Coats from Papa!

Salaam Takum!

This week started with a bit of disturbing news.  Remember when we had all that shooting in Yei and I said that the County Commissioner said that no one got killed?  Well, actually 150 were killed.  They were found floating in the river.  I was angry and sad for the entire day.  We then went to visit our Nuer friends at their refugee camp.  We brought them ALL of our left over jackets and 2 huge bags of sorghum and a giant box of soap.  We also prayed for them.  I was told that a couple of weeks ago two SPLA soldiers (Dinka) snuck into the camp to kill again.  They were caught and are now sitting in prison.  We continue to hear sporadic gunfire about once every two weeks or so.  And we continue to declare that Yei is a city of refuge.

We went on Monday and bought two bales of jackets which when opened yielded 178 jackets.  Don’t you know that God gives out of His abundance?  He brought us all this for only $360 USD.  What a steal!  The children were so ecstatic.  No one complained, all were satisfied with their chosen jacket.  That’s hard to do with 130 kids!  I actually let the teenagers pick their own so that made it all easier for me.  Me?  I’m still wearing Michele’s old sweatsuit type jacket which is no good in the rain.  One day I will get a raincoat J

Last week we sent our pastor and one of our girls to Kampala to have surgery.  The doctor found a big mass in her groin that was severely infected, causing pain all the way into her hip.  He was able to get it all out and test it to find no cancer.  Yay Jesus!  I told my pastor to take her to my favorite restaurant in Kampala and to get her anything on the menu and to for sure get ice cream.  This was her first ever taste of ice cream.  It is now her new favorite food.  She has returned to us on Thursday and is walking on her own, although slowly, as the stitches need to do their work still.  She is pain free for the first time in months.  I am so happy for her.  That was a $2,000 setback for our finances but God….  He always takes care of us.

Another one of our girls, Hadiya, who is 16 fell as she was riding a bicycle.  She doesn’t remember anything about the accident so it is a mystery to us.  She had a severe concussion so we rushed her to the hospital.  I mean we raced and bumped over dirt roads and we were singing and praying at the very top of our voices to keep her awake.  I was even making a siren sound for the in town driving.  I know people thought we were loony.  Hey, whatever it takes.  Hadiya responded to nothing.  We were slapping her arms, nothing.  We pinched her, nothing.  We did the sharp object poke and the pen to the bottom of her feet, nothing.  That’s how bad it was.  There are no CT scan machines here so all we could do was pray and wait.  Her face was swollen.  We left scripture playing continuously on the Ipod next to her ear and later we played worship music.  She lay there unresponsive for about 15 hours.  Then she came to herself and sat up.  What a glorious day it was – whew!  She is now home again.

Bill, who is one of our full time missionaries, gathers the boys every morning before school for a 15 minute pep talk about going out as men of God each day.  I love it!  We really needed a mentor for these boys and Bill is amazing with them.  I have an incredible crew with Bill and Danielle.  Thank you God!  Oh and Habibi our resident monkey.  We have gotten so attached to her, even the mamas.  I give her mango juice and guava juice and peanuts and dates and all her favorite treats so she tends to follow me around much of the time.  I am always so amazed at how much personality she has.  She makes certain noises for certain situations and she does her eyebrows and eyes this way too.  She eats out of our hands while holding our fingers to keep it steady.  On the other hand she is a little imp.  She will come into my house and hop up on a table and look at me and then the door and then grab a pen and make a mad dash for the door and when you get close to catching her she makes a screeching noise and acts like she will bite you (which doesn’t hurt).  It’s pretty hilarious.  She loves doing this so now I have to constantly watch her if she comes in.  If I don’t let her in she will sit at my screen door trying to figure out how to get in and making sad little noises.  How can I possibly resist that?  J

To end our week we received another child into our midst.  For reasons I don’t know she was sent home back in the days before I got here.  She is sixteen and was being abused by her stepmother being forced to do all of the work around the house, carrying water and firewood, sweeping the compound dirt, cooking, washing all their clothes…..  In America this wouldn’t be a big deal.  Here where everything is manual and so time consuming it is a lot of work.  And her stepmother beat her all the time if she moved too slow.  I know all this because my pastor lives next door to her.  He went to ask her father if she could come stay with us and he said yes.  Usually the biological parent loves the child but won’t do anything to stop the abuse for fear that the new wife will leave him.  This happens ALL the time.  They don’t understand the spirit of adoption for the most part because they don’t know the Lord.

Bless you all in the Name of Jesus!  Be blessed to be a blessing, however that may look in your neck of the woods.