Uganda Prayer Update #4 (sent 2/3/08)

Oliotia! (Hello and how are you?)

I've been practicing my Luganda.. but I'm still not very good. I'm getting really excited for our trip to Tanzania in just a week and a half. We are working through a few logistical issues, but for the most part all our preparations are going as planned. Another team from our office left for Kapchorwa (eastern Uganda) on Monday, so you can pray for them as they are working on a large water distribution plan. One of the team members on that trip is Ian Pringle who was an intern with me in Colorado last semester. It was really encouraging to see him again and be reminded of all the fun and growth that we experienced last sememster. I also wanted to share a cool story with you, it happened a while ago, but we've had some power issues recently.

One day, Chad, Zach, and I went on a site visit to a ministry called Sufficiency of Scriptures (SOS). They want to build a theological school on some property they recently aquired about 3 hours north of Kampala and to help the immediate needs of the community, they also want to have a primary school because there isn't one within 5 kilometers and there are a number of children that don't have the means to go there. Because of the number of organizations requesting eMi's services, a full team won't be able to go out until September at the earliest, so our job was to get a preliminary GPS survey of the site and help them decide where to build the staff houses and infrastructure so that they can begin to live on the site and the eMi team will have a place to stay while they do their work. After we had walked around most of the site, we were walking down the road back to where our lunch was and there were a number of families on the other side of the road. I was contented to wave and say a quick hello to the people, but Shannon, the director of SOS went in to each yard and shook hands with all the family and talked in broken Luganda. He noticed that one of the little girls (named Betty) had something in her ear and through the help of a translator heard that she had been having pus come out of her ear and he asked the mother if he could take her to a doctor and bring her back in a few days. After making this clear and discussing it with the father, it was agreed that we would stop by to pick her up on our way out. We then continued along the road and many of the children, including Betty's brother Patrick. After finishing lunch and a bit more looking around the site, we stopped by and picked up Betty and Shannon also asked if Patrick could come too. Betty was assigned to my lap, since I was the only woman on the trip and she eventually fell asleep (see picture). It turned out to be just a really bad infection and she was taking medication for it. Shannon is headed back up there today and will see how she is doing.

It really touched my heart how committed to that community Shannon is and how quickly he was willing to do everything in his power to help this little girl. It is encouraging to see God's love in the people eMi serves and I hope that God will continue to grow this compassion within my heart for the people around me.

Please pray for:

1. Betty that she would be healed and feel the love of God
2. Shannon that he and his family would continue to be filled with God's love and serve this community.
3. the eMi team in Kapchorwa, that they would be unified and able to finish the large water system plans.
4. the logistics and prepartions for our trip to Tanzania and spiritual preparation for the team.
   

In His grace,
Heather