Monday, July 13, 2009

Negative!

Praise the Lord!! Moses tested negative for HIV today. Thank you so much for praying.

God is good to have had mercy on Moses. To have spare him from this sickness. In a nation where so many are suffering. In Uganda, we believe more than 10% of the population is infected with HIV. And more than 1 million children have been orphaned.

It's difficult to imagine such a situation. Even living here, it's hard to believe. But in many ways I live it with my Ugandan brothers and sisters. There is so much death here. So much sickness. Every week, one of my staff is down because of "malaria" or is attending a burial. Every week.

I pray that God will keep us sensitive to the things of this world that pain Him - even as they occur so often. May we all develop a holy compassion for the sick, the lost, and the hurting. And may we never stop praising Him for the amazing work that He has done to deliver us all - for eternity.

So tonight we're praising God for his work in Moses' life! And for the redeeming work He completed for us on the cross.

Thank you, Jesus.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Sundays in the village

Cory and Moses -- especially for Cory's dad ;)


We all slept in. And it felt so good. Then we had a laundry competition. After three packages of OMO (way too much) I had my clothes smelling like roses and my whites were glowing. I declared myself the winner, much to the dismay of Cory.



After washing clothes, I decided to wash Moses. I plopped him down in a basin and scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed that dirty little body. He laughed and played and then sat stiff as a board on a chair for five minutes to dry in the sun. I was proud of him. Then he jumped down in the dirt and was filthy from head to toe within 5 minutes.



Tomorrow Moses' HIV test is scheduled for 10am. Cory and I are going to take him and Mary (Moses' caretaker) to a private clinic in the village. We are continuing to pray that he is negative. We should know within minutes. It's similar to a pregnancy test, but using blood on the little strip. Honestly, we are really nervous. Please pray with us.



On a bright note, Moses has been playing all day long with his "shoebox". He was one of the blessed recipients in the village. I taught him how to use his new toothbrush and paste today -- washed him up with his new soap -- and we played with his new phone, motocar, and tops. He loves it all! :)



It's amazing to be staying in the village where we distributed. The children have been more active in the past 24 hrs than I've seen them in the past 4 months. To everyone that has ever put a shoebox together - please know that God does indeed bless the labor of your hands. These children heard of God's love for them yesterday and they continue to experience His love as they play with their toys. God has worked through you to give them so much joy! On behalf of the village, "Thank you so much!!"



Finally, I listened to a sermon on my iPod while Moses took a nap. I don't attend church every Sunday because I don't speak the local language and therefore, find it difficult to be nourished. Trust me, I miss my church family and teaching so much. But for now, God has me here - in the village - on Sundays. Please pray that I will be growing more and more in my love for Him. I am praying this prayer for you too.

Friday, July 10, 2009

the ideal home

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Today I went on a two hour long motorbike ride deep within the countryside to visit one of our Village Health Teams. Gadson is training them about good health and hygiene practices so that they can go and train their respective villages. Today, we talked about their "ideal home". It consisted of a water source, latrine, garden, main home and animal home, dish rack, rubbish pit, and lots of people. It's interesting to compare that to what our response would be, eh.

During our ride back to Buremba, Gad stopped at his home to treat me to some pineapple. It truly is the best in the world! Wow - so sweet. He also shared his uncle's poetry with me. It was a nice break.

Now I'm back to my village home in Buremba. We're preparing for another shoebox distribution that will be held tomorrow. We're praying that it'll be a blessing to our community. That they will understand that it's an expression of God's love to them.

We have the opportunity to bring the Jesus film to our community as well - if we want. I'm praying about this opportunity. Will you please join me? I'm really seeking wisdom as to if and when and for whom...all that jazz.

By the way, the banana bread turned out pretty good yesterday...you should all come over for a little visit and I'll serve you some with tea. :)

And the picture above is one that I took on a journey back to Kampala. If you look closely, you can see the Rwenzori mountains in the background. This countryside truly is beautiful!

God is amazing to have created all of this, right. But as Keith would say, it's a garbage can compared to what God has waiting for us up in Heaven. I mean it only took six days to create all this and He's been working on heaven for over 2000 years. I'm looking forward to Heaven, I tell you!

Please pray for His presence to be with us tomorrow. We don't want to do any of this without Him.

Thank you so much. Know that I care about you and I'm missing you guys.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

A typical day




When I was in the states, I was asked a great question. "Mel, can you tell us about a typical day in your life?" It took about 30 minutes to reply and I felt like I did a bad job, so here's another shot at some details.

Today feels like a typical day, so here we go....

I woke up to dogs fighting in the mid of the night and then to roosters crowing at about 6:30. Then little Moses came around my door singing his version of "This is the Day" at the top of his lungs and yelling my name so that I would come out. :)

I ate some chapati. Checked some emails. We prayed as a team. And then I had a staff member arrive who drove over an hour to get supplies that weren't urgent. I had a nice stern conversation with him about good stewardship of our fuel. I think he understand about 50% of what I said.

I waited for about 2 hours for some staff to arrive so that I could take them to the bank to get their money. I love waiting.

Now I'm in a town called Kamwenge and we got a ton of work accomplished! We purchased supplies for Child Hygiene Fairs and for water filter construction. I paid our transportation guy his millions. Bought some bibles - Baibuli Erikwera - in the local language. And I purchased about two dozen eggs -- mmmm, I can't wait to eat them. :) Now we can have something new for breakfast and I can try to make some banana bread over hot coals tonight. Oh la la!

I'm getting ready for another hour car ride back to Buremba. On our way here I was reading some "Water Stories" from the bible that we want to incorporate into our project. We want to entertain our audience at the workshop with more than water filters. We want to entertain them with stories about Living Water. To remind them that,

"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water Jesus gives them will never thirst. Indeed, the water Jesus gives will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life" John 4:13-14

Please pray with us that our community will accept the living water offered by Jesus.

So this is a little glimpse into a typical day. The photos above are of our community members constructing filters, being educated about good health and hygiene and drinking some clean water. This stuff also goes on everyday. :)

By the way, we haven't tested Moses for HIV yet. His caregiver is very sick with malaria, so we want to wait until she is well so that she can receive the counseling with Moses. I'll keep you up-to-date on them. Thanks for your prayers.

Know that I'm missing you, my friends! Let me know your prayer requests. I'd love to be praying with you as well.

Monday, July 6, 2009

A little update


The past two weeks have been packed full of great experiences and challenging ones. Here's a few my praises and a couple prayer requests.


Praise God, our team and community members are working hard constructing filters and installing filters. Together, we have provided clean water for more than 1600 people in Buremba in just a few short months!

God has also been good to give me an intern for the next three months! Cory is back on the HWP team. Everyone enjoys his company and he is doing some really great work for us - helping the team to write good impact stories and helping me to improve our Public Health Education curriculum. He's doing awesome in the field - everyone loves him. He brings a lot of joy to the team!

One of my challenges has been dealing with a very serious moral issue with one of my most valuable staff members. I had to issue a warning letter to him, and we are trying hard to re-build trust. I am concerned about his relationship with Christ. And his influence on our team and within our community. Please pray for him.

Finally a HUGE blessing I have here in Buremba is Moses aka Arsenal. His picture is above. :) I will write you Moses' story in post specifically dedicated to him. However, in the meantime know that he is an orphan-child that I love very much. Moses is often sick - we are concerned about his HIV status. We are getting him tested today. PLEASE pray that he is negative. Please join me in placing his life in our Father's hands today. Our loving, caring, healing Father.

Know that I love you all very much. And I miss you.

May we all be praising God today! And giving our lives to Him.