Tuesday- July 21

Today was probably one of the most eventful and emotional days thus far in Uganda. The morning started off with Mike and Lisa leaving early, and then everyone just hung out for a little while. During my quiet time this morning, God continued to reveal to me more about being in my comfort zone versus being in His will. The two are not always mutually exclusive and being comfortable is not always a bad thing. It’s when being content in your circumstances gets in the way of seeking Christ at every moment of every day that is the issue. As quickly as I was pulled out of my comfort zone and made to rely solely on God, I find myself in a comfortable place, where my actions reflect confidence in me. When I finally really understood what was being asked of me, my response was immediate and real. “I want to live a transformed life, Lord. I don’t want to be comfortable anymore.” Thinking back to those couple weeks when I was fully out of my comfort zone and realizing that I just asked for that again, a little scary. But it was real and it was Christ, and that is what I long for.


At the clinic this morning, my computer was being used again, so I sat in with Justine. She likes to have company, I learn a lot, and it because I’m sitting at the computer she sits by the patient and actually touches/examines the patient. That’s a huge step forward from the no touch method which they normally use. And Justine is hilarious, so I enjoy it.

Meaghan came in at one point and said that there was a kid outside with fungus all over there body- from their head to stomach, on the right side. It’s not uncommon kids here to have skin diseases; poor hygiene, nutrition, and dirty water all contribute to it. When Justine examined kid, she found that it was not fungus, but burns that covered this kid. I was working somewhere else so I didn’t see him, but they dressed it as well as they could and gave medicine for pain management. He was burned when a pot of boiling water spilled over him, but was not brought immediately to the clinic. Something that is so common, like the boy with the machete.

Right before lunch, I was in with Justine and a mother brought in a baby girl. She was about 6 months old and beautiful. Justine asked what was wrong and the mother uncovered the girl’s arm. Heads up- next part semi-graphic/gross if you don’t like blood and medical stuff. Her arm was completely burned, shoulder to hand. Burn patient #2. Somehow in the course of the next 5 minutes I found myself and Bryant treating/dressing this baby’s 3rd degree burns on her arm. Parts of the arm were pretty open tissue, but there was lots of burned/dead skin that needed to be removed. We laid her on the table with her mom on one side, Bryant in the middle to hold her, and me on the other. To clean this burn, I had gauze soaked in iodine and I had to clean it until it all bled. Talk about a heartbreaking sound, this poor girl cried and cried, with good reason of course. Any of the dead skin that was loose needed to be removed; we had to use tweezers and peel it off. We rinsed it all with saline, applied burn cream, non-stick dressing, and wrapped it in bright green athletic wrap. By the time we had finished, she had cried herself to exhaustion and she just looked up at me with tear filled eyes. I held her for a moment, and then we gave the mother antibiotics, pain meds, and instructions to bring her back in 2 days for it to be redressed. Bryant won’t be there on Thursday so I’ll be doing it on my own. Out of my comfort zone? Check.

The mother said that one of her sibling’s had spilled boiling water on her arm. It’s so frustrating when I hear things like this, but I have to withhold judgment and think about the culture. In my eyes, this is so easily preventable and treatable. When you have to boil all of the water you use so that it will be clean, it’s bound to happen sometime. They have no ambulances or emergency rooms to take their children to. If this happened Saturday afternoon after the clinic was closed, they would have had to wait at least until Monday to come to the FIMRC clinic. I don’t know the family’s story; I don’t know how far they had to walk just to get to our clinic, much less if it would have been possible for them to get to Bududa Hospital (at least an hour walk from our clinic). But when we see the extremes, people who come when they cough and then people who don’t come when their children have gaping wounds and 3* burns, it’s hard.

After dressing the burn, we went and grabbed lunch before our machete wound came to be dressed again. Every day it looks a little better. Today after we rinsed it, we let it air-dry a little before we covered it up. I had Michael, the boy, to hold a piece of gauze in his hand. It was encouraging to see that he could bend his finger a little, more than we expected. So that was an exciting moment!


Then Emily came down from AAH. I posted yesterday about Penninah, the albino girl; please continue to pray for her. As the evening went on I learned more about what was going on from Emily and some of the teachers at the school. When I posted yesterday, they thought she was going to stay at the headmaster’s house.

Unfortunately when her father came down to the clinic, the decision was made for her to go home with him. She had been heavily sedated after her second ‘attack’ so when her father came he was very uncomfortable being around her. He had never seen her unresponsive, unable to walk or talk. They decided to get a boda to take her home. The teachers said that the family was extremely poor; the father worked several jobs and the mother stayed at home with the young kids. She is the oldest and extremely bright. She has been the top student in her class since P2 and is incredibly sweet. She has a P4 brother who is black, an even younger brother who is albino and also having these attacks, and then the youngest is black. What an incredibly hard situation to be in as a parent, especially in this culture. To be doing all you can to provide for your family, to want to protect your children with all that you are, but not knowing what is going on with your children either. As convinced as I am that it is not a work of witchcraft or demons, to someone in this culture who has never seen this before and does not understand it’s easy to see how they believe this. Dr. Abeso was saying that what she really needs is medical testing, but more than that she needs a confined place where she feels safe where she can get counseling. I don’t think any of us can begin to imagine the stress, fear, probably depression that this girl is experiencing. To try to sleep at night knowing that someone wants to kill you? I cannot even wrap my mind around this situation; all I can do is pray.

When we got home, Meaghan, Vicki, and I went on a walk. We passed one of my favorite spots in the whole area. It would be the perfect picnic place (why didn’t we think of this earlier?). It overlooks the lush valley of banana trees that surrounds the clinic. The clinic and AAH sit directly across from us. It is amazing. I’m going to miss the natural beauty of this place. On our way home, we stopped at the chapatti stand. Good decision- chapatti made rice and beans much like a burrito :) For our last night, we helped Bryant stuff CHE gift baskets, laughed, and enjoyed each other’s company.

This is my last post before I leave- I cannot even believe how fast the time has flown here. I cannot even tell you how thankful and blessed I am because of your prayers and your support. I can't wait to see you and share with you!

Prayer Requests

- continued prayer for the people of Uganda that I have come to know and love
- for FIMRC and the other volunteer's that are still here and that are coming to continue impacting this community
- safe travel on my way home
- that God would continue to teach me and use this trip to impact my life long after I am home

In Him,
Becky