Issue #3

28.05.2008

AFRICAN ADVENTURES!

It’s been a month of people. Natalie, my lovely nurse friend from Canberra, has now been here a month with Bec and I; we’ve made American friends, Cliff, Julie and Bryan, who have literally changed entire villages; and we’re always touching more people with work, and life, as you do. J  And, all three of us girls have preached at least once.  Woo!

So how’s ISA going with changing the world? We’re not there just yet, but a few kids have definitely been impacted…

Between the 2^nd and the 5^th of May, we recruited 22 more children into the Care4Kids home. We were going to spread it over longer, but the situations the kids have been taken from were so horrendous we had to take them all then!

Let me give you an example:

On Friday 2^nd May, four of the Care4Kids staff went to Kikaramoja to collect the children that had been identified as the neediest in the community. Many children and parents came to us requesting support for themselves – unfortunately not everyone can be given jobs and sponsorship. We even had to have five adults surrounding the van door when we were leaving; people were so desperate to get out of their situation. But there was one case that was not about themselves. He was a malnutritioned boy, like the bony children you see in famine documentaries; with no home, no family; he slept on the streets at night alone, did not speak the local language, and did not even have a name. Apparently someone had brought him to this village and left him. His health was so bad that, aside from extreme malnutrition, his feet and even hands were full of jiggers (bugs that bury into your body and suck your blood, leaving behind eggs and horrible infection) – by the hundreds!

I named him Stephen Mukisa.

Mukisa means ‘blessing’.

And so you can see the severity of jiggers:

(note: this is after some have already been removed and with clean feet)

After many sessions of trying to remove the jiggers, which have to be cut out one at a time (aah!), Mukisa was prayed over. The next day the jiggers were gone, his facial complexion was refreshed, and he has since been happy and playful!! I am not exaggerating at all: complete change!

Between having amazing new staff, and transformed new children, Care4Kids is such a happier, community-impacting home. Many of the children have been healed of illnesses we don’t ever see in Australia, and emotionally renewed. Sure, issues of neglect, hardship and the inevitable “why?” questions will come out as they grow up, but I also know that the ease, satisfaction and joy easily outlasted the intensity.  (Intense because the children have suffered, and many others still do; there are many material and financial needs for that many more children, and everything had to happen very quickly; as staff we were responding to the urgent when the normal jobs and responsibilities still had to be met.)

There are now 44 children who stay at Care4Kids, and a further 18 sponsored who stay with a family in their home village.  ISA mostly takes in school aged children, but you bend the rules when you’re taking in families of orphans. So, we now have 3 babies. Now I get to be the one teaching (limited) Lusoga.  Sweet!

                                                                                                                            Rebecca

Even though I’m here doing development, child monitoring in the villages, project reporting, and related bits of administration, I’ve been making sure I get in good amounts of hang time with the children at the base. I am blown away with how they open up to and radiate from being with me, and the other staff. What awesome opportunities! God does say that He’s Father to the fatherless, the defender of widows, and that He’ll place the lonely in families (Psalm 68:5-6, as just one example). We all get to be part of that!

I know you’ve all got your own things happening, but I’d love if you could help us out here:

Please pray for the children:

-         they started school this week, and half of them are not schooled yet, so it’s a big change

-         that the staff will not wear out.

Praise God that:

-         so many children and families are being helped!

-         the old and new children have bonded so well. They have been so kind to share and help one another

-         that the new children have opened up to the staff and settled in well generally

-         the new school gave us a good discount on the school fees, consequently all except one of the previous children will go there too

-         wounds and diseases cleared so quickly

-          the staff have adjusted and blossomed with the increase.

Mukyala Irene                                                                                                 !

Thank you!

May all these things stay fresh in your minds and inspire your lives.

Love Emily

~

The Lord replies, “I have seen violence done to the helpless, and I have heard the groans of the poor. Now I will rise up to rescue them, as they have longed for me to do.”

Psalm 12:5

~ Poverty is so much greater than physical suffering ~