His Love is FURIOUS! / June 9 2011

I. Love. This. Song.

Had to share :-) His love covers us! It is waking hearts to LIFE! Amen!


So here are my posts from June 9 2011!

Wound clinic in Namatala

Well we had another God day in Namatala! We had decided to have a wound clinic but before we went we wanted to see Loru in the hospital so we went to see him and he is doing better! His dad, Sully, was there and when we walked in he smiled so big! He was so happy that his son is finally going to be ok. Then we went to set up our wound clinic in Namatala. Becca was in charge so she told us what to do and what she wanted as far as goals for the day. Becca has a HUGE heart and she cannot stand to see sick or malnourished children. She and Becky were to clean wounds and dress them unless someone had a bigger problem than little wounds. Then they were sent to Becca and she did as much as she was trained to do. I was getting the name and age of all the children and measuring their arm to see if they were normal or in danger of malnutrition. It was sad to see the ones that were in the danger zone but also neat to know that there weren’t as many as there used to be or we thought there would be. They were all right at normal or really close to normal but only a few were way below. Of course none of them were very much above. One child had measles, one had some type of worm, one had an awful cough that sounded like asthma to Becca at first but then she quickly changed her mind. A mom had something wrong with her and brought out an X ray and a prescription a doctor had written for her as wanted Becca to help since nothing she was doing was working. I’m not sure what happened with her. I know Becca wished she was qualified and had the means to do so much more for these people. Sick children just kept coming and worried mothers were waiting and all Becca could really do was give suggestions and tips on how to deal with the symptoms and tell them they need to go to the doctor and what to tell the doctor. She has found that most of them won’t automatically tell you all of their symptoms. They will tell you what hurts the most and that’s it. If the doctor isn’t asking lots of questions they could be missing what is really wrong. Once we finished with all the people that had come to us from that part of Namatala we went to Mama Aidah’s house for lunch. Boy am I getting tired of bread-like foods and potatoes. After lunch we went back to Namatala for another wound clinic in a different area. As we were walking in we saw a lady on a mat outside her hut that looked very sick. Becky said she had been there the whole 3 weeks that Becky has been here. So we stopped and Becky and Becca talked to her about what was wrong for a while and prayed with her. The kids in this area must not be as used to muzungu’s as the other kids were because they would just stare. We didn’t get any kids running up and grabbing our hands like we normally do. While Becky, Becca, and the lady on the mat were praying I felt a strong urge from God to pray also but had no idea what about. So I told the other people with me that we needed to pray and we did. I still don’t know what we were praying for but I’m glad we prayed. We set up and people started coming. At first it was just kids looking at the muzungu’s and their moms, which was good, but then a girl came up to us and pulled up her dress and showed us the most awful wounds I have ever seen. (Granted I don’t see many wounds on a daily basis.) she had a big tear shaped wound on the outside of her left leg that was pink/white and filled with puss and gross. Flies were landing all over it when she would pick up her skirt. The inside of her left leg had a slightly smaller but much worse looking wound. Becca was cleaning her wounds while I was measuring children as sending small wounds to Becky and it started raining. The adults in the village insisted that we take cover next to a nearby hut so we did. We all stood around while Becca finished cleaning and dressing this girls awful wounds. All of the kids took cover with us because we are muzungu’s and they didn’t want to leave us. Plus I’m sure they thought we had sweets. That was fun. I got some fun pictures while we were trying to wait out the storm. Sarah, our translator, told us we should leave because the rain didn’t look like it was going to end any time soon. Two of our ichooseyou girls were with us as offered to take our supply bag to the van. As soon as they started walking it started POURING and there was thunder and lightning and Becky yelled for them to run to the van. We didn’t know what we were going to do since our van wasn’t very close and then we saw Wasawa, our driver, coming down the road very fast! We all started laughing. Wasawa has been so good to us. He takes care of us all the time and really goes the extra mile for us consistently. We all secretly knew he wouldn’t leave is there alone. Wasawa to the rescue! Again. Haha :-) what a great guy. So we all got in the van and took Becca and Taylor back to mama Aidah’s house and started back to the hotel. We got to the end of the road out to find a power line had fallen. As we were trying to turn around a small car came up from behind us and Wasawa started honking and yelling something out the window in Luganda and the white car passed us and Wasawa started yelling louder and honking more. They almost drove over it! We were scared of what we were about to see. Because of wasawa’s honking and yelling they stopped and rolled down the window and he told them something. I can only guess it sounded something like “that’s a power line down! Are you crazy? Turn around so you don’t get hurt!” haha so we all turned around, which was an adventure in itself as all the roads are dirt aka mud when it rains. When we finally made it home we got to look at all of our pictures and rest for a while. That was nice. Another eventful day in Uganda. God is good, all the time.

I have to say that the small wounds clinics were some of my favorite times in Uganda :-) I can't wait to do that again! There are just so many people, and so many children! It is such an amazing opportunity to meet the physical needs of the people and have an open door to telling them about their true savior! This was the day that I met Teko Brian. I didn't write about him on this day...in fact I don't think I ever truly gave the story of how I met Teko Brian. I think I was probably a little bit overwhelmed with the whole thing. I wrote about it in my personal journal but never on my blog. So...here is the story of how I met my favorite little Ugandan Man, and now adopted son through ichooseyou, Teko Brian.

During the first half of the small wounds clinic I was designated to take down names, ages, and measure arms for malnutrition. close to the end of the morning we were making sure everyone was done and this cute little boy that had been with us all week, and was actually the first child I took a picture of in Uganda, sat down in my chair. I asked him how old he was and he said 7 or 8. I began to measure his arm as I asked him what his name was. At first he answered me very softly something that sounded like Tay-co but since I couldn't hear him well and I wasn't completely sure he knew what I was asking, I asked sarah to ask him what his name was for me. Sarah asked and he whispered to her and she stood up and said "His name is Tacko T A C K O." (pronounced Tay-co) I don't remember my reaction in that moment. All I know is that I stopped moving and it took a minute to process what she had just said. I asked her again, "Tacko?" and she said "yes! Tacko! Write it down!" I couldn't really believe what I was hearing. It was strange and funny and felt like a wink from God but somewhat silly at the same time. I don't know how long it took to sink in but once it did I immediately had a small freak out in which I explained why his name being Tacko was so crazy! For those of you that don't know, I was given a dog when I was about 3 and my parents asked me what I wanted to name the dog. Immediately I said "Taaco!" (pronounced Tay-co) I have been made fun of my entire life for naming my first dog Taaco. I felt silly thinking it meant something from God but at the same time I couldn't ignore it! After all this was the first child I met, took a picture of, hugged, and really spent time with! I spent the rest of that day processing and trying to wrap my mind around it. Later that evening I asked Becky if we could add Tacko to ichooseyou and by the grace of God and the kindness of her heart she said yes! Now skip a few days...fast forward to the last day. We went to Namatala to re-dress a few of the bad wounds and say goodbye to some people. I knew I couldn't leave without seeing Teko again (we found out his name is actually spelled t e k o.) so I decided to try to find him. We ended up asking around to see if anyone knew where he lived since he had not found us yet. A little girl, no older than 5, told us she knew and started leading us through Namatala. Finally we ended up in front of a few huts and our friend Regina. The first team had met Regina before we arrived and we had prayed for her a couple times on our trip. Regina was very sick and could not get off of her mat. When the little girl pointed to Regina's hut and told us it was Teko's hut I immediately assumed she was confused. She wasn't. Regina is Teko's mom. I yelled for Teko and he came running around the huts and straight into my arms. It was bittersweet leaving him. I hated leaving him but I knew that He and his mother were finally going to begin to receive the things they so desperately needed. Being reunited with Teko is on my top 3 things I am looking forward to this summer. Possibly my number one thing.
As of now, Teko is in school, being fed, and Regina is getting medical care. The doctors haven't been able to pin point what the problem is but they are doing tests. Days like that one in Namatala remind me that we serve a God that knows us and knows us well! He loves us and he has great plans for us! I am forever amazed by the God I serve.