Newsletter
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1. Rory's April 2008 Newsletter from Rory. PDF format 140 KB.
2. Rory's December 2007 Newsletter
Rory's Ruminations December 2007 from CMS newsletter
Greetings from Kiwoko!
December is upon us, and the year is closing soon, I suspect that for most reading this the signs of Christmas are clearly evident. For me it's hot, and I haven't as yet seen any Christmas trees or decorations.
We have had a good year in Kiwoko. In addition to the 25,000 outpatients and 6,000 inpatients we have treated, the mission team continues to be active with evangelism, discipleship and church planting. The hospital finances, while still greatly stretched are certainly better than a year ago after several significant donations for our genera! funds. We have a new pharmacy building and several new staff accommodation blocks completed. We've had many visiting teams, and even a visit from the Archbishop of Uganda.
Edrine is a 7 year old boy. Having previously been well he was admitted in September after a brief illness with body swelling. His kidneys were not working and his blood pressure became so high that he was convulsing. We were only able to partially stabilise his blood pressure, and then sought advice from some colleagues in Belfast, In Kampala there are kidney specialists, but this boy's mother was too scared to go to the city a she has spent all her life in the village. In due course he improved greatly and was discharged off all his treatment. I saw him last week a healthy happy young lad, alive because of the care he received at Kiwoko.
Many are responsible for the care we are able to provide to such patients - the advice from colleagues in Belfast was most helpful, but as Edrine no longer has a father, his mother would have been quite unable to pay for his treatment - the good Samaritan fund settled the outstanding bill.
Kampala hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting a few weeks ago. Kampala, and the roads on which the dignitaries would be travelling were cleaned up and repaired. Now that the great affair is finished, they have started paying attention to the other roads in the country. Some of the biggest holes in the road to Kiwoko are at last being 'temporarily' filled with mud dug from the side of the road.
While Uganda is slowly developing, for most of the population who live in rural areas there is no noticeable difference to daily life, While the Ugandan people and countryside is beautiful, it is not picture perfect. Our incidence of malnutrition for example appears to be increasing rather than decreasing. Malnutrition is usually not just caused by a complete lack of food, but is often a complex social problem linked to marriage problems, polygamy, poorly educated young mothers, and weak family support structures.
Dr Darius, Nutrition clinic.
To this end we are encouraging people who support our work from abroad to consider
giving their friends a week's treatment on our nutrition ward as a Christmas present.
Most of your friends probably do not personally need such treatment - but if they are
unable to use it, we can certainly find children who would benefit from such
interventions! A week's treatment for a child on our maternity ward costs £10. Most of
these children need to spend 4-6 weeks on the ward. This time is needed to treat their
malnutrition, and other related problems, but also to educate the mothers about
nutrition to prevent recurrence, and look after her other children . Many of these young
children also have co-incident tuberculosis or HIV.
If you are interested in getting some of these gift cards, they can be obtained from
Yvonne Manogue, her contact details are:
10 College Avenue
Bangor
N. Ireland BT20 5HJ
Yvonne is also looking after Marketplace for CMS Ireland and so is a source of crafts and gifts from Kiwoko and other CMS projects in Africa and Asia throughout the year.
Last Sunday I was at a confirmation sen/ice. After the Bishop had laid hands on each of the candidates there was a time of worship - during which many of those who had been confirmed spontaneously took to the podium to dance in tradition style as an expression of their enthusiasm for what had just taken place. While my own confirmation some years ago was a good service, we certainly didn't consider dancing! The Ugandan church just like every church is made up of people, and so sometimes gets things wrong, but oftentimes the natural exuberant expressions of worship continue to surprise me - particularly when traditional instruments and language are in use and so people are able to feel at ease.
Points for prayer:
• We have well advanced plans for a development of out maternity service. This is not just for a new building, but also once we have adequate facilities to cope with the demand, we are planning for an even more proactive engagement with the community. We plan to encourage more mothers to attend antenatal care (at least once) and attend hospital sooner rather than waiting until labour has been hugely obstructed prior to attending as is sadly too often the case at present. Dr Mercy (Ugandan Obstetrician) is heading these developments in conjunction with funding through the ISIS foundation.
• Staff turnover in recent years has been slowed with a rise in salaries and a number of hospital wide community events. Developing a team with fresh vision and shared commitment to the goals of the hospital and Kingdom of God are a task for the coming year.
• We still have several key middle management positions under filled. Do pray for us to locate/train up the right people. Happy Christmas in the meantime and thanks for all the ongoing support and encouragement.
Rory.
