2011 Uganda Blog

	Click here to see pictures from the mission trip. Pictured on left is the 2011 Uganda Mission Team: Donna Matthews, Lee Stranathan, Debbie Blank, Michael Thompson, Susan Akerman, Mary Brimer, Karen & Doug Eisele. Not pictured but part of the team are David & Gana Marek.
July 28 As of 10:30 a.m. the team landed in Dubai for a short layover and plane change before continuing to Uganda. Keep praying!
July 29 Uneventful flight to Dubai. Some slept more than others. Transfer to our overnight hotel went well too. It is hot here even after dark. Got to the hotel, checked in (first use of roommate assignments: Eisele, Donna and Debbie, Susan and Mary, Michael and Lee). Dinner here (not bad at all) and then to bed for most. Bus back to hotel at 6:30 for 8:25 plane to Entebbe. Clear customs with all our supplies, buy our visas and spend the night at an airport hotel. They never want us driving after dark so we head to Mbale tomorrow morning. We will begin our day with our own devotional since we will miss church. God is good, all the time, and so are we. Lee
July 30 We were in Dubai last night and we saw a lot of the city from a night perspective. The opluence is hard to describe. The architecture and hotels seemed to be trying to out do the other. There were shops that screamed for the wealthy and yet we wondered how the average person survives there. The airport was incredible and I kept thinking about the camel and needle parable. Our morning devotion was great and it was clear from the discussions that there were forces trying to keep us from ever going. It was clear God has the victory and had other plans. We left Dubai and headed on our flight to Entebbe. Everyone we met on the plane was so nice and happy. We stopped over Addis Ababa ( we think that is how it is spelled) it is the capital of Ethiopia. It was like telling Toto were not in Dubai anymore. We then took a 90 minute flight to Entebbe where we will stay for the night before embarking on a 6 to 7 hour drive to Mbale where we will have base camp. We have now been in Uganda for a few hours. The people are very nice and quite helpful. Lake Victoria across from the motel we are in looks huge. Jesus has great plans for this week and we are excited. Having never been to Africa I am not sure what I expected. Most of the group minus two of us have been here before. You can feel the Holy Spirit and this is a great country. We are in a hilly area with lots of green trees and jungle vegetation. It is cooler here by what seems like 20 degrees than in Houston. The lifestyle here is very different from what we have seen so far. Please pray for us and our families back home. We look forward to telling you what God does in the next week and a half. Michael
August 1 We made it to Mbale yesterday afternoon. The drive was long...not so much from distant but more from the congestion and road conditions. The towns and areas we drove through we amazing and heartbreaking at the same time...my thought stream: Bumpy, poor, poor conditions but there are internet cafes and cell phones all around, cows/goats tied up in fields, lots of furniture for sale on the road but the homes look too small to accommodate them, gates for sale, chickens everywhere, driving on the opposite side of the road, lots and lots of children (some of them without clothes), women and men carrying loads on their heads, lots of motorcycles (most without helmets, some with multiple riders...the record: 2 adults and 3 children), horns honking, Chinese restaurant, no stoplights or stop signs, lanes optional, lots of traffic, hand held brooms, being stopped by the police (two times!), police with big guns, "drive through" lunch (being mobbed by the crowd trying to sell us food). Once we arrived in Mbale we were treated to a wonderful lunch at Morris and Ida's house. We were also treated to our first glance of what 6,000 mosquito nets look like! It has been an amazing journey to get here (3 days!) and can't wait to see what God has in store for us today! Donna
August 1 Today started off at 7 am with breakfast and then a morning devotional by Lee, then we loaded the buses and left for the village of Magada. The Magada church was built by Pastor Morris about 5 years ago and has a healthy attendance. Today we had 6 doctors and 6 nurses from Mbale assisting us. In total we had about 700 people come through our makeshift clinic non-stop until we closed at 5 pm. While some of us assisted with the handing out of mosquito nets and sorting medicines, others made themselves available to the people waiting in line and offered healing prayers. Some people chose to accept Christ today so in spite of the difficult conditions, today was a great day. After lunch in the local pastor's home, we headed back to resume the work God has given us. Michael also offered his testimory to all in attendance and as expected did a wonderful job. Many babies were held, many people were prayed over, and many people now have seen a doctor for the first time in many years. We're doing good work as God smiles down on us. After a good dinner we're all a bit tired and looking forward to the bed. Pray for us as we put ourselves in unfamiliar surroundings hoping to make a difference. Dave
August 2 It is Tuesday, August 2, 2011 and this ends Day 2 of medical mission at the Magada Church. This church is about an hour from Mbale - a long and bumpy ride. The church itself is almost identical to the church we did the medical mission at last year, but some things are different. There is no well, and I get the idea that life is harder for these people. They are not as quick to smile, and we have not heard the women udelate (not sure if I am spelling correctly) with joy upon our arrival, or when receiving nets, etc. The children are as always excited to have something going on. Donna has a baby on her hip every time I see her. The kids all love her on sight, and from all appearances, it is mutual. There is a flu going around, and more people are actually sick this year... lots if IV medication being given. Thankfully we have more physicians working this year. One wonderful thing is that this year we have translators available and we are able to pray with/for the people, and they all want prayer.- the Christians, the Muslims, and the "not yet Christians". One Muslim woman took off her head covering and asked for prayer today. Many babies and yong children have large umbilical hernias, and apparently they are being born with them. Not sure what if anything will be done about most of them. I pray that a nice doctor will donate his/her surgical skills and repair them all. Michael arranged and narrated a puppet show today with the Kids of the King puppets. Everyone loved it - children and parents. We are planning to do it again tomorrow. Over 1000 patients were seen today - and over 1000 nets passed out. Of the 10 member team, eight have been on a Ugandan mission before and all agree that today was the hardest work day yet. In many ways, I feel like it was the most rewarding also. God is doing amazing things - not just for the people of Uganda, but for a little mission team from Katy also. Susan
August 3 Last night Mbale had a refreshing rain so we had to hold our devotional inside this morning. This was our 3^rd and final day at the church in Magada and we arrived to the largest crowd we’ve seen yet. The five doctors saw over 1,000 patients today. Monday they saw 850 and Tuesday 1,200. Absolutely amazing that they were able to see and treat so many people. By 3:00 Lee and I had already distributed the final 1,000 nets allocated for this church – which were limited to adults only today. Back by popular demand was Michael’s puppet show (Adam and Eve’s fall from grace) which drew a large crowd of children as well as some adults. Donna was busy trying to teach the children to make cat’s cradle with string. The prayer teams continued to pray with the locals….many of whom were not Christians (some had never heard of Jesus)…fortunately with God’s help we won them over! Tomorrow we move to a new church to continue our medical and to hand out the final 3,000 nets. We are all well and tired heading to bed. To my 2:42…I miss you all and good night!! Debbie
August 4, 2011 The journey today reminded us how good the road had been to our first church. This road was only partly paved with huge potholes. The shoulders were easier to drive on than the road itself. It was a very bumpy and tedious drive. In fact on the way home a truck had slid off the road onto its side delaying the slow traffic even more. We were at a new church in Apokoro, a village about 30 kilometers from Kenya. Pastor Timothy has been there since it was started 6 years ago. You can see it has a loving congregation with lots of flowers planted around the church and the pastor’s house and the grounds are well maintained. In addition, they have started plastering the walls in the church and hope to put in a concrete floor. The crowd was small when we arrived but grew throughout the day. We gave over 950 mosquito nets but we were only giving to adults and saw around 1,200 patients in total. There were many people waiting when we had to close the doors so we anticipate a busy day tomorrow. This church speaks a different language and we were short of interpreters today which limited the number of us who could pray with people. We saw many more men today than we ever saw at our previous church. We passed a very busy market very close to the church site which was filled with men this morning so we are speculating that may be the reason. There were several older people who had severe disabilities. One came walking on their hands, another completely bent over at a 90 degree angle, another with badly deformed legs using a large tree limb as a walking stick and another brought on a bicycle who was unable to walk. It is so sad to see people suffering without access to even basic medical care. Your donations have meant so much to so many people. Everyone worked hard but it was a great day which ended with girls from the church singing about how much they love Jesus! Mary
August 5 Gana started the day with the morning devotional. Then it was pile into the buses and head to the church. This road out to the church is TERRIBLE! They are attempting to do construction on it but its not working. There are potholes inside of potholes. At one point we temporarily lost the lead bus only to find it at the bottom of a pothole! One of our drivers appears to be the equivalent of a U.S. dirt track racer. He does not like other vehicles overtaking him. If he is overtaken, he speeds up and bottoms out the springs on the potholes trying to race back in front. (I might have exaggerated the depth of the potholes a bit). We arrived at the church and were greeted to what I believe is the largest crowd we’ve seen this week, probably 1,500 or so. They were all in line waiting patiently for the doctors, nurses and “Mzungus “ to arrive. And with that our day began; filling pill bags, handing out nets, offering healing and comforting prayers and most importantly, adding names onto the roll of those saved by accepting Christ. After a quick lunch of baked chicken (they killed the chicken this morning as Michael watched) it was back to being servants. This afternoon Michael, Susan, and Donna pulled out the puppets and entertained the crowd with the story of Adam and Eve. The testimony this afternoon was given by David. One of the things that has amazed me this week is that people stand out here all day waiting for the chance to see a doctor, get their prescription filled, and pick up a mosquito net. Our senses have been tested as hundreds of mothers breast feed their babes and people wanting prayers show us their wounds. One of the interesting things happened when David pulled out his cell phone while sitting on the ground with a “flock” of young kids and started playing the game “Angry Birds”. I can only imagine what they thought, these “things” happening on this cell phone and the strange noises it made. Not only are our eyes being opened but we’ve also opened some of their eyes to some new things. The saying “life is best lived on the edges of your comfort zone”. Well, we’re living large here spreading the word of the saving Grace of Jesus Christ. Pray for us and for them. Dave
August 6 Today begin as usual with Susan leading our devotion based on Exodus 17:10-13. Our discussion was how important it is we support each other and how important support from our Church and friends are to this mission. After praying Psalm 25, it was off to our last day in Apokoro. We only had about 1,050 nets to give out. So after the usual BUMPY ride we came upon the Apokoro Church to see at least 2,000 people waiting to be seen. Pastor Timothy said they started to line up at 3:30 in the morning. We started seeing people at 10:00am. The huge crowds made it seem more tense so we gathered to say a quick prayer to give us strength and to calm the crowds. The day went pretty smooth and we saw around 1,200 people before we ran out of nets and medicine. It is safe to say there were many disappointed people. On the way home we stopped by the Luwandan Children’s Home. I won’t go into details as you can go on to the Grace International Children’s Foundation to learn more and make a donation. What I will say is they have built a home for 110 of the cutest children in ages from 2-18 years whom they saved from the streets or worse. They are given high quality schooling, a church and a place to call home. I first saw this home a couple of years ago and they really have made great strides. The latest improvement is the girl’s hostel which is a building of rooms for older girls to give the girls more privacy and time away from the younger girls. This allowed them to take in 20 younger girls. The Home wants to build a boys’ hostel and do the same. It only costs $80,000. The kids put on a bit of a show of song and recital of bible verses. They left us with a few wet eyes. Since this was our last day of working medical mission, I thought I would leave you with a few thoughts and observations. (A luxury of being on the last day of work and being the coordinator of the schedule to enable me to be in this position) · Thank you to every one of our donors. You would not believe how much the medicine and mosquito nets meant to the communities. For some this was the first time they have been able to ever see a doctor · In Magada, our first community, a member of parliament visited us and said this is the biggest clinic in years. He was hugely appreciative and recognized the Church for taking the initiative. · In Apokoro, the clinic was the biggest thing that had ever happened in that area. Elders of the Church, members of the community kept coming up to us thanking us for this huge effort. · The biggest benefit was there were 3,000 – 4,000 people who visited each Church over 3 days and could hear the Word of God preached, have a chance to get prayed over and to accept Christ as their only savior. How else can we reach this many people? · The prayer ministry was the most powerful part of the mission for us. Every one on the team went out prayed among the crowd, shared the Gospel and brought people to Christ I believe this will take on even a bigger role in our future missions. · Our entire team was here for a reason; praying for people, talking with youth, helping the medical team, putting on a puppet show. · God is clearing in charge. I think he is continuing to point us in directions to help people all over the world to bring them to Christ. Holy Apostles should rejoice in hearing God’s call by supporting this mission as well as our others in Mexico, Central America, Mexico and in the USA.
August 7 Today was Sunday, and since we were traveling last Sunday, our first church service since leaving Houston. We were ready! We attended Pastor Morris' church, and Michael/Donna/Susan conducted Sunday School for the kids with puppets, David/Lee conducted Sunday School for men (talking about responsible husbands), and Debbie/Karen/Mary conducted Sunday School for the women (talking about Zacchaeus). Doug delivered the sermon, a powerful message around the topic of discipleship. Much singing, much praying, a tremendous sense of accomplishment and relief, and a true partnership with ours brothers and sisters in Mbale. It occurs to me that we've not really written about the team specifically, and today's blog will do that. By room, our team consisted of 'the traveler's, 'the leaders', 'the nurses', 'the guys' and 'the girls'. The Travelers were the Mareks. David with his huge passion for Africa and its children matched by his gift of prayer and Gana with a heart as big the continent and a sensitivity that helped us all week. The Leaders were the Eiseles. Doug herding cats, stepping up to pray or preach when others were reluctant, and keeping a positive attitude which fuels us all and Karen, a prayer warrior if there ever was one, always looking to reach out and touch one more soul. The Nurses were Mary and Susan. Both nurses professionally, they found themselves challenged with the rudimentary consultation rooms, medicine distribution and lack of privacy, yet put that aside to follow God's call, do anything asked of them, and surrounded themselves with needy souls and made a difference. Both hit the ground running, prayed their little hearts out, and were there for the medical staff too. The Guys were Michael and Lee. Michael showed us what children's ministry is all about conducting a puppet show daily yet also was the first called by Morris to deliver a message on Monday. Michael also endured the death of his mother during the trip and his strength was an inspiration to us all. Lee...well, let's just say God's not finished with him yet. The Girls were Debbie and Donna, the ‘Donna and Debbie Show’. Debbie suffered through a bad cold, always told us how she couldn't do something...and then went right out and did it, and brightened the lives of so many here. And Donna. Doug called her the Pied Piper. Her youth, her enthusiasm, her love for children and her always upbeat spirit made her the hit every day. There is not one soul in our last week who doesn't have a 'Donna Story', each and every one a story with a smile, and I think she is the one who will be missed by our friends here more than any. This team busted their butts for God and (a) could not have done it without you, (b) trusted God to get them through each day and (c) made a difference. I am so humbled to be a member. We move to another part of Uganda tomorrow so our hosts here at the Mt. Elgon Hotel surprised us with a cake, a goodbye and a prayerful farewell. They have been so very nice to us. We will miss them. Lee