My team and I are leaving in the morning for Jinja for an AIM conference. We are going a day early to raft the Nile River! It should be intense as they are mostly class 4 and 5 rapids…only mini waterfalls. I am exited to just be on the Nile and experience its beauty. Pray for my team and I on this adventure! We will be spending the rest of the week in Jinja, meeting other AIM missionaries from around the central Africa region. I am hoping to meet up with a friend in JInja- I was a counselor with her at Lakeshore this summer and she is in Uganda at the same time! What are the odds! I also hope to visit Katie Davis (kissesfromkatie) I follow her blog, and she is such an inspiration. I am amazed by her ability to obey God and be a mom to 14 beautiful girls in Uganda. I am hoping to find them and meet this amazing family. I am asking you to pray for our travels and our adventures.
I also have it on my heart to share with you several difficult things I saw this week. On Wednesday, one of my teammates Jessica found a little baby girl lying under a blanket under the pavilion. When she pulled back the blanket she saw her eyes rolling back in her head, and then the older sister came and pointed to the baby's swollen feet. Jessica immediately picked up the moaning child and headed for the clinic. This baby girl, Chulu, is extremely malnourished. She has what they call, Kawasaki, or wet malnutrition. It basically means she is skin, bones, and water. Her feet had begun to swell causing the skin to be stretched and shiny around the feet and ankles. Chulu doesn’t normally come to SMILE- this was my first time seeing her. However, Pastor Ruth shared a story of Chulu- that a missionary who had stayed for several months nursed Chulu back to health when she was an infant. She bought and fed her formula everyday until she was healthy. Chulu is three now and obviously not being cared for. The nine yr. old sister was sent to get the mother to come to the clinic. We had to explain to her the seriousness of Chulu’s condition, and that we couldn’t do anything for her at the clinic. She needed to be hospitalized and receiving an IV. The mother came, but she looked annoyed- she did not want to hear what we had to say. She said to us that she did not want to take her to the hospital- she would rather take her home to die. I can’t even explain to you the heartbreak in hearing those words. How could this mother not want to fight for her child’s life. I do not know her story or why she acted this way, I can only pray that she was responding out of anger and embarrassment.
We just kept telling the mother that her child would die if she didn’t take her to get treatment. God worked on this woman’s heart, and she eventually went to the hospital with Chulu. In the hospitals here, you have to have someone stay with you to care for you. There is not a staff to do that. I know this woman is tired and has other children to care for, so I admire her strength to fight to save her child. Pastor Ruth updated us that Chulu is in the hospital receiving treatment, and Pastor Ruth/Smile is paying for it. Please continue to pray for her recovery and for the mother’s desire to love and nurture her precious baby girl.
On the very next day, I saw something even more horrific. As we were getting ready to leave SMILE for the day, I noticed a crowd of children around a woman. A woman was sitting holding her barely breathing son. He too was malnourished and was showing signs through his swelling feet and hands. He was just skin and bones lying in his mother’s arms- you could see his heart beat out of his chest. This boy looked as if he could only see through one eye and he struggled to lift his head to look at us. The boy’s head looked more mature, but his body was the size of a three or four yr. old. We asked the mother his name, “He is called Nerod and he is nine years.”
It was like nothing I had ever seen- its difficult for me to describe. I had no words. The mother just looked at us for some kind of answer. She looked helpless and exhausted. She said she had tried everything, and he had been sick all his life. She had been in out of the hospital with him, but he wasn’t getting any better. We could do nothing for Nerod at the clinic- he needed immediate attention at the hospital- that’s all the medical advice we could offer. We had to seek advice and help from something much greater- with more wisdom- with more power- with more healing touch than anyone can offer on this Earth for Nerod. We just knelt down and prayed for Nerod. I did not even have words- only tears. All I could do was weep. During the prayer, Nerod reached down and grabbed my hand. It was like he was reaching out to comfort me, to tell me it was all going to be ok.
I am still trying to process what I saw in that little nine-year-old boy, and its difficult to carry when you feel you should be doing something right away to save his life. Its just not all that simple. We did go to find Pastor Ruth and tell her of this boy- she was heartbroken as well. She wants to find him and make sure he gets a fighting chance. I don’t know what will happen to Nerod. We are traveling for the next few weeks and won’t be informed, so I can only pray that God protects Nerod. I can only trust that God will be with him and his mother healing their bodies and their hearts.
My heart is heavy for these children- I hope you will join me in praying for Nerod and Chulu, as well as their mothers. They need you.
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