Quite a few stories for you this week so feel free to pick and choose what you want to read :)
License Update
Thank you for your prayers on this as well! As of Wednesday, I still had not heard from the Ministry of Health on this issue and AIM decided that I should stop treating children until I had my license. So the head teacher and I went down to the Ministry of Health today to sort things out. Found out to finish the registration process with Uganda it will cost $200 (we were initially told $100), plus I will still have to pay about $40 for my license. The good news is as soon as I pay the $200 and bring back the receipt to the Ministry of Health I am cleared by them to work. However, new prayer request is that I will only have to pay the licensing fee once. They want me to buy a license now that expires at the end of December and then a new one for next year. Please pray that I can get around that extra cost.
Christmas Songs are Already Being Sung and Jesus' love is being shared
Thursday I was in the PT room catching up on some paperwork when a few of the girls came in and requested to play a game. Sumaya and I have played Chutes and Ladders in therapy so we decided to play that game. First of all, Sumaya has very little use of her hands so she bends over picks up the dice with her mouth and rolls it that way. Well this smart little girl figured out that she could move the dice in her mouth to where she could feel the six dots with her tongue and gently set it down that way. After the 3rd 6, I realized she had found a way to cheat! You had to be there, but here is this little girl who has so little control of her body and yet she is so intelligent just has a hard time expressing it because of her physical disability. After we finished the game, Sumaya asked if we could read a book too, and insisted on reading the children's Bible. The students could not decide on reading about Mary or Jesus so we started with reading the Christmas story. We then started talking about Christmas traditions in Uganda, and eventually started singing some Christmas songs together. It was such a precious time with these 4 girls. They LOVE Bible stories, so we read many more together that afternoon. One of my favorite Bible stories that I shared with Sumaya earlier this week is when Jesus healed the blind man in John 9. "His disciple asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" " Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his Life." (vs 2-3). In many countries it is not understood what causes disability and it is so important to me that these kids know that they too are made in the image of God and can glorify him with their lives.
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| In case you forgot, this is Sumaya, she was one of the first children I fell in love with at the school |
Back in August when I went to my orientation with AIM, I roomed with this wonderful girl Julie from Texas. She just arrived 2 weeks ago and is working at a nurse with a partner organization called Good Shepherd's Fold in Jinja, Uganda. She had been at the orphanage for less than 24 hours when she was asked to take 2 children to the emergency room in Kampala. This worked in my favor as I then got to go visit with her and little Richard at the hospital last Sunday. If you would like to read more about Julie's experience in Uganda so far her blog is: http://becausehesaidgom28.blogspot.com/
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| Julie with Richard at SAS clinic |
I had a wonderful phone date with Anna Wicklund last night and she said that I needed to add some pictures of the geckos that live in my house..... and torment me. Sadly I fear these little creatures, but would prefer to live with them then mosquitoes. The baby one made it into my bedroom and then into my bathroom! I feared going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and squashing him so I caught him and put him in the other room of my house. (Sadly I did not put him OUTSIDE because although I fear them... I like that they eat the bugs... and he is a baby so cant hurt to much!). However, the other day I went to pull out a plate and he had pooped on it!!!! Ugh.... so now he has been on my dishes too. Thankfully the really fat one that lives outside has stayed there..... him and I had a stare down yesterday as he was right above the doorway to my kitchen. Yes I do pray that he stays outside every time I see him. Who knew I would pray about geckos so often!
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| The baby one |
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| The medium one that came in sometime last night hiding behind my clock |
Meet Miriam
Miriam is a super sweet girl that is in the most advanced group. I do not work with her as she has no physical disability but she loves me anyways! Her current vocational training is tailoring. She was so proud to show me the pair of shorts that she is working on right now. Let me tell you, these kids may have learning disabilities but all of the kids studying tailoring can sew far better than I ever will! (further example below) I had to take pictures of her this week because she had taken 2 star stickers from me and made them into earrings :) She was so proud of them. She has the most beautiful smile, but kept wanting to pose like a model so I couldn't capture it!
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| Miriam with her earrings |
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| Her modeling pose... which includes twitching her left eye.. not sure why but that is definitely part of her model look that she was going for |
Patricia is also in the older group, and the best way I can describe her is the mother of the younger children! One thing that constantly amazes me is how much these kids look out for each other. Patricia is always taking care of one and then scolding another! Below she is in a dress that SHE MADE! How awesome is that! I love that they are teaching these children practical skills. She looked so smart (how you say you look nice in Uganda) that we had to take a picture! And we tried to find a good spot by the banana trees... although you cannot really see them.
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| Patricia in her beautiful dress |
Bless is another child that I do not work with, but he is so bright! Almost every time i see him he is sitting in a desk outside his classroom working on his mat. That is his vocational activity for his group, the kids string yarn onto a mat to make kind of like a shag rug type mat. His are beautiful! Even in his free time you can find him working on them. Well, in the rain last week he decided to work on making a toy instead. The children in Uganda are constantly amazing me as to what they find to play with as most of them have no toys. Bless made this pull toy out of all things he found around the school, and I think it is all plants including the string! I know he used a knife to carve holes in whatever he used for wheels.
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| Bless |
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| Bless' creation |
