Carol's In Uganda: THE TWO MONTH WOOD PILE!!

OK...2 months has come and gone...what has been done you ask???? Well, let me just tell you! God continues to be the master contractor, planner and designer...here is what HE has managed to do this last month (using all of us here in Earth as the extension of His hands of course)

Miriam (L) Alex (driver) Grace (R)

1) The PTs and I are now meeting every 2 weeks to review plans and needs for the PT renovation project at Busega Bethlehem Home. We even managed a fun outing as a department celebration, visiting the shores of Lake Victoria for a lunch meeting.

2) Meeting nearly every day with the new Medical Officer, Douglass, at Busega. He has been a gift to the children. Though trained as a Medical Officer, Douglass was in medical school but had to hold off for now due to funding. He is brilliant and has the heart of Mother Teresa. I pray he is able to find a way to finish school.

Douglass and his helpers

I have ordered much needed equipment for the M.O.'s thanks to the generous donations of friends which will be arriving from the States at the end of the month! THANK YOU David K and Paul K!

ROBIN
(organizer extraordinaire)

SPECIAL THANK YOU
goes out to my dear friend Robin Bush in Portland, Oregon! I could not do this without her! She has been invaluable in organizing the donated and shipped items, managing the donated funds, making sure things get where they need to go, when they need to go, packing and repacking and weighing bags, getting the word out about the wonderful work being done here, and keeping the lines of communication going between myself and everyone else!

3) The seamstress was able to make the bean bags and the waterproof aprons to protect the clothing of the Brothers and Sisters during their work day.

Happy Music rings out!!!

4) The drum group is in full swing practicing for the Christmas Pageant and they plan to do a recording in the studio next week thanks to the funding of the Brothers!

5) English classes are in their 4th week starting next week. I am teaching 2 different classes every morning from Monday through Saturday. The goal is for the Brothers to be comfortable and confident in preaching the word of God. THANK YOU Mom and Cathy Streiner for being my Google.com and answering the harder English grammar questions I have had! ( have you ever known what you do but not why you do it??? hmmmm)

6) I was told no one local volunteers in Uganda (I was hoping to recruit a team) I wrote about Florence last month. Now we have 3 other more permanent volunteers. Wilson, another highly intelligent, caring and motivated young man who has graduated university in counseling and social work. He is looking for a job but wanted to be useful in the meantime. I try and convince him to stay with us! The children LOVE him. He has a particular fondness for Ivan, who he works with for 2 hours when he comes. There is also Jane and Beverly who are lovely and never tired of helping the children with even small things. I then recruited a young lady from the Sadolin Paint Store (due to my many many trips there) She asked if she could volunteer and wala!

Douglass keeps laughing as new volunteers are showing up out of the woodwork...he thought it was me, I told him it was GOD! I just put the request out there and there you go!

Mulago Hospital

7) I have visited 3 rehab and hospital departments. Katalemwa (the biggest inpatiend rehab) and Mulago Hospital (the Uganda national hospital with over 4,000 beds!!!) Both rehab departments were dark, had old equipment ripped, torn or in disrepair. The rehab department in Bai Hospital closed due to lack of private pay for this service (generally no insurance here remember)

Mulago Hospital

Our disabled, forgotten and abandoned children will have the BEST and NEWEST and MOST WELL DESIGNED rehab in all of Kampala! I will be placing the order next week for the big equipment while some of the smaller items are coming from friends arriving at the end of the month.

Door being installed

Railings!!!

8) The PT room renovation is now in the finishing work phase though a new floor will most likely need to be installed: we have a walkway and ramps from the gym to the bathroom and the main door to the outside, railings on the ramps, a metal swing away door that locks open to function as a railing on the upper ramp, the hole under the main door fixed by the carpenter, the rooms now painted, the light fixtures installed (I don't know what it is about boys tossing things at dangling lights but this was too great a temptation for them which needed to be corrected) A sink (AND A TOWEL RACK) installed in the gym. The artists have just started this week...ohhh..gives me goosebumps!

The initial sketches

9) The Good Shepherd Home in Mango will have to wait until the space for a room is available. This remains in the works! This is good...I think God took pity on my limitations as I couldn't do 2 renovations as once (unlike some people I know)

10) The initial forms for the PT charts have been printed out this week. We had to wait for the donation of a printer before this could be done. This will start after the gym is completed. A bit too much to do in the meantime. Douglass the M.O. is much farther ahead of me on this and has his charts already printed and in the process of being used.

SO, the progress continues. More details to come this week re the renovation and resulting funny stories.

LOOK at all the wonderful work all of you have done...the world is a hologram...all your thoughts, gifts, donations, prayers and support (mentally and emotionally with myself or any of my family and friends) are the workings of God through you to help the poor of the world!

THANK YOU ALL!

“Whenever you did this to the least of my brethren, you did it to me” -

Matthew 25:40

IF you are interested in helping out at all in any small way with the Christmas dinner for the children, please contact:
Father Henry Lozano, Missionaries of the Poor superior at: