Africa, God is moving in Africa.

Hey guys!

We've been doing going and going and going, finally we're able to catch up with you!

It's the end of Saturday, and we are currently listening to a Ugandan wedding reception that's being held on the lawn where we are staying. It's so festive and lively!

Our days have been filled with de-worming and medical clinics! On Tuesday in Jjakulara, we held our first clinic. What we do is take in a certain number of families in need of medical assistance, check up on their vitals (i.e. temp, blood pressure, and heart rate), then send them to a volunteer doctor to prescribe what they need. From there, a big group of our team works in the "pharmacy" to hand them out their free medicine. We also handed out de-worming pills, along with biscuits, candy, and crayons and coloring pages to the children. Those who weren't being tended to or working in the medical center played outside with the children waiting. Soccer was a huge hit! At that clinic, we tended to 125+ families.

Wednesday, we went to tour the Sanyu Baby Orphanage, which is currently taking care of about 44 babies ranging from months old to a few years old. We were able to feed the children their lunch of matooke (mashed plantain) and milk. Afterward, we helped them change and put them down for their afternoon naps. It was an interesting experience for the group of us who had no previous hands-on experience with babies! But a great experience at that. From the Orphanage, we went over to hand out sweets and to pray for patients in the Mulago Hospital in downtown Kampala. Being a free hospital, it was very minimal in hospitablity, but it was apparent that every patient was more than thankful to be there. We were also able to visit those in the Burn Ward- Uganda has a high rate of people who are burned due to the fact that fires are used in place of electricity, which is present in only 4% of the country. It definitely brought some of us to tears to be there. We also got to walk around the indoor mall called Garden City, and actually met a Muslim girl who accepted Jesus into her heart upon hearing 2 of our team's testimonies.

Thursday, we were introduced to the students that attend the school that is sponsored by the ministry we're working with. 45 families are sponsored in total. The kids put on a performance for us involving lots of dancing and singing to songs that they had written. We passed out outfits that we brought from the US to the students. Each girl recieved a dress, and the boys recieved shirts and pants. Later, we headed over to the Acholi Quarters; the place where the Acholi people have found refuge from the war that went on in Northern Uganda. There we passed out de-worming pills and got to know the people. The man in charge of helping us with the Acholi people actually worked for the organization, Invisible Children, that has helped improve life for those involved with the war.

Friday, HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY TO BRIANNA!!!! We woke up to a major thunder & lightening storm- it gave us cool temperatures for the rest of the day. We traveled over to a part of the city called Mengo, to visit the "Uganda Jesus Village." Little did we know upon arriving that the 60 kids who live there (who have escaped from the town of Gulu in the North) were still recovering from a terrible previous month. A couple of days before Christmas, the corrupt management in charge of the village, sent all of the children back to their homes. Most of them went back to living conditions so bad that they were living off of grass as food, and one of them had no guardian to be taken care of by, so he was living under a tree. The 2 Canadians in charge came to Uganda to rescue them- 57 out of 62 were able to come back. The last bus of them had come back only just a few days ago. It was a reminder of how real the war still is for us all. We spent the rest of the day at a church close by, putting on a medical clinic, where we tended to about 250 people.

Today, (finally!) we went to a slum area of Kampala to spend the whole of the day tending to people at a medical clinic. We saw 130 families who needed medicine for all sorts of ailments ranging from one child who clocked in at a temperature of 105 (we assume Typhoid fever) to children who had to be sent to the hospital to be treated for Malaria because they were close to dying. This slum area is home to the Uganda Hands for Hope (look it up on Facebook!), a place that sponsors children for preschool and reading development. Afterward, the head of the organization, a British man named Joseph, took us to some of the homes that his sponsored children live in. The homes we saw were about 9 by 11 feet long, had no lighting, were hot, and were made of mud and scraps. Not only do they live in bad housing, but they also live near a sewage pipe that floods the lower areas of the slum. Some days, parts of the village are up to three feet in water.

We have all been seeing and learning so much, it's hard to take in at such a fast pace, but we are enjoying every moment of it. Tomorrow is finally a rest day- we will attend church, visit the New Creation Home, and go to the African Market to buy authentic gifts!

We are thinking of you all, and hoping you are doing the same. Pray, pray, pray!

God Bless :]