What is a typical day like?



The new baby calf, a male named "Mwana."

When I was back visiting in the US, a question which I frequently got but always had a hard time answering is “What is a typical day like?” I am a missionary serving the in the Church of Uganda as Diocesan Health Coordinator. I work on many thing like preventative health education, assisting visiting medical teams, and help out in lots of other ways, but I still don’t feel I can answer that well since virtually every day is different. So, I thought I would go through what I did today. Constant variety makes life here interesting.  Description of my day is below the photos:




I raise goats, sheep, ducks and turkeys too.

Preventative health teaching--a mother
 teachs her daughter how to use a handwashing station
which I encourage people to build at home.

My milk cow--this photo is from before the
 baby, but now she has a great big pink udder hanging down.




Some students of my Practical Nutrition
class at the government Hospital



A planning meeting to prepare for holding clinical outreaches.

Woke up--my cell phone alarm goes off daily at 6:45. I drank hot cocoa of milk from my own cow. For breakfast, I ate Rice and Collard Green fritters. A strange breakfast, but I had been fixing it for dinner last night when the power went out. Rather than cook by flashlight I just ate a spiced bean paste sandwich (leftovers) and some of the greens. Since the fridge was cold from power earlier in the day, I put the made, but not cooked, fritters in the fridge and they made a good breakfast. I do end up eating some strange meals –with everything cooked from scratch and it being hard to store food you learn to be flexible. I did a quick check on my animals (one goat sick) and worked on building a stall separator to make a stall for the new baby calf. I attended morning devotions which we have weekdays at 8:30 at church headquarters then did a few minutes extra bible reading. Next, I assisted one of our small churches with fundraising invitations—they are trying to roof for their church, and they don’t even have a typewriter. It was fairly easy for me to run off of a bunch invitations on my computer, except that my printer was giving me lots of trouble. One of the rules of life here is, “everything breaks, all the time,” since virtually everything sold is the cheapest possible product available, so you’re constantly fixing everything. At noon, I attended a funeral for a nearby neighbor. She died yesterday, and last night my compound guard told me she had wanted to come to me to ask my assistance, but for whatever reason she didn’t come and I didn’t hear anything until she was already dead. Here a lot more people die, but she made it to an old age; she died in her 80’s and once your in your 40’s you’re considered “old.” After the funeral, I had phone calls with Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau and Joint Medical Stores and stopped by our medical clinic to work with them on getting some free essential drugs –thank you USAID! Then I took my little 90cc motorcycle to into town and picked up some ink and printer paper. I stopped at a hotel in town and had a late lunch—a delicious chicken coconut curry. It is usually a treat to eat meat/chicken/fish etc, as most of my food is vegetarian; keeping things safely cold is often a challenge. Next I made a quick run to an ATM and picked up some cash and bought some wormers and antibiotics for my animals at home. The rains were coming, so I rushed toward home—here pretty much everything stops for the rain since many of the roads get very difficult with thick mud. You also want to be home before dark for safety. On the way home, I stopped for a traffic accident (motorcycle/bicycle) to see if anyone was injured, but just some fairly minor abrasions, so I continued home. I stopped off briefly at the office, but couldn’t get in since someone’s key had broken off in the lock to enter the building and I couldn’t put my key in. Remember the “everything breaks, all the time” rule? Since it was after 5 nobody was around so that problem will have to wait. I headed home and still beat the rain, so I dewormed the sheep and goats. As I was deworming, my weekend night guard stopped by and told me his wife was sick with malaria and he needed some money for medicine. I gave him money to cover our clinic fees including medicine. I don’t want another funeral tomorrow. I normally lose power when it rains, but as I still have it, I thought I would write up this description. I’m planning some vegetable stew for dinner. Tomorrow I’ll likely work on some planning for our clinical outreaches, check on getting the drugs for the clinic, and meet with some clergy members. I should teach a class on Practical Nutrition at the Government hospital, but I currently have lost my voice (laryngitis) plus my translator will be out of town (his uncle died yesterday and he will be attending the funeral.) So, I’ll cancel tomorrow’s class. Don’t worry about me though, I’ll be fine, and I'm sure I will continue to find life here interesting and varied!

Challenging photo

I was looking through the photos on my computer today and I saw this photo I casually snapped of the bible and prayer book of a lay reader as they lay on a table at his house. My brother Paul saw this photo and commented, "A bible that is worn out probably indicates a soul that isn't."Are you using your bible?

"Carrot and Stick"

An old saying is in order to get someone to do something you should use both "a carrot and a stick." Well, the only "stick" I use is firewood, but I sure do use carrots. Sub-Saharan Africa very commonly has vitamin A deficiency and in Masindi it used to be unusual to see carrots. Many people if they saw carrots in the market could neither afford them nor did they know what to do with them. I have been pushing carrots for the last three years by nutrition teaching, free seed distribution, and teaching people to bake carrot cake. People here love cakes though few know how to bake one. By teaching carrot cake, I get people to plant carrots at home--a few of which will go into a carrot cake and most will go in to bean stews and such. Now kids are learning about (and love to eat) carrots and I've even had carrots stolen from my yard. Now I can go in the market and see piles of carrots with different vendors. Hurray for the carrot, a great source of Vitamin A.

Catching up

I've got a lot of catching up to tell you about the various exciting things that have been going on with this ministry. One neat thing is that I had an intern from SAMS come out recently and help with the health ministry. In the picture, you can see Bethany Hansburger who came out to stay with me for 2 months. She specialized in childrens health ministry. She taught children on burn prevention, nutrition, teeth care, handwashing and other topics. She has a real gift with children and was a joy to work with. She was a wonderful addition to this ministry and hopefully she will return to Uganda again.

Visiting the US

I'm back in the US for a visit! Everything seems so clean and so big--it feels like I'm walking around on a movie set. I was given a ticket to fly back to attend both the "All Society Gathering" for my mission agency, SAMS, and the New Wineskins for Global Missions Conference.

Both events are held every three years at Ridgecrest Conference Center near Asheville, NC.

New Wineskins is a great conference with people flying in from all over the globe to attend--places like Myanmar (formerly Burma), China, and Sudan. There were even two missionary doctors and a Bishop from Uganda.

They hold the SAMS retreat right before the New Wineskins Conference since so many people travel here for that. It was great to be able to gather with the other "SAMS" family--though this time we were gathering under a new name. What had been "The South American Missionary Society" has changed its name to reflect its global vision and is now "The Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders" but still know far and wide as SAMS. Personally, the new name may save me a little explaining as people wondered what the "South America" had to do with a North American missionary working in Africa:) I really enjoyed the chance to talk with other missionaries as they can really understand some of the things I go through in a way other's usually don't.
Ridgecrest has a nice conference facilty and I got to drive past the famous Biltmore mansion--no the confernce wasn't held there!

An interesting side note--I got to see the fire department put out a small brush fire nearby using helicopers and scoop buckets to drop water--you never see anything like that in Uganda.

I'll be in the US until April 20th and will get to spend some time in Charleston SC before I head back. This is the first trip to Charleston but I have lots of people I've met who are from there and will give me a chance to meet up with them and visit some churches--I especially want to go to St. Andrew's in Mt. Pleasant, SC.

Medical care to the Poor

Free Medical Outreaches around Masindi Diocese

Thanks to Palmetto Medical Initiative of South Carolina, USA, the Diocese of Masindi-Kitara was able to host free medical outreaches in 5 different locations.
More than a thousand patients were treated with high quality and loving medical care. A few of the stories stand out amongst the thousands. One young patient shown here walked in with an open fracture of her arm, and the medical providers surgically removed a large bone fragment that was loose an sticking out of her arm. Lots of types of medical help were provide--surgery, dentisty, outpatient clinic, physical therapy, wound care, eyeglasses, free prescription medicines and even low-cost mosquito nets.

The need for medical care here is huge. We had long lines of hundreds of people seeking care everywhere we went. People line up the night before and wait patiently in hope. Despite the providers seeing well over a thousand patients, still many had to be turned away.

Between all my preparations acting as a liason and set-up person plus staying with the medical team through the outreaches, I'm pretty exhaused. I'm still following up on a few tasks (including following up the older woman patient shown below)
and have already had my first meeting preparing for the next PMI outreach in May 2010. All the work is absolutely worth it, when you consider how many people have been helped. Regina, the woman shown in the gold dress below, certainly would not be alive if not for the medical team and their extraordinary care. She is currently greatly improved and I expect she will be going home soon. Wish I had time now to give you more of the details. It is almost 1 am here though and I will be giving an intrepretation on the bible reading tommorrow at morning prayers and have lots of other preparations to be working on--such as getting the schedule set for my teaching basic health to future church leaders, giving youth nutrition presentations, and making plans for travel to a zonal meeting of with other health coordinators and lots more. Also, I really need to work on my newsletter and plan for an upcoming trip to the US....Lots to do as a missionary and health coordinator for the diocese. Sorry it has been so long between blog posts--I hope to keep these more updated. That's all for now, but maybe later I'll tell a bit more on the amazing work the PMI team did here.

P.S. Regina has gone from unconsious and in close danger of dying from sepsis on top of uncontroled diabetes to now sitting up on her own in bed and talking easily with her family. Through the care of PMI, Masindi Hosptial, and her family she is recovering greatly. I hope on my next visit we can discuss her discharge and travel home.

Nutrition teaching at my house

Here's a photo from a nutrition class which was held at my house a few days ago. In the background you can see my wood fired oven and the support poles for the roof. In the foreground there are Ugandan men and women who were representatives from three different churches who came to learn. In addition to some basic nutrition teaching, I include practical applications. From prior teachings and some seed assistance, a number of people in these churches have started home vegetable gardens. With this group, I have previously done teaching which included how to make a carrot cake. Carrot cake is an incentive to plant carrots which are high in vitamin A, a common deficiency in Africa. Ugandans are typically crazy about cakes-- something they know as they get one bite servings at weddings. (The cake is cut into small pieces and passed around.) This group wanted to know how to use the vegetables they are growing including carrots and zucchini, plus they wanted more on cakes. So, this teaching featured a vegetable bean soup with zucchini, carrots, green peppers, onion, tomatoes etc. We also did a high protein "cake" I created which is basically a modified cornbread-- it contains soy, 2 eggs and a cup of milk per cake with only 4 spoonfuls of sugar per cake. I added spices (cinnamon and what they call here "mixed spice") to cover the flavor of the soy. It makes a mildly sweet slightly spiced cake which takes advantage of the natural sweetness of maize. We had three teams doing the cooking, and a great time was had by all. Don't be fooled by the photo--Ugandans' typically put on a serious face for photos, kind of like some of the early days of photography in the US.

We cooked the cakes in my WFO since I could cook all the cakes at once while they watched. The cake's rising in the oven took those who hadn't attended the prior class by surprise. Here most people have never seen a cake baking. The wood fired oven worked great and the cakes came out perfectly. Many people were intrigued by the oven too. It is built out of mud and brick so I wouldn't be surpised if people start building there own. I made it by combining an old roman design with the mexican horno oven. Here most people cook over a three stone open fire, but I wanted my baked goods:) For those who don't have an oven, I also explained how to use local pans as a Dutch oven and how to build a simple oven out of the heavy aluminum pans found here. I'm also reseaching low-firewood ovens, and may modify my oven to include a low firewood option based on the rocket stove (lots of videos of Utube if you don't know what a rocket stove is.) The one drawback to the oven is that it uses a lot of firewood. Cooks great though!

The groups organizer, a lay reader named Apollo, also came back today and we arranged for a low-cost mosquito net sale and scheduled a nutrition teaching at a church 3 miles from here on Satuday. P.S. Those who pray, you could pray for my safety traveling to that church. I'll be riding my 90 cc motorcycle out there. The road we take is a road I hate where it is in poor condition but large trucks still zoom by you--sometimes inches away and kicking up a cloud of dust that blinds you. Oh, and while 3 miles doesn't sound that far, distances are often vastly underestimated. The last "5 mile" trip I took was around 30 kilometers and over an hour by pickup truck.