ours here, had passed away in the night. We had just brought her to town from her refugee camp for help two days before but there was no way they could save her. Word was that the blood transfusion was not able to bring her out of the severe anemia that was killing her. This was the second time that I had to then process the burial arrangements and speeches that would have to be made again this week. The first was Grace, a 9 yr old girl from the same camp as Susan, who was not able to overcome the fact her parents had not taken her for treatment at any facility for 3 months. We had suspected either severe malaria or meningitis, but the severe dehydration and malnutrition she was now facing was too much.

We cannot help but fall in love with each patient that we come across, but we always build an even stronger bond with the ones we take to town. Jackson is able to share Christ with them every day when they are here in the health facilities and he also begins to love on them so much. The pain that comes from constant death is not even describable. If only we had the means to save them, i.e. our own health facility.

After making the arrangements for the coffin and burial cloth and for transportation to the village 2 hours away, Jackson and I loaded the body in the coffin and sent it off with Walter and the family to encourage the family in this terrible time. We, as a team, will go and speak our words in the formal ceremony on Monday morning in their home village. It is so hard to take the body of a loved one back to its family when they thought the person would be coming home themself to greet them.

Jackson and Kerri and I then proceeded to Gulu town to pay bills for one of our HIV patients and then to give encouragement and financial support to another of our patients at a hospital in Gulu. After a flat tire on the Gulu road and some help from some guys we flagged down on the road, we made it. Of course there were no tools in the back of the vehicle to get the spare tire off, so we were very MacGyver-ish.. Sharon, from the same camp as Grace and Susan, is also 9 yrs old and suffering from Lymphoma Stage D. It is lymphatic cancer attacking the spinal cord. We took her from the camp while she was having a massive tumor in the side of her face and paralyzed from the waist down. We were so happy to see that the tumor had been removed successfully and the father was there to greet us. He told us that while in our care back at home he had received Christ and he was confident that his daughter would be helped. I also found out that she had started her first three months of chemotherapy and that there is HOPE that she could make it out.

Please lift up Sarah and Dillis here in town. They are two of our young young girl patients who are both suffering from horrible renal and cardiac failure and happen to have the most amazing parents in the world. We are researching diligently the possible diseases that could be behind the infections that have killed their kidneys. We are considering even the idea of kidney transplants in South Africa because of the lack of possibility in Uganda for those transplants. However, the cost and logistics would have to be sent from God only as they would be so tough. Pray that God heals them please!

God is working here I know. Thank you for your prayers. God Bless..

Jaden