Introduction to Primary Health Care

People have asked me what kind of school IPHC is, well here is a tidbit on what we are going to learn:

God's heart for the Poor; the way that Jesus healed.

We will be introduced to the essential health care needs of the poor and needy. There are water, sanitation, communicable diseases, waterborne diseases, how to present a health teaching, nutrition issues, the essential drugs needed, maternal health, children's health, hands on practical advice related to eyes, ears, nose and throat and wound care, skin problems, how to diagnose and treat.

How to minister to malnourished children; women and children's health; setting up a health clinic; how to teach and train in needy communities with simple health care messages;
God's character of compassion;
helping those with nutritional deficiencies; water - a vital source for health; curing those with worms; diarrhea; Preventing major diseases in the world today such as HIV/AIDS; Tuberculosis; learning to DO health care and more importantly teach others.

Generally the health care needs of the poor and needy relate to those illnesses that could easily have been prevented

Downunder

It has been a long time since I've updated this blog. New start, new beginnings.

I've been in Norway since October 2008. My heart has been wanting to be out in Missions, yet I've seen that Norway also is a mission field.

My time here has been awesome, and God has done major things in my life. Have meet some new amazing people, and new friendships are made.

This spring I attended a LTS, Leadership Training Seminar - that was a very grand time. Learned a lot, and saw God's hand in that time and how He directed me in doing the seminar.

And now I'm going out again. It's been a long wait, but the Lord told me earlier this year that I was to stay in Norway until the end of the year. This is indeed true, I'll be leaving for Australia on the 31.12.09.

First time I'm traveling this far east, and it's going to be awesome. I'll be attending a YWAM school called Introduction to Health and Primary Care. The outreach is planned for Mexico City.

I've heard from friends in Australia that Perth, which is south west, is the part that is most like Africa. What a sense of humor God has that sends me to a part of the world I've never been to, and it's like the continent I like to be in :-) Eastern part of Australia has huge difference, as you can see from these photos.


This is just a quick update on what is next, and I promise that I'll keep you updated on a more frequent basis.

Family holidays!

To continue to tell you about our family holidays.. The boat trip was awesome, we did see crocodiles huge ones – the biggest was 4.5 meters. Not sure how many inches that is, but it’s big. We also saw white monkeys by the river side. At night we slept in tents on the riverbank, which was great. The first place we stayed at, they had killed a crocodile that day – and had the tail right there so we could see it, and some crock meat hanging in the sun to dry. Thought it was a prank, but it was fresh…

The river was so low, that sometimes the guys that worked on the boat had to jump into the river – where the crocodiles were – to push us of the banks that were visible. The water was knee deep, so they would have been able to see them if they would come. At one of the places we stopped it was so hot that the workers went for a bath, on the shallow part of the river – just in case the crocks would come. My brother-in-law and his oldest son went and joined them, when they saw that there was no danger.

From the boat trip we went onto the mainland again, where we saw some baobab trees, the ones that look like they have been pulled up and put back down, up side down. Just like the one you can see on the photo. We drove to meet up with the rest of the family in Morondava, where we stayed the rest of our time in Madagascar. Morondava is by the ocean where we used to go on holidays when we lived there. We played in the sand, built castles with the kids… and enjoyed being together.

It is quite amazing to me that we all could be there at the same time, 17 of us with all the children included. And we had a great time, no disputes or anything. Good to be with the family and hanging out together. I’m so blessed to have such a loving family.

Something that became even more real for me in Madagascar, is that it’s not the places but people and relationships that is the meaning of life. Having friends, relationships is what makes life valuable and worth living. People will come and go, but friends/relationships will make an impact on your life for ever!

Then we flew back to the capital and the family took off. I stayed a couple of days longer, and hung out with some new friends before going back to Uganda.

Family holiday in Madagascar

I didn’t fall of the face of the earth, it just feels like it.

After coming back from the north with the children things got back to normal very quickly. They went back to school and the days got busy. They wanted to start school, but then when it started….they wanted to have some time of. =) Now that the kids in grade 6 and 7 need to be more serious in their studies, they also have evening classes. So the kids from grade 4 – 7 have prep. classes from 7:30 till 9:00 in the evening. “Late nights”, and early mornings!!

Now I’m in Madagascar with the family, 17 if us. It’s quite the sight when we drive around in the bus we have hired. They people look and talk, no wonder!! Seeing 1-3 is quite normal, but a busload is not the norm.

We came here end of June, the whole lot. Went to Anakao, which is very close to what paradise must have looked like… beautiful. Right next to the beach, our own bungalows, hardly any other people cuz it’s wintertime. Can be a bit chilly in the mornings and in the evenings, but we have a lot of fun together and enjoy the fellowship we have.

The other day we went to the first place we lived while here, and there we met the gardener that we had way back in the days. The average age here is 56, and he’s 78 years old. A lot of emotions when we saw him again. Seeing the people that my parents worked with, meeting friends has been awesome. It has been 23 years since we have seen most of them, and it’s very strong. The word is now out that my parents are back, so many people come to visit…

We have also been at the Bible School where we lived the last 8 years. And on Sunday they invited all of us to come to church for a celebration - confirmation. 650 people in the church, and the service was “only” 4,5 hours. They had baptism, 7 different offerings and communion – so it takes time. Some of us sat the whole time, well my dad did… the rest of us went in and out several times.

The next step of the leg is a boat trip on a river that is known to have huge crocodiles, and quite a bit of mosquitoes. So my 2 brothers and their family will drive directly to the beach, cuz their kids are small – and then we’ll meet up with them there after a couple of days.

Here are some of the children that I was in contact with while up in Guruguru in Amoro district and in Gulu. Pictures tells more than words!

Trip to Pader and Gulu

Wow what an awesome 11 days in Gulu and Pader, with lots of fun, challenges, impressions, hardship…… A new view of life and appreciation on what we have.

The whole trip started on the 10^th of May when 3 buses left from the home in different directions. They were all overloaded with people, they could take 29 passengers, and they had 35, 37 and 44 people. A bit squeezed, but we had a good time.

The bus I went with was the one to Pader, the children were singing praise songs along the way – but the most amazing thing was when we crossed the bridge into Pader district we saw the rainbow. The kids started shouting and got even louder when they saw the telephone tower in Rackoko. Their relatives were there to welcome them, and it was quite emotional. 4 of the kids had to spend the night with me – and early in the morning they came to me saying that they wanted to go home. And within a short time, their relatives came….

During the few days I was in Rackoko, my time was spent with the children who live there – some of the kids live quite far away so I wasn’t able to visit them in their homes. Some of the children and I walked the IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camp to find the huts for the other ones and see their previous living condition. I had to keep my tears back a few times, cuz it was quite something. One of the boys got emotional when he saw me coming to visit, so I asked what was wrong. Got him close to me, held my hand around him and showed him some love. And after a while he said, we only eat 2 times a day – and we don’t have soap for bathing or for washing. I went straight to the “store” and bought them a bar of soap.

Then I went to Gulu to visit some of the children that live in the IDP camp there. My transport over to Gulu was what they call a bus, but it’s a pickup. Like you can see it was overloaded, but seemed that there always was room for one more – that is typical for Africa. The trip went well, and we only got one flat tire. The road that we used was opened officially in November 2006, because the LRA (Lord’s Resistant Army) the rebels used to ambush people/vehicles there all the time.

After a quick shower, the trip went to visit the children in the IDP camp and that camp was quite different from the one in Pader. Many people from this camp in Gulu have moved back to their villages – so many of the huts were empty.

The next day I went with 2 of the mama’s that works here in Kasozi, to visit her mother. The journey took up far into the bush – with an amazing scenery. They had told me that there was a big mountain there that there had been some fighting on in 1911 and that people had lived there. So we wanted to climb it, and see what it looked like. It was quite the climb, where we at times had to get on both hands and knees to get up the cliff. But the view from there was amazing and it was worth all the emotions that we went through. Sweat, fear, happiness….

The plan was to stay for 1 night, but then there was no diesel in Gulu town so they had to wait in line… meaning that we had to stay another night there. Guruguru is a place quite far from the rest of civilization, and the marked was empty. There was nothing to be found, most of the people had peanuts and a sort of beans. So it was difficult for them to do trading with their goods. We brought food to Jaja (which means grandmother) and ate of that – and left what was left. They got up early in the morning 5 to start digging in their garden, and they would come back early afternoon b4 the sun got to hot. Hard working people, living in hard conditions – yet they shared the little food they had. I was yet amazed over their hospitality. We slept 2 adults, 4 teens, and 4 children in one hut with a diameter of 4 meters….LOL no need for a blanket. Quite the experience, yet I found myself thinking that it could have been worse… knowing that the conditions we were in were hard. Yet there are people other places in the world that has it worse than what we experienced there. Some of the children that came with us said “this is hard”, they have seen that life is different for other people.

Then it was time to take the trip back to Kasozi village, I had to go back to Pader to pick the children there – so we left Gulu at 6:30 and drove 2 hours to Rackoko to pick the children there. It was a long drive but it went very well. The kids were happy to be back home, and to see their friends again. It took us 12,5 hours to get here. Tired and exhausted – but with a gratitude to God that all had gone well that He had kept us all safe on the road.

We got power and holiday trip for the children

We have electricity. It has been a long wait, and it seems a bit surreal still. We were told that it would get here last year, but that obviously didn’t happen….. and now it’s a fact. The poles came first, after laying on the ground for a while… It takes longer here in Africa – and that has for sure been a fact coming to electricity.
First thing first, I had to charge my phone…which was a huge thing cuz now we don’t have to go anywhere to do that. And then secondly charging the music….=)

What is more beautiful than sitting in your room, watching the children play outside in the rain – and then see the promise of God showing up on the sky. The rainbow has been showing up here a lot lately. Something which I do believe, is God reminding us of His promises to us as his children. There has been some stuff going on here at the home, which has not been good for anybody. Witch craft and such, but those things have now been cleaned out and we see that the children have more freedom. Difficult to explain – but it’s very visible. Praise the Lord for all the things that he has done.

The 2 last weeks before the end of first term at school, the pre-school started. Are they not a beautiful bunch of children? They didn’t quite know what to do or where to strand the first day, but it didn’t take them very long to figure out things. The children can be heard from my room, when they are repeating after the teacher….A..B..C… and their 1…2…3… What an awesome things that we are able to see happening here at Kasozi Village.

On Saturday we left Kasozi village at 8 am to take the children back to see their relatives. Some have been counting days for the last week or so. The big news was told when Duncan (whom is the founder of Uganda Orphans Fund) told the children that they all were going back to visit their relatives. They jumped of joy, and screamed of happiness. And since that day they have been counting the days until the day of departure.

Like I’ve written before, I do have the privilege to go with some of the children back to visit their relatives. In the beginning I was supposed to go with the children to Gulu, which is up north in Uganda. But then the plans got changed, I left for Pader (which also is in the north), Rackoko for the first leg of the trip. Then I’m going to take public over to Gulu, which might be an interesting thing to do. Cuz up there the busses are not the most common vehicle, it might be a truck or something… I’ll let you know.

The trip went well, and the joy in the bus when they saw the phone tower in Rackoko was amazing. They were singing worship songs and it was very powerful. Most of the kids were met by their relatives on Saturday evening, only 4 of them stayed with me until the next day. But then their relatives also came. It was a time with lots of emotions, amazing. I’m visiting the children and their relatives in the IDP camp here in Rackoko, it’s awesome to be able to do that.

Please do remember us in your prayers during this time. The children are used to pray 2 times a day at the home, and some of their relatives are non believers. We pray that God will protect them and help the them to be witnesses to their relatives.