Miracles and Medicine!!!

This past week I have been reminded that Amecet is a very special children’s home and we have the ability to care for children in extraordinary ways!!! Yes working with HIV positive children in Africa you expect illness and we’re often treating fevers and making trips to the clinic for malaria tests, however the house (well at least the medicine room) now looks more like a hospital than ever!!!



Evalyn trying to drink from a bottle
but she was to weak

I can’t even tell you how it all started the last week has become a bit of a blurr, so I guess well just start with the smallest! Amecet not only takes in HIV positive children but also babies who have lost their mothers, last saturday Els came bac from the hospital with the tiniest baby I had ever seen (at that point) Evalyn was born at 7months and was already 10days old, her mother has pre-eclampsia and so the birth was enduced to save the life of the mother, fortunately both mother and child survived the birth however the mother was paralysed down one side along with many other illnesses and was sitting in the ward on the floor, the baby being held by her 10 year old sister. Evalyn came into out incubator and I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to learn how to feed her. She has a feeding tube that goes through her nose into her stomac and we push milk straight into her tummy by syringe, this quite simple task can go terribly wrong if the tube is in the lungs or you push the milk in too quickly so each staff member is being trained and until more people know how this is a time consuming job.

Putting a feeding tube into Eunice

Since I’ve been at Amecet babies have been like busses we have no new ones for a while and then they arrive in pairs, and this was no exception a  few days later our second prem baby of my stay arrived, Eunice, also born at 7months and 2 weeks old, her mother was in a coma and died just 2 days after Eunice came to us, Eunice started out well and was even able to suck from a bottle however this made her tired and she too went on a feeding tube, A few days later Eunice started having problems with her gut and went from one extreme to the other, currently her dihorrea is so bad she is dehydrated and is being fed ever hour milk or rehydration fluids. She was taken for an IV however after it taking almost 15 attempts to get it in and then only staying right for 45 minuets we had to give up on that for today, her veins are so so small that the IV isn’t taking, tomorrow maybe we’ll try something different and for tonight we’re praying she stays strong and keeps her fluids.

Jesse's first meal at Amecet

Eunice wasn’t the last arrival either, bus number 3 arrived Thursday, another premature baby, born at 6 months and a couple of weeks old, his single mother seemed ignorant to the severity of Jesse’s condition at only 20 years old she hadn’t been aware of the abnormality of how small and weak  he was. Jesse weighed only 780grams (1.7lbs) when he arrived and he was almost starved to death as he was too weak to drink. In 3 days with an IV and a feeding tube he made it to a Kilo, still very small but going in the right direction! I was given the challenge/privilege/scary job of feeding Jesse for the first time through the tube, my hands were literally shaking but he took the milk really well so all is good!!!!

It is amazing babies are alive, they are 3 liiving miracles and each day as they gain strenght all we can do is be thankful that God protceted them untill they came to us, and feel so blessed that we have the opportunity to help them!

All this drama is exciting, scary and sure does keep us busy feeding the premmys (or peanuts) is almost an ongoing job but they really are fighters!!! Still while all this is going on the rest of the house is not immue to sickness!!!
Today rather than taking the children to the doctor, the doctor came to Amecet (luckily the clinic is right next door, we eben have a connecting gate!!) Mary, Musa, Rose, Sarah, Norah and Levi have all come down with Malaria in the last 2 weeks, last Sunday we had 3 children on IVs because of the dehydration the Malaria had caused, Rose made the start of my night shift fun by vomiting up her dinner all over the living room for the second night in a row, she continued to throw up after meals and now has dihorrea. Musa is in a bad way right now, he vomited on me when we went for a Malaria test and I’ve had to clean up pooop galore from him the last 2 days! He has dehydration and is just so weak a boy that would polish off 200mls in a matter of mins only drinking 40 you know something isn’t right and after a few weeks of this and 2 treatments of malaria we’re worried about him, he doesn’t seem to be getting better we can only pray his new medicines work!

As well as the malaria’s baby Benna is also suffering, and has dihorrea and is lethargic and weak, Abai, Mary and Charles have all had fevers, pains, some of the girls have bad coughs and I forget how many children are on antibiotics!!!

I also wish I had time to tell you about our adventures to the villages yesterday however I’m gonna let Els do that, check out Amecets blog: http://amecet-soroti.blogspot.com/

Once again i'm sure i've forgotten to tell you so much stuff, maybe i need to write more often, then my posts wouldn't be so long!!! And please continue to pray for all of our children and al the aunties who are dedicated to okoing after them!

week 1 at Amecet

So the first week of my new adventure has begun, I am now living in the town if Soroti (still in Uganda) and working at Amecet n'ainapakin (shelter of peace), Amecet is a children’s home primarily for HIV affected and infected children. There are currently about 20 children ranging from just a few weeks old to about 14 years. In the last 10 years of Amecet over 400 children have come through the doors. Amecet takes in those who need a safe place, medical attention and care. Often the aim is to restore children so they can be returned to their families or villages, although where that is no possible, the children are either adopted out or stay on a longer term basis.

My life in Soroti started after a very bumpy 6 hour journey, I am staying in Amecet’s staff house, there are currently 18 staff that work here. My first shift was last Sunday, I was working an A shift which is from 7am-3pm. The morning shift consists of Bathing, changing and feeding the Babies, the playing out of the veranda with the 1-2 year olds, the older children go off to school. The babies have to be regularly fed and changed so as you can imagine in the past week I have learned how to fold, change and clean cloth dypers, I have changed 45 nappies in the past week and fed 14 bottles, without killing anyone!!! (good start)

The second shift is the B shift, this is from 1pm-9pm and the routine is similar, meal times are crazy but so much fun and after eating the children gather around an African drum for a time of worship, with much dancing which is so much fun! I spent some time with the older children during my b shifts this week, and had great fun jumping on the trampoline with Christine 2. (Where more than one child had the same name they are numbered)

We saw the first rain in a long long time this week and the kids were loving it!! All out on the veranda with their hands out in the rain, excitement really was in the air!

The great thing about working with children you don’t ever have to grow up, you get to play and do all those things you’re meant to but never really grow out of, and it’s perfectly acceptable to dance round like an idiot!!

Friday is my day off so I went over to the sports fields for a walk, I watched some football games (boys and girls) saw the Ugandan version of the walk of witness and almost got charged at by a bull (I was generally scared for my life)

Unfortunately my Saturday morning shift started with some rather upsetting news that baby Jabeth dies during the night,  he was only 6 weeks old, he wasn’t sick and it’s all a bit of a mystery however we know that he is safe in heaven now. Jabeth was wrapped up in the way they do here then he was put into a coffin which was carried out by some of the older children (precious) and then he was returned to his village for burial. The power was out (maybe in sympathy) and some of the children were very frightened by it, as you can imagine when a perfectly healthy baby dies how much that scares a HIV infected child! So your prayer are so much needed for here right now.

Tonight I work my first night shift, 7pm-8am, I have no idea how I am going to stay awake but it’s all part of the adventure!

If you want to know more about life at Amecet you can check out the Amecet blog:

http://amecet-soroti.blogspot.com/

Start of term!!!

well it's 4:30 on a friday afternoon, and i think i kind of understand that end of the week feeling tezchers get, i mean as a student 3:15 on friday was the hilight of my week but i really don't think that compares to the feeling teacher get!
Now don't get me wrong, i have had an incredible start to my placement but it has been hard work! the first week i spent my time helping clean and organise, i don't think i have ever seen so many disorganised boxes, there was stuff EVERYWHERE at the start of the week, but after mnay hours of sorting organising and cleaning the shelves were re-stacked the resources orderd and the place dust free!! the first thing that really hit me about how this is an afrian pre-school not in the UK was that the hand made resources and games are all stored on peices of old box or plates, there are nice cabinets and draws to store things in. You might be thinking durrrrr you are in Africa but sometimes i do forget that it's different here because i now see this as home, especially when i see games i had as a child or domino's that i can picture in a box at my gradparents house!!
Pre-school term started on monday this week (6th feb) a staff shortage meant that for this week both middle class (4yrs) and top class (5 years) were both in one class with one teacher are 2-3 helpers (thats me!!!) we had about 60 children and so i'm sure you cn imagine with the start of term hype it has been a crazy week! The program the pre-school uses is a Bible based sylabus, the day (well morning 8-1) consits of singing, leaning about the Bible, memory verse ( this week was psalm 119:89-90) learning manors (e.g. how to greet someone into your home) and education (alphabet, numbers etc) everyday the children also learn about the weather (all week it has been sunny!!) and the day of the week, date and month! During free time the children work on projects (this is what we would call classroom playing) and have domino's, puzzles and matching games which are all educational resources as well as being able to colour and draw.
This week i have also worked with smaller group (15-20 children) teaching them, on thursday we looked at numbers and the children had to count from 0-7 and then match the number and words. After we had learnt to numbers they then practiced writing, i found challenges with mixed abilities in my group and some difficlties in lauguage, although the children are learning english and are expcted to speak it not all understand me or speak it!! Today (friday) i worked with a group on the alphabet, one issue i found was that half way though learning some of the letter cards were missing!! At this age the children also have a short attention span, the different approach here in Africa meant that i had to try and engage the group for almost half an hour, this i have learnt is hard enough at the best of times but especially with a group of non-understanding misbehaved 4 year olds!!! They are certainly going to be a project!!
The cutest moment of my week has to be when 4 year old patience sat on my lap and fell asleep, bless the little girl she was curled up for almost an hour!!! The girls in true girly fashion have taken a liking to my mzungu hair and are constantly twisting an braiding it!!
I think thats about it for these weeks but i will leave you with some prayer points:
pre-school: language barriers
disapline with the children
staff in pre-school
preperation for the next phase of my placement (at amacet childrens home)
financial security and trusting God with my money!!
Good healt
Rain!!!! haha it's been far too hot lately! haha
oh and as a last point, we have been harvesting and shelling the maize that we planted the first week we were here! it's been amazing to see the whole process go through ( even if it is going to make posho YUCK)

Week 11!!! DTS lecture phase nearly over!!

Happy Bonfire Night!!!! (i hate that i'm missing it!) Welll this week has been quite quiet, what's starnge is that it was our last full week of lectures before outreach, we have 3 days lectures and 2 days prep next week and then it's off to kenya which is crazy!!! (please pray that our visa's get sorted as we have no idea what is goin on with them right now!!!) This week base has been 'soaked' in worship thanks to the Precious Jewels team from the Philipines (they work with children who suffer trauma) It's been an amazing week and we've just been really submerged in worship (except wednesday night when i was so tired i fell asleep) but friday night (which was meant to be a bonfire and would have been perfect timing for fireworks night but it rained!!!) God really spoke to be though the lyrics "i'm tradin my sorrows, i'm trading my shame, i'm laying them down for the joy of the Lord" that just really struck me, we accept the forgiveness of our sins because it makes God happy, we may feel unworthy and like we don't deserve it (which is true) but that souldn't stop us recieving freedom in Christ because that's what God wants us to have it!! If we don't accept it then Jesus died in vain- which quite frankly sucks!!! Aside from that this week we had prayer and fasting for our outreach for our unity and God's provision! Lectures this week have been on world view which was pretty interesting and extremly useful for outreach! I think thats about it for now! We leave for Kenya in 7 days which is crazy but hopefully i'll get one more blog in before i leave!!! Be praying for our preperations and that we get everything sorted with peace!

mini update!

So internets still down and i i don't have loads of time to give you a full on update right now, i'll get there at some point. But i have some prayer points:
Internet is still down because they need to get some more cables in, pray that this happens quickly!
This week we started getting up at 4:45am to pray for outreach for an hour before quiet time, i'm starting to understand why this is so improtant, we need to be eqipped and it's an awsome way to show God how serious we are about serving him. BUT i need more grace and understanding, i also need to me physically cabable, my body responds to early starts and lack of sleep y being sick (not very helpfull) in order to get abough sleep i also have to go to bed really early, this makes getting other things such as Bible reading done very difficult so i can feel myself starting to get stresses about it. So please just pray for me about all of this!
For me you can also pray that during this time of tiredness and illness i continue to seek and find God, it can be very difficult to lose focus and just get angry rather than remebering why i'm here! After tha amazing breakthrough that i had i really don't want to fall back now!

Outreach , comes in 3 weeks now, we have lots to do and as a DTS we are all struggling with the tthings we have to learn and prepare, we never seem to stop! so we all just need peace and rest and strenght during this time. We also need saftey on outreach and god just to show us where he wants us!

As a side note, i am doing really well, i have been ill but am recovering now, it's not all negative here honest! We took a trip to kampala on sunday which was really good and we got to sit in a proper western coffee shop and eat pan au chocolate and pancakes and have pizza for lunch! So as life goes on it's hard but it's good and i know everything i am doing is worth it even on the tough days!

Week 7

 

I'm currently sitting in the source cafe in Jinja with a chocolate chip cookie and an iced mocha :)~ so you could say i'm doing pretty good, internet on the base is still down, I think they got it back for a few hours before the wires got stolen again!

Well this week my small group leader Nehemiah told me that I’m getting louder, I guess that means I'm officially at home here now! Tuesday was an exciting day because we finally found out where we're going on outreach! Kenya and the Tanzania! Not sure exactly where in those countries or what it is we'll be doing there but it's good to know now where we are headed, it's going to be a good yet testing time for us, no less because starting next week until the end of outreach we have to get up at 5am to spend on hour praying for outreach before quiet time! I am excited for going on outreach though but I know we are going to be stripped back to basics even more than we already are and I know that these experiences e.g. sharing a mattress with 2 others will be challenging but will really grow me!

This week I also started reading 1 of my books for my DTS, “it is really you God?” by Lorren Cunningham- the founder of YWAM, it tell s the story of YWAM and how it started but it's also really encouraging so I would recommend that you find a copy and read it!!!!!!

Thursday we had a day (morning) or prayer and fasting, which is funny because this weeks ;lectures were on orayer and intercession, so we got to prectice what we had learnt! I think the most important thing I learnt this week was to pray with expectancy and faith that what you are praying for will happen, I mean sometime we don't have faith because we don't want to be let down when our timing doesn;t fit with Gods, but i've learnt that this week we just have to have faith and more faith and more faith and continue to have fait that our prayers will be answered when the timing is right! I feel it was a very productive morning and am excited for some things, but I cant tell you about them yet.... hehe

Friday, ah yes Friday, I think I broke my toe..... I know I need to stop cutting. Hurting my feet, thus time it wasn't hitting a rock or falling over. I dropped a hoe on my foot whilst weeding for work duty! My foot is now steri stripped and plastered, partly to stop the dirt getting in, partly to stop me trying (and failing) to bend it and partly to stop the nail falling off! I'm fine tho! :) I was even fine enough to (stupidly) try and run during boot camp- that failed but I did get a good ab work out :)

I think that's about it for this week! Although one last strange thing this week I have been homesick for lakeside- typical Essex girl I know! Hahaha! So if you wanna pray for me about that then please do, and also that I have a very clear instruction about what God wants me to do at the end of this year! Missing y'all ( in the words of Becca) have a blessed week!

Take a deep breath week 6 was a busy one!

So sorry this post has taken a while! Internet went down at the weekend again because a wire has been missing! It's hard to think back on what has been happening actually!

We had our Holy Spirit week starting on the 26^th lectures felt like RS lessons at times with discussions about the trinity and all the omni words! On Wednesday Ella came down to Hopeland, she is a Year For God student that started in February and is on her placement in Soroti at Amacet orphanage, talking to her has really confirmed to me that I want to go up and do that so come January I plan to head up there for at least 3 months of my placement and then I will come back here (to Hopeland) and finish up my time at the pre-school!

Thursday was my birthday!!!!! It was a very emotional day! I had a pile of cards that had been sent from home which was really nice but did make me miss home a bit! But the girls then did a really good job of cheering me up with chocolate and other gifts which was very very sweet of them and I love them so much for it! We also got a cake at fellowship at Tim and Jackie's which was AMAZING (thanks Ella!) I also got to skype mum and dad on my birthday for like a whole hour which was really nice and such a birthday blessing PTL.

Friday... what a day! We concluded holy spirit week with a baptism of the spirit, and that was quiet an amazing time, to start with our leaders were totally humbling and washed our muddy, smelly feet! And we spent some time in worship, God just really moved in that time, people had their eyes opened to Gods heart and other people received deliverance from things like lies which had taken hold of them and how they viewed themselves, the enemy really stood no chance at that time!

As for me, I had spent the morning session sitting in prayerful, tearful worship as I committed everything I have, had and will be over to God. Letting go of anything is hard and although I'd thought that coming to Uganda was the end of me holding on to my plans it has become increasingly obvious over the last few weeks that I am still holding on to a lot. I have to admit that I left that morning session rather annoyed because I felt like God hadn't worked in my life, it's like I was giving and giving but God wasn't hearing me or I wasn't hearing him (much more likely) but the main point was that I just didn't understand why I didn't feel any different!

I sat through lunch, which we had as a DTS and was amazing food with chicken and beef, but I really couldn't enjoy my time I just felt mad and upset so I went back to the room and collapsed onto my bunk, what happened from here is hard to explain but what I can say is that after I don't know how long lying their crying with pins in needles in my head and this strange pain that I felt was consuming me and people surrounding me in prayer I finally sat up feeling like a different person, in fact feeling more like me! It was like I'd been freed and released from the person who was trying to live my life! I know that probably sounds odd but I don;t know how else to describe it! God had really worked in my life, I knew it this time for sure, I had my breakthrough and and it was amazing! Now don't get me wrong this was no quick fix, I know that I still have to continue committing myself and my life to God, I also know that I have to continue in prayer asking God to work on my character and turn me into the person he wants me to be. But for the first time in what seems like forever I feel like I’m facing in the right direction and what's funny (sort of) is that it wasn't until this happened that I even realised I had been facing the wrong one! So yes life is pretty good right now, in some ways it's got harder because being more 'myself' has made me realise how much further I still have to go and has also made me feel more homesick (prayer hint) but all I can do is glorify God for this, and to celebrate (well actually my birthday) we went...

WHITE WATER RAFTING!!!!!!!! yeahhhh I can officially say that I have swam I the river Nile! And been thrown into it by a 6ft wave! I had the life scared out of me but it was so so much fun and when we actually made it through a category 5 rapid without being flipped out of the raft I think our whole boat was pretty chuffed! However floating down the rapids was also pretty sweet (thank God for life jackets!) we also got some great food that day! Lunch was chibatti wraps- I had salami, ham, cheese and ketchup in mine :D I don't think I have ever been so excited to eat that type of meal that we would class as 'basic' at home!

Sunday we continued the birthday celebrations with Chinese food :) which was lush :) although I did have to move seats at one point as rain started coming through the ceiling in the middle of the massive storm! I also got to chat to some of the lovely people of Christ Church Billericay, unfortunately I couldn't skype them but it was lovely to chat to people and really made my day :)

Oh and I forgot about the party on Friday! To celebrate the birthday that month we had a 'surprise' party in the DTS classroom, what I find funny is in Uganda when it's your birthday they call you baby, I don't think I will ever find it normal for everyone to be saying to me 'we have a baby in the house' but I do like the fact that in this culture they only cut up and hand out half the cake and you get to eat the rest of it!!!!! how amazing is that- I might be remembering for my next birthday!

Now I’m pretty sure this is the longest post I’ve written yet and I do hope you haven't died of hunger or boredom before reading this sentence, but for now I will leave you and write about this weeks adventures another time!

Pray pray pray

okay guys i have a couple of prayer requests, although they may seem kinda stupid and insignificant they are quite a big deal of us as we're trying to settle in.
1. that we have comfortaway from the internet and our computers, most of us are spending a lot of time on our compters right now because it help us feel like we are at home, although staying in contact with home is no bad thing the amount of our time it is takin up is not healthy and in the long run will probably make us feel more homesick rather than feel better.
2. for space in our dorm, right now there are 12 of us and it's squished, we are expecting 2 others and our corner especially is going to struggle for floor space for our bags, we don't have cupboards or anything so not having floor/personal storage space makes it hard to settle in and get comfy here.
if you could just pray that we find a solution and cope with being on top of each other that would be great!
thanks!