As I am scratching my back as I am writing this, I am always aware of the mosquitoes here in Uganda. Malaria is really the biggest threat here, because it is life threatening, it kills more than AIDS. We have two boys with it right now, one is with a IV drip on an overnight stay at the clinic and the other one was caught in earlier stages and is on meds. It is a little strange with the symptoms (look it up on the web if you get a chance). Before you know it normally hits people like a ton of bricks. There are tests for it, but in the instance of the boy that is now on a drip, is that he tested negative the day before. He had an extremely high temperature last night as I had him in a cold bath trying to reduce his temperature of 104 plus along with meds. We have mosquitoes nets for the beds and I am sure that helps, but we have had several cases to deal with in the past few months.
I don't know if everyone realizes it or not, but we treat several children besides our "Own." We have several situations where there are students that we know who call us when they become very sick and have nowhere else to turn. We just recently came across a small baby that was left (dropped off) at our little village church, God's Revival Church, the one you have heard me talk of before. This baby was undoubtedly so sick that it would have been a sin for me to not do something. We had the pastors bring the baby to our clinic that we use for treatment. It was Malaria, we saved her life. I was on a Boda the other day and my driver hit a seven year old child! I ran back and the child is laying there, and thankfully I could hear him crying. No one knows where the mother or father were. I told some people that were gathering, if the parents come, we are taking him to Allied Clinic. We hopped back on the Boda and took him for treatment. Luckily it was a superficial wound to his face and he is going to be OK. But you know how face wounds are when they bleed a lot and the face is covered with blood and his lips were quivering because he was so scared? Yea it was a little frightening to say the least. The Boda driver is a friend for life now. He is one of my regulars and when he found that I took care of the medical bill he was quite relieved, because he could not have afforded it, and it could have become nasty to say the least, well maybe you heard some stories.
The point I am making without trying to advertise our good deeds, is this: Our ministry is a bigger than just the Door of Hope Families, we do outreaches and evangelism and community service as our normal activities. But when we are confronted with someone who is sick, hungry or ill, we have to do as we are told in Matthew 25: 31-46 (The sheep and the goats).
We need funding for us to continue to take care of these needs when they arise. Because whenever we are confronted with these situations, we do what needs to be done right now to take care of someone in need. The bible doesn't tell us to check the budget to see if we can afford to do something. If Jesus can do loaves and fishes then He should be able to help us stretch some beans an posho. If we see a sick child or someone in need we can't decide that someone else will come along, because here, the chances are pretty slim that someone else will come along, and they will die. The good thing is this, for about ten US dollars I can get a lot of treatment, it goes far here.
This is just the simple truth of what we are dealing with. The average life expectancy is just in the mid forties. Do you realize what brings that average so low? It is childhood deaths. It is real here, our children have heard of a few schoolmates dieing this year and that is just hard to understand. We pass by the coffin makers periodically and you should see the child size coffins in front of their shops. Yes it is sad! I watched one day when someone was purchasing a small coffin and it was the reality of the situation, the coffins were not just on display, people needed to buy them.
Lord we ask for your help to do what you asked us to do.
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