Kwanjula and The Village

First of all, I apologize that my blog is late this week. I did not have internet for most of the week. Otherwise it was a very full week despite most of the kids at the school being gone. I attended Andrew Sisson's Kwanjula, visited the rainforest, visited an orphanage (more on that later when I spend more time there), and spent 3 days in a village helping distribute wheelchairs... oh and I worked 2 days at the school. LOTS of pictures this week

Kwanjula
For those of you who don't know, Andrew Sisson is my second cousin (I think) and he spent some time here in Kampala before I moved here. His fiance Phiona is from Uganda and has become a good friend of mine. It is traditional in Uganda to have a Kwanjula or Introduction Ceremony, to introduce the bride and the groom to each side of the family along with giving gifts to the brides family in order to have them accept the groom as a suitable husband for the bride.  The traditional dress in Uganda is a Gomez for women and a Conzu is traditionally worn by men.

Andrew and Phiona

With Andrew's friend Alexandra wearing our traditional gomez dresses

For most of the ceremony these 3 had to sit on a couch in front of the rest of us

The gifts Andrew had to give for Phiona..... it included 5 chickens, 20kg of sugar, the back leg of a cow, 5 cases of soda, many baskets of fruit, and I am not sure what was in the wrapped boxes

My favorite part of the ceremony... Andrew had to physically hand her brothers the 5 chickens

With Andrew and Phiona - Phiona wore a gomez to start and changed into a formal dress later

The Rainforest
On Wednesday, I spent some time with Andrew, Phiona, and their friend Jud. For the first time I drove outside of Kampala... and Uganda is BEAUTIFUL! There is definitely a reason it is called "the pearl of Africa". It ended up being a rainy muddy day (it is technically rainy season here), so we just drove to this resort in the Rainforest and had lunch before I went on to Jinja.

The road (sorry it is taken through the windshield)

Phiona and I walked a very long distance to find this pool behind us!

 Wheelchair Distribution in the Village
Two weeks ago, a good friend of mine here introduced me via e-mail to a man named Francis who distributes wheelchairs throughout Uganda. Trusting my friend I volunteered to meet Francis and his team in a district of Uganda called Budaka to help distribute wheelchairs.

The red dot in the middle is Kampala. The red dot to the right is where we traveled to

This was one of my favorite experiences in Uganda so far. They distributed 71 wheelchairs and 44 people said they accepted Christ as their Savior. I primarily worked with the small children that came and anyone with cerebral palsy. Most of my time was spent educating parents with a few exercises they could do with their child, explaining the disability to the parents, and making sure the parents knew that the child was loved by God. So many of the kids I saw appeared very malnourished... the only way you could tell that they were the age claimed by their parents was by their teeth... otherwise some of them looked years smaller. It also breaks my heart because I saw so many children with hydrocephalus.... hydrocephalus is when the head looks very large due to excessive fluid on the brain. This is easily treated with surgery, but it is hard for the families to come up with the money for it. I also saw many children with spina bifida which is preventable if the mother consumes enough folic acid during the early stages of pregnancy. (Spina bifida is a condition where the spinal cord does not form properly and usually leads to paresis of the lower extremities). I absolutely loved being able to use the opportunity to tell the parents that their child was beautiful as they were loved by God. Many people do not understand this as they think (or those around stigmatize them) as being cursed. Many of the older people that received wheelchairs have crawled for years to get around and were so incredibly thankful for the gift of a wheelchair.

Francis (the one who leads these trips) is disabled. He once was like many of the people we served in that he did not have a wheelchair and was forced to crawl on the ground to get from place to place. Francis' story is very empowering. If you would like to read more about him (everyone should) or support his ministry, their website is http://www.fathersheartmobility.org/#/about-us/mugwanyas.

Working with a small child that has difficulty holding up his head at the age of 1.

Francis (blue shirt at the table) getting information about one of the ladies that came for a chair

Francis' wife Adrien fitting a lady into a wheelchair

Working with a child with hydrocephalus, here I am trying to get her to watch the water bottle.... there was so much fluid on her brain it was inhibiting her ability to see

Three of the wheelchairs given away

This is a 16 year old girl who has cerebral palsy and VERY spastic (tight) muscles. She has been carried her whole life by her mother. She was so thankful for her own wheelchair

The distribution was at a school, and ALL of the children watched all day.... this is maybe 1/10th of the kids

One of the kids was wearing a Zambrano t-shirt.... he kept running to tease me when I tried to take a picture.. but you can tell its a Cubs shirt. I was so excited!

As a thank you for coming, we were given a turkey..... this is Sam (one of the volunteers) tying to the roof of our car for the ride home.

In case you did not know... the source of the Nile river is in Jinja.... I was so excited.. I can now say I have seen the Nile!

One more additional note.... Saturday was World Aids Day. 7.3% of the population of Uganda is HIV positive. It was once at 30+% and was reduced to about 5.8%. It has recently started to increase again. They discussed this in church this morning saying the way to prevent HIV is A) Abstinence B) Be Faithful and C) Christ (I think Uganda's government says condoms... but Christ is ultimately what people need!). Please continue to pray for Africa though as the continent holds 14% of the world's population and 70% of the world's population that is HIV positive.

Thank you all so much for your support and prayers. I am so thankful for all of you. Everyday it is evident that I have a team of prayer warriors at home. God is so good, and He is working in Uganda!