First of all, let me give you an amazing update on Nampijja, who is the young lady that I’ve been doing physio with (- I mentioned her in my last Newsletter – she had a spinal injury and had been unable to sit/stand/walk/dress herself/feed herself/get out of her little room/etc. for over a year when I first began seeing her a few months ago)....
Well, I am constantly astounded by Nampijja’s progress, and she has so far WELL exceeded all of my expectations! She is now at the point where she is able to walk inside her room with no stick or anything, walk about 400 metres outside with 2 crutches, prepare and cook all of her own food, do all of her own washing, visit the local shops, and go and see her neighbours!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!
Just to put it in perspective, 2 doctors and the previous physio all said that she would never stand again, and would not even be able to sit on her own without support, and that the most she could hope for would be for her to be able to feed herself if her hands and arms got stronger, and to be lifted into her wheelchair by someone so that she could sit out of bed.... so it is absolutely a miracle that she is able to stand and walk and get to the local shops and do so much for herself now!!!
In fact, when some elders from River of Life went with me to pray for her a few months ago, one of them – Elder Emily – told Nampijja not to worry because God would do a miracle and she’d walk again very soon, and I knew that this was absolutely impossible, and I kept on thinking “Shut up Emily!!!” (- because there’s nothing worse than an unrealistic patient who doesn’t want physio to ever end because of their completely unrealistic expectations, and who blames the physio for their lack of progress, when in fact it’s absolutely impossible for them to improve as much as they hope!) - Then I thought “Sarah, have faith in God!”, then the physio bit of me thought “Shut up Emily!”, and then the other bit of me thought “Have faith in God!”.... and so I went on and on in my head!!! Ha ha!!! ....Anyway, four months on, I can now say that I’ve seen God do a miracle!!! WOW!!!!!!!
Since I last wrote to you, there have been two new arrivals in the girls’ home..... One is an 8 year old girl, who was an emergency placement from the police, and the other is "Princess Mumbejja”, a very gorgeous, gentle, and cute 5 month old kitten (- see picture below)!!! Of the two, the kitten has been the easier to handle, and by far the less stressful to have in the girls’ home!!! The girls and Kitibwa absolutely LOVE Princess, and spend hours each day playing with her.... they’ve made some toys for her by tying a ball to the end of a piece of string, and then they all hold their string and balls, and run round and round the room while Princess runs round and round after them, chasing the balls. This usually goes on for about 3 or 4 hours, and then everyone collapses in a heap, ready to go sleep – so it’s working out very well indeed, as far as I’m concerned!!!
Straight after the team’s visit and the holiday programme, I had my own holiday. I went to Entebbe to meet up with some dancers from the UK who were ministering and doing a dance workshop in a church in Kampala, and joined them in their activities. It was really wonderful and restful, despite all of the dancing we did!
The final thing of note that has happened recently is the plan to resettle loads of our young men who have been living in the boys’ home. It is not legal to have young men or women living in a children’s home, but it’s been very hard to plan and help them resettle, so we’ve been taking things very slowly as we’ve worked with them to find the best solution... and we seem to have found it, as the plans are nearly all in place, and they’re well on the way to leaving us now – in fact, they’re all going to have left before the year is out. They’re all going to be followed up very closely when they leave, and of course their sponsorship is not stopping when they leave us – so we’re going to be continuing our support and hope to continue to see them thrive in every way and become productive members of society!
Anyway, that’s all of my news, I think.
I hope that you are all doing well!
Love Sarah
