Medical Camp

All I need is you Lord, is you Lord

Wednesday we were headed out to the village I was so excited because I was going to spend time with my family out there and give them their remaining Christmas gifts. We got out there and set up our tents- everyone set up inside the church but we knew better so we set up outside underneath the mango tree (we meaning Dylan, Myleigh, and I). Hannah stayed behind because her sister was surprising her and coming here to spend a couple if days with her something we have been planning since October! Anyway we have a group of five nurses out here with us who were excited to set up this medical camp- they immediately started a open wound care and treatment. Everyone was out there Almost all of our staff and volunteers- it was an all hands on deck kind of week. Not only were we having a children's medical clinic but we were also having registration for our new primary school Empower academy primary school so when we arrived in Zirobwe we found many people who had been waiting at great lengths of time to see us. Next week we are going to start employee interviews. I am so excited to see The Lord doing big things in this community. I had gifts for my family so Christine and I snuck away from our jobs for a few minutes so I could give them the gifts and she was going to translate for me. As a side note I just want to say I love that girl she is such an encouragement to me and she is everything I am not she and I are going to be friends even long after I return to the states. Anyway I was so happy to see everyone out there I was quickly greeted with many Muwala Wamusumba calls from all over and too many hugs to even count. I was so so happy to be back. Back home. Back where the people I love are at. Back where I am comfortable. Back where I am so loved and cherished. I gave my fam their gifts and they were so thankful they offered me bananas and jack fruit which is a huge pokey looking green fruit and you cut it open and it looks like guts you peel off a chunk and take the big seed out of it. It fills your stomach rapidly. The gave me a huge piece so I ate as much as I could and than handed it back to the kids and offered it to them. I was also given a sugar cane which I love! The next day we started the medical camp Myliegh Dylan and I were on the dispensing table counting pills and filling up liquid meds and really just doing anything the nurses told us to do. We had a pediatrician who was hired to come out and prescribe since the nurses cannot. He is a pastors kid too so we had fun getting to exchange stories about growing up. Funny that it is the same here as anywhere. We ran a children's program in the evening- I don't think I have ever used that much energy. It was my first program back and I. Had so much fun with it!!! It was a long day and we say about 100 children the first day. When we got into our tent after the long day we anticipated that we would be exhausted from the first day but all three of us found that we could not sleep. Now what I am about to explain is very difficult to put into words so bear with me and please know it was 10x worse then how it sounds. Haha. It was 11:30pm and we heard a bullfrogs croak right next to our tent which startled us all ten minutes later was foot steps coming towards our tent so we got very quiet and listened the ground was covered with the papyrus mats and we heard the crunch of someone stepping onto the mat followed by the rustle of the tin on the Sunday school shelter. What seemed to be an eternity of time was wrapped up in a matter of minutes. We were unsure of what the escape plan would be this could be anyone from--the town drunk with a hatchet in his hands to a small child looking for shelter for the night to an animal Myliegh got her phone and tried to call Nina to call be on to come out to our tent and help us go inside the church because by this time we were terrified. Every time she got a hold of Nina the phone would die before we could explain what was going on. Then an animal scurried across the mats freaked us out even more. So we sat there trusting to decide which one of us would be brave enough to look and see who or what was outside our tent so we could move it closer to the church ourselves. My finally mustard up the courage to look out she did a quick peak and it seemed as if we were fine and set to go on moving it. In our pajamas we all quickly got out of the tent (just an FYI we have two mattresses and all of our bags in this tent so it's not as light as a feather) and started carrying across our property I was in the back with the bags and the girls were guiding me there was lots of light in the sky from the full moon above us. So we finally get it closer and get back into the tent and sit there everything we are wearing and even the sheets on the mattresses are now covered in dirt. Coming to the conclusion that none of us were going to be able to sleep after that I pulled out some glow sticks and we began sharing random stories trying to take our minds off of every little sound the went past our tent. Pit is about 1:15am at this point and we here this god awful noise almost sounded like a baby elephant. So we wanted to get. A better look at what it was then it made the noise again each time making this noise it seriously sounded like a dying animal of some sort. So I had to go to the bathroom so bad because I had been holding it since we heard the bullfrog so we get out to see what it was and I went to the bathroom and it was somewhat dark but I looked to my right and I saw a huge shadow of what looked somewhat like a cow bull looking thing. So we quickly find our way back to the tent and within 1 minute it was up against our tent the three of us huddled to the middle and were holding onto each other for dear life. This was one of the most terrifying things ever what if has horns what if it just decides to walk right into our tent and step onto us. It walked all the way around our tent then started to walk away as soon as it was fare nought we made a run for it towards the door into the church we ended up bringing our mattresses into the church and just slept on the floor of the church no mosquito net or covering if any kind it was worth it to know I was going to sleep great. Once we were all settled in we started hearing rat noises. We didn't sleep at all. Needless to say we moved our tent into the church the next morning. The next day we had another great turn out for the medical camp we saw another 200+ kiddos in the afternoon I walked over to. Lukas house to check on the kids because shakira and mama Luka had headed to Kampala to see shakiras dad. I knew that Rita would be the one cooking so I got over there and played with the kids but I found Rita peeling sweet potatoes and helped by the two year old who was also peeling with a butcher knife. When Rita saw me she ran inside and brought me a bowl of bananas and we chatted and the other kids were swinging in the back yard. Frank rode his bike over because he was on his way to fetch water. I hopped on his tall bike and rode it back to the church with his help because I couldn't even reach the pedals. It was such a great week and I would love to do it again in a heartbeat minus the scary night.