Friday, June 24

Our team divided this morning so that the SHC Board members could travel to Manafwa with Renee and Danielle to see the site for the new Malnutrition Center and visit the Health Center in Bukabero where Kissito Healthcare is forming a partnership. This center will be offering support to Renee when the program is ready for operation – probably the first part of 2012. Renee currently runs an Outpatient Malnutrition Program at the health center twice a month where she assesses children and offers food and education to enrolled families and transports severe cases back here to Jinja for treatment. We were blessed to be a part of returning a young mother and her children to their home after a month at the Jinja center where her child had been rehabilitated and where she gained a better understanding of how to care for her family and learned about and saw the love of Jesus through the amazing staff there. We also saw the start of that cycle for another mother as we watched Renee evaluate and interview another mom and baby that came back with us, searching for hope. When the Mayuge team returned later that evening, they brought with them 3 new children for the program bringing the number at the house up to 19 program children. Four more will be returned to their homes tomorrow and so the endless cycle of transformation continues.
Meanwhile back in Mayuge………God was working in hearts in a larger geographic area than we could have imagined. Word had filtered out that there was an American nurse and praying Mzungus (white people) at Roberts home. The following is an entry from Barbara’s journal……..
What an amazing day this was – God’s Holy Spirit was moving very powerfully in several situations. One of the men in another village arrived carrying his son in his arms. The child, he said, was about 2 years old but he was “sick in the brain” since birth. He’d heard the “mzungus” were here in the village and he brought his son to us to see if we could help him. The child was moving his head constantly and the father said he had seizures like epilepsy – he’d never spoken or learned to walk, but he appeared to be well cared for and loved in spite of his disabilities. Inside, my heart was just breaking for this little one – there was no pill I could give him or bandage I could apply. May heart cried out to God, “What can I do for this baby?!” I felt so helpless…but God spoke to my heart, “Pray for him.” I asked the father if we could pray for his son and he agreed. We gathered around him and laid hands on him and prayed to the Great Physician for a healing touch for this precious baby…..
In this land where life is so hard, sometimes all we can do is simply pray. I still cry for this baby and know that God sees my heart.
After we prayed, we went over to the matatu (van) to get some supplies and as we turned around there were several of the people from the village standing there – they were wanting us to pray for them also. There were two women with what appeared to be Yaws on their legs caused by a parasite that burrows under the skin forming knotty looking furrows just under the skin. One of them was very pregnant and she asked for prayer for her unborn baby.
A man asked for prayer for his wife who had had 8 miscarriages. A woman wanted prayer for chest pain. A grandma showed us her abdomen where she had a nasty looking abscess – we told her that she needed to see a doctor – I don’t know if she will but we prayed for her too. There is so much need here – I feel I have so little to offer to help them – there is so little I can do with my pitiful, tiny first aid kit……but I can pray!
One of the men said the grandma told him there was great power in the white mzungu prayer, though it’s the power of the One we pray to! Thank you Jesus!!!!