falling in love with AFRICA

Pray for Oscar! He has a fever tonight!













Its been a few of days since I've been able to blog and I'm trying to remember what all has happened here at the orphanage.

I taught the kids the story of Noah with an online book thing where the things on the page move but you still read it out loud and they LOVE that! they call it a movie and they ask me to watch another "movie" on my computer now all the time! then for a craft we took paper plate and cut them in half and drew rainbows on them or boats with all the animals on them! Thank God for giving me a creative mind the past couple of days. Haha i feel like i have just been pulling craft ideas out of no where!


I brought a bunch of Kids Answers Magazine pull outs for the kids. They are great! They have information on the out side of them that kids can understand about how God created the world (literally-like it says in Genesis) and He created animals! And the inside is a big poster picture of the animals that its talking about! So I did one on butterflies! After the short little lesson we got pipe cleaners and made butterflies out of them but after that I said that they can make anything they want out of them so they made glasses and watches and necklaces. We had so much FUN!

Jerom and Cocus looking at butterflies

Emma and Jerom

Don and Oscar

Fauziya

Carol

Me and Carol

Jerom climbing into my lab :)

All the kids and I'm in there somewhere too!

Everyone except Joshua!

The next day I did the lesson on whales! My personal favorite animal :) and they were amazed! I showed them youtube videos of the dolphin show at Sea World. They could not believe it! They had no idea about whales. They only knew about fish. when they saw how big they were they said "auntie Jess-ka I fear them!" but I assured them that whales are friendly! Now all the kids love the whales and they cannot put down the magazine poster of all the different kinds. Me and Oscar both like orca the best!

 Before all of the whale fun I went shopping with Auntie Esther, Moses, and Momma Sara! It was so fun! They have some big stores called ShopRite but for the vegetables and fruits and rice we go to the local market! Ugandans are so nice to everyone especially Mzugu (white people) so everyone was calling me sister and friend and calling me over to talk with them. One man even asked me to marry him! Haha I said no I'm sorry. and he laughed really hard. So yes they are so nice! And it was fun to see Auntie Esther in action! She is such a good bargainer!

Avocados!

At the market!  Its so crowded!

Today I actually got to go to work for one of Sara's friends who has an American team of 24 people! They are doing medical clinics for two weeks and today I helped them out with their first one! It was nice to speak to people that I could understand :) Also I got a taste of what it is like to be a missionary nurse. I love it so much! We set up inside a church in the slum part of Kampala and then we got to see around 450 patients! It was an all day kind of thing! So awesome!

This was the pharmacy area

This is the Optometry station. We would test eyes and give out reading glasses. I got to work here too for an hour or so and I got to pray for many of the patients :)

This is the vitals station where I mainly worked! I took blood pressures, Heart Rates and Temperatures before they saw the doctors and listened to heart and lung sounds of the children.

This baby is Gabriella. Her lung sounds had coarse crackling :( Pray for her

This is Ingnasious. Please pray for him! I took his vitals and he had a golf ball sized mass on his tongue and he gets surgery tomorrow. Pray for the doctors for wisdom and that his surgery goes well.

This is baby Silaman. I think that's how you spell it! He is so cute!

I also worked the de-worming station. A lot of the kids have worms because they don't wear shoes but they play in the mud all the time. Young babies will sit in the mud with no parents in sight and just eat mud all day. We gave them chewable pills, sweets, coloring pages and then played lots of games with them.

The clinic was an awesome experience! I think I will get to do it again with another nursing student who is volunteering at Rafiki. There are 5 other volunteers coming tomorrow. What a blessing! Please pray that they are creative, are full of energy and that we all mesh well as a team to help the people and orphans of Uganda!

Here are just some random pictures to make up for the day's that I haven't gotten to blog!

Uncle Moses and the kids

Annet and Carol brushing their teeth!
Annet is such a hilarious girl! Very moody sometimes but she
makes me laugh so hard some times when
her and Brenda get started they just feed off one
another's goofy-ness!

My girls and Emma brushing teeth. Definitely one of my favorite times of the night! Everyone gets so hyper! Myself included.

 One night Moses brought me a blanket
and a pot and told me to put them on
because I am becoming a true African woman

My African Mommy Monica! She takes such good
care of me!

More fun with pipe cleaners - i love this stuff! its been entertainment for days!

 

I went to church yesterday! It's called Watoto church. Its pretty famous I think. The whole service is in English so that was awesome I didn't get any good pictures or videos of it this week though. The worship is very similar to ours but we did sing some African songs too. Everyone there moves their bodies while singing and are not afraid to show emotions on their faces. It was really awesome I can't wait to go back!

 

I took everyone to school with Godfrey and then cleaned all of the window bars. They get very dirty from dirt on the street or from wind because all the windows and doors are open all the time! It seems like a lot of things never get completely clean. Especially the floors. We swept and mopped and washed the windows and brushed off the furniture. I like cleaning! I think it lets me feel productive because I can see my progress. Then I just relaxed with Mama Esther and Lois and we talked a long time.  And I played with the three youngest kids who don’t go to school yet. While Mama Lois gave the kids a lesson for the day I helped Uncle Moses with laundry. Moses taught me how to wash clothes by hand the way they do in Africa. He is so good at it! I was really not… But that’s ok he thought it was funny. 

 ...and here is me...attempting.

Then we hung out the clothes to dry on the lines out front and I learned that he is 20 years old just like me! And he is Joseph’s brother! So that makes him Sara’s brother in law. And Uncle Godfrey is Joseph’s brother too! I didn’t know before!  Moses goes to “campus” and he is majoring in Business and he does not like his accounting math class. I told him that I like math and he was so surprised and thought I was lying. Haha. He is really a funny guy!

 

Here are the kids running back home from school in their uniforms!

My beautiful Lois!

funny picture of Moses!

I got to skype with my mom and dad during nap time and it was very encouraging. I miss them a lot. They are so good at telling me what I need to hear. I’m so thankful that they supported me in coming to Uganda. I know the easy thing to do would’ve been to say no but they were faithful and trust in God to protect me and help me. Pray for them too though because I know it’s hard. This is Joshua in the Longhorn jersey (dad, you like him already don’t you!?) He is eight years old and very friendly to me. He likes to play lion with all the younger kids-meaning he is the lion and everyone else must run away or else get clawed. But he is very sweet and helps the younger kids with activities that are harder for them and he is an artist too! Next to Joshua is Joel. He likes to be in pictures so you guys will see more of him I’m sure.  He is five and really really sweet! These are the two oldest. Even though it was raining outside we were putting out the laundry to dry.

 I brought some foam sheets and markers and those foam sticker things! They had a blast!

Jerom

Esther

Carol

Don

Funny lion story for you – the first night when the power went off we played a game where each person takes a turn standing up and telling a really short story then sitting down and they clap and sing a little song then the next person goes. Well it was my turn and my story was “once upon a time I was flying in a plane with mamma Sara and baby Abby and I looked up and saw a huuuuuuge lion in the back of the plane and he ran up to me…(long dramatic pause)…and gave me a hug.” Anyway they couldn’t not stop laughing! They thought it was the most hilarious thing they’ve ever heard and I was almost embarrassed at how long it took them to quiet down haha so now they are always asking me about the lion I saw on the plane and making jokes. Little Carol who is 3 years old built me a plane out of Legos and pointed to my seat would be, mommy Sara’s seat and then the LION’s Seat! She thought it was so funny! 

 Me and Lois got some hang out time so we painted our nails! Who would’ve thought that nail polish could be such a blessing to her! I’m glad I thought to bring it. She only has one color and she said she is sick of it. When I brought out my bag of 11 different colors she almost fainted! Haha I’m glad to bring her such simple happiness. Later me and momma Esther and Lois and Monica will all do our nails together we already planned it! Here is a picture of Lois (she’s 18) and momma Monica. They are permanent staff at the Rafiki home and I’m so glad they are here!