Finally Have internet Access!

Feb. 2nd.

We made it to Kabale! It was a really long bumpy day in that van, but what a great way to travel this country. John, Charles and Richard (with his pick –up truck), started a few hours later. Our customs expeditor, Jimmy, apparently “didn’t get to” our remaining solar panel the day before, so it was still in customs. Making a very long story, short, they were able to get the panel and join us a little later at the White Horse Inn, Kabale.


We off-loaded the gear into our hotel rooms and enjoyed a late dinner together followed by some worship/reflection time. All of us agreed upon how easy it is to get overwhelmed by the crushing need you see every where you look. It was a non-stop, 9-hour theme as we rode in the van to Kabale. Every where you looked for as far as you could see, it was rock-bottom subsistence living. Every member of every family was hand digging the earth, clearing out a new section of jungle to farm or sun-drying a few bushels of bean crop on an old blanket from the mat that is their bed.

One of the team who rode in the pick-up truck shared a story on himself that certainly could have been any one of us. Once you are well out of Kampala and on the road to Kabale the consistent scattering of self-made rural homes begin to thicken again into small trading centers that support everyone within a walking distance of many square miles.

Well-worn dirt foot paths wind their way like spider legs along ridge line and valley toward each of these trading centers. Shanty towns, a fraction of what we’ve seen in the city, grow again behind the battered store fronts that line the road at the trade center. The number of people walking in the dirt along the edge of this narrow highway grows dramatically at these centers. Traffic slows and many van loads and buses of travelers pull off for a break.

At the larger of these centers there are what appear to be swarms of young men cooking meat on wood sticks over rows of smokey grills. I would assume the meat is beef, goat, chicken or pig. There are herdsmen and farmers of this livestock all along the road, by God’ grace we have not hit any of them as we barrel past on the bus. Any traveler, who has become sick after eating food from a road side vender, would not consider this a meal worth the risk.

The unusual thing about this form of road side vending is that they try to sell you this meat through the car windows if you so much as slow down. If one person in a bus-load of people signals that they want to buy some meat, tens of men, each with as many sticks as they can carry try to be the person that makes the transaction with that individual. Failing that, it’s a hard push to try to entice the others in the vehicle.

The team person admitted, for the benefit of everyone, that he made a seemingly innocent comment, naturally seeing a little humor in all the commotion—apparently Richard just smiled and in his gentle way said “they are just trying to survive.” The raw reality of the scene and Richards words set in hard for us all. It was a scene we all had shared separately along this road; it is about survival here—overwhelming and beyond our scope, except for a few orphans, in a small village, at the end of this battered and buckled highway.

This same evening, John read the famous passage about the gracious entertainment of strangers…as you never know when you are entertaining an Angel. He said the passage came to him as he saw the cherubic smiles and excited waves of the many 3, 4 and 5 year olds playing much too close to the road. I saw them too, some of them actually tottering though the tall grass with a stick in hand to herd a few goats left in their charge. All of them smiled, all of them waved, very happy to see us--yet not a bit surprised--Angles monitoring our progress, every one.

Feb. 3rd.

If you are going to Ikamiro, Kabale is where the pavement ends and it’s an hour of rutted, washboard dirt that winds through some of the most beautiful mountainous foothills you’ve ever seen. It is Sunday, this day of our arrival and we are excited and apprehensive at the same time. We stopped along the way to pick up Richard and Generous, in her home village of Muko, just before you reach Ikamiro. Their youngest, Josiah, was baptized today so everyone was looking mighty “smart” in their Sunday finest.

We arrived in Ikamiro to an amazing amount of fanfare. Every angel we saw along the road must have flown in for the day, because they were all there, laughing and running along side the van. Christopher drove right up to the front door of the beautiful Anglican Church. It overlooks a green patch-worked valley, with a lake filling the bottom and giving visual depth to each fold of the many ridgelines dropping down to form bays and headland points into the distance.

You can’t believe the setting nor will you believe the scene. It seemed everyone from every ridge and valley for miles turned out to warm our greeting. We learned later at lunch that attendance had more than doubled for the event of our arrival. A teaming sea of smiles, hand shakes and hugs as we were ushered into the simple and perfect sanctuary. The teachers from the local schools graciously hosted our visit, translating from their local dialect into English and Helping us to anticipate what was about to happen next.

Row after row of wooden benches creaked with over capacity as attendees poured out of the doors out the glass-less windows and into the grounds around the church. It was time to start, and the greetings turned, temporarily, to more solemn nods and smiles. It was the calm before the storm.

As we had been warned the service was 3 or 4 hours long, but I don’t think any of us noticed the time as we were swept along in a very moving and joyous celebration. There was singing and drumming along with both planned and spontaneous dancing. The people were so welcoming, introducing each one of us and giving us each a gift of local craft. Dance teams from the local schools gave special performances of traditional praise and celebration. One of the teams, visited from the local school that had received the blackboards.

Lucy was honored as God parent to Josiah for his baptism. She also read scripture and gave a wonderful sermon of our work in partnership with the local community. The team could not have been more proud of her accept maybe her parents, John and Sue.

Richard stood and said a few words in our behalf generating spontaneous drum beats, clapping and song.

Both John and Sue were also asked to say a few words, and they presented the signed Bible and Hymnal carried from Memorial Presbyterian to be left here in their sanctuary as a symbol of love and partnership from us.

Charles Bash, presented the church with a beautiful set of alter linens from his home church St. Johns Episcopal in Midland.

After the service, we walked down the hill to the new medical clinic for a tour of the freshly painted new building. Richard proudly drove his pick-up, parting the crowd as he carried the new vaccine refrigerator closer to the clinic. Teams of young locals made short work of moving frig. Solar panels and batteries into the clinic for set up this week.

The team enjoyed a beautiful lunch with the elders and Pastor Julius in his near-by residence. Soon we were off again to meet with Father Bruno of the local Catholic Church in Muko.

They just don’t make words to describe the emotional waves of love, joy, and thanks giving we shared together with this congregation. The shear power of it made tears well up even in these dry old eyes. God is great—and as in one of many songs Generous lead the congregation through, “things are already getting betta”.

Feb. 4th

Monday, the hands on work with our partners finally began today. The team divided into smaller groups and worked in different parts of the two neighboring villages, Ikamiro and Muko. It was also the day, where the “honeymoon was over” for an emotionally and physically tired Midland team. There was much accomplished on all fronts but each of us had any number of set backs, surprises and derailments of plans. At our regroup this evening, John and Sue’s leadership got us through some wrong assumptions and miscommunications that had us all a little peeved with each other. But tonight it was our medical team that needed propping up. It was a day of much more than they had bargained for.

John, David and Charles headed for the new clinic and began the work, with local volunteers, to install the solar power refrigerator and run wire for the clinic lighting through the attic. The lighting will be powered by a bank of three large batteries that will be charged by the solar panels on the roof. Much was accomplished for the day here thanks to the help of so many from the village. Once again the whole town seemed to turn out to help and/or watch the journey of electrical power coming to Ikamiro for the first time. Unfortunately, a certain amount of room to work needed to be maintained, so many would-be helpers had to settle for observing from a distance.

Sue, Lucy and Doug spent a grinding day, making progress with our local “Save Our Situation” partners, developing the details for a pilot orphan sponsorship program. There is so much still to do and already we see our time here speeding past.

The little building just up the hill from the new clinic worksite is the place where an existing clinic is still in operation, such as it is. There was a significant communication problem and apparently word got out that a doctor would be in town all week to see them. The team knew and thought we had communicated ahead of time that Rick and Linda would not be licensed to practice medicine in Uganda. They were going to observe how the clinic is run today, and see what kind of ailments typically come through the door. They are also working to find and meet regulatory officials to help us find our way to having a fully functional, accredited and certainly, legal clinic. They also hope to meet our first pilot group of orphans and begin a basic record on them with height and weight, etc.

Unfortunately, everyone with an ailment, many very serious, got themselves to the clinic this day. By all appearances many had literally dragged themselves for miles to see the American Doc. Rick, Linda and the local assistant nurse, Anna were just buried in the desperation and hope of a packed clinic with more people waiting out side on the grass. “Finally a doctor to see them from the United States, surely they can help me with my daughter who is not recovering from malaria, this crippling arthritis, club feet, broken limbs that were not properly set, downs syndrome, congenital heart defects…”

In the end it was a gut wrenching experience. Even if they would have had a laboratory for tests, vaccines and medicines, they had no credentials to diagnose or for referrals to other medical facilities in Kabale. Some of what they saw is readily treatable in the United States and certainly here as well, but only if you can afford to get yourself to where the medical care is, and pay for treatments—a real show stopper for the people here.

If they had attempted to diagnose and treat people, they ran the risk of having the clinic shut down all together at best, or time in a Ugandan prison at worst. Having to explain this to village leaders who would lose face over this disappointment was definitely a set back in the relationship. Explaining it to the bewildered eyes of truly suffering people, who had waited all day, is emotionally crushing beyond description.

With the assistant nurse they did what they could, but the day raced along and it was soon time for the van to leave for the trip back to Kabale. Two medical professionals with full careers of helping people had to turn and leave these poor souls, and with people calling out to them, get on the bus.
Dear God, help is coming, it just can’t be today.

Feb. 5th

Just got internet connetion for the first time since in Kabale. Sorry this was so long in coming. Great news today. We have the solar pannels up with one wired and working! More later.