Hi everyone we got here safely (four flights later!) and its good to be back and feels like we’ve never been away! Life at Kuluva is much the same but they’ve got three doctors now so things are a bit better although the hospital still has financial problems. Jen and Sarah have been enjoying their first African experience with monkeys, insects, cold showers, goat meat and dust everywhere! Jen even had a visitor in the shower when she was joined by a lizard much to her shock!! Jen’s been painting and doing crafts with the children, Sarah’s been nursing African style (and scaring children who’d never seen a white person before) and Pete and Emma have been catching up with friends (given Dr Patrick a Manchester Utd shirt much to Pete’s disgust!) and giving out toys clothes and medicine around the hospital.

It’s been incredibly hot compared to at home so we were glad to have a tropical storm today to cool us down!

We’re now looking forwards to meeting up with Kipp and Spanky on friday and working in Soroti.

Thanks for all your prayers and support, we’ll hopefully have some pics soon when we have better internet.

Bye for now

Sarah, Jen, Emma and Pete

Hi everyone this is the first blog for a long time, we’re really excited because on Friday 15th we’re heading back to Kuluva hospital with Jen (Pete’s sister) and Sarah (one of our friends).

We’re really pleased to be heading back to visit our Ugandan friends, to work with the Americans again (especially the famous Kipp and Spanky!!) and escape the sub-zero temperatures of Manchester!

 We arrive in Uganda on 15th Jan at 23.10 then fly up to Arua on the 16th where we’ll be doing various work at Kuluva Hospital. We then fly back to Entebbe on 22nd to meet up with the E3 American team where we’ll travel to south east Uganda to a place called Soroti where we’ll be doing bush clinics and helping with church planting. It’s going to be a great few weeks, if you’d like to pray for us that would be cool:

-that we get there safely (and Manchester Airport stays open during the snow)!

-we have a great time and see God doing amazing things for the people in Kuluva and Soroti.

 -safe travel and health around Uganda.

We’ll try and update the blog after the first week if possible so keep checking for stories of God’s goodness.

 Love P+E

PS check out the I am Second link its really powerful!

 

So now Pete’s back and the Uganda adventure 2008-2009 is officially over for now!

Last week Pete went to visit Scovia (see Plague comes to Kuluva) the 13yr old girl who survived having plague meningitis but sadly her other family died from the disease. On the way to her village the driver who brought her to Kuluva last year was telling the story of how her family originally refused to allow her to come to hospital because they thought she would die and only agreed when the driver promised that if she did he would bring her body back to the village- that’s how sick she was. When we got to her home I didn’t recognise her because she looked so healthy, she’d put on some weight and was smiling! The only problem was that she had a slight weakness in the grip of her left hand but she said that it didn’t affect her at school. I felt really emotional seeing her again she shouldn’t have survived but God did something amazing with her and she recovered. Seeing her healthy and happy was the highlight of the whole year. As I was leaving she gave me a live chicken which I nearly dropped because it was flapping so wildly in my hands! I couldn’t bring myself to eat it so it’s been named ‘Pete’ and been given to one of our friends on the condition that it shouldn’t be eaten and should be allowed to live a good life. When I saw it before leaving it was having the time of its life the only male chicken surrounded by 7 females so it’s safe to say that he’ll enjoy the rest of his life!

Looking back at the year as a whole its been an amazing experience we’ve no regrets about going and certainly no regrets about going back. We’ll miss our friends over in Uganda and will continue to pray for them and the hospital and we’d ask you all to do the same.

We’re not sure what the future holds but we know who holds the future so we’ll keep trusting Him. We’re hoping to join the E3 guys for a mission in January 2010 so watch this space…..

P+E

This week Pete’s been alone and a bit lonely at the hospital after Emma went back home to start her new job. He’s been a bit sad but too busy to miss her so much!!!

It’s been a frustrating week at the hospital; two young patients in three days were admitted after being in accidents with brain haemorrhages (extradural haematomas). No-one told me about them for 24hrs (everyone thought that someone else had told me about them). Brain haemorrhage sounds pretty serious but the good thing is it’s (relatively) simple to treat with surgery if you can get them to a surgeon quickly enough which for us is about 20mins away in Arua. Sadly both patients were referred very late, one boy died and I’m not sure what happened to the other one. You can accept people dying when you’ve done your best but when things like this happen it’s so frustrating, and then when you speak to the people involved afterwards they don’t care and find it funny when you got angry about it. How can you change these attitudes?

Anyway so Pete’s been listening a lot to the BBC World Service, where the jingle is ‘Wherever you are in the world your with the BBC’ which he’s been finding reassuring cause it reminds him of home. But then he realised how crazy that really was because wherever we are in the world we’re always with God- and that’s truly reassuring!

At least its not so long until Pete’s coming home and can be with his beautiful wife again!

see you next week everyone

Pete xx

Hi everyone,

Hope you’re all OK?

We’re both well, things are still very hectic at the hospital but God’s been good to us and we’ve seen really sick people recover when we’d feared the worst. It always gives you a boost when that happens and as Dr. Cox on Scrubs says ‘It’s good to stick one in the win column for a change’ and gives you encouragement to carry on.

Last week was Pete’s birthday and we had a nice party on the children’s ward (plus cake and angel delight at home!). We also gave out some of the knitted hats that Pete’s family had made to the newborns and premature babies which all the mothers loved!

Still really heartbreaking things happen most days that people aren’t even aware of. The story of one woman whose one year old daughter died from malnutrition is particularly sad. She’d run out of money and had to walk home 70km on her own with her dead child on her back with no food in the hot sun. When we found out she’d already set off and it was too late to help her but that’s just the harsh reality for some people here.

Last weekend we went to visit our friends Steve, Tom, Marion and Sue from Wythenshawe Hospital in a town called Gulu about 4 hours drive south from Kuluva. It was great to have some time away from the hospital and relax with our friends and chat to them about the things that had happened in the last few weeks. They are working on a link between Wythenshawe and Gulu Hospitals and their medical schools and it was brilliant to see all the work they’ve been putting into the project and how it is progressing. It was also good to visit another hospital and made us realise how lucky we are with some of the things we have at Kuluva with wards cleaned daily and X-ray facilities. In the A&E department Pete learned a new treatment for snake bites which involved putting 500 shilling coins on the snake bite to draw out the venom, we’re just not convinced of its effectiveness though!

Emma’s coming home this weekend leaving Pete all alone at the hospital so we’re both feeling a bit down after being together everyday for almost a year! It would be great if you could pray for a safe journey home.

See you all soon

x P+E

Hi Everyone,

 

We’ve now been back for two weeks and it’s proved to be a difficult time at the hospital. Last weekend the wife and daughter of one of the Ugandan doctors (and our friend) died at the hospital after their house caught on fire. His baby son was also burned in the fire but thankfully has recovered and has been discharged. It’s been an incredibly difficult time for Hassan, his family and for everyone at the hospital and we’d really appreciate your prayers for them all.

 

We’re the only doctors at the hospital for 5 days (Friday until Tuesday) so have been hoping for a quieter time but that doesn’t seem to be happening so far ….Last night was eventful when four women with obstetric emergencies all requiring blood arrived but there was no blood of their type in the hospital! We needed transport to take them all to the next nearest hospital but none of the hospital drivers were answering their phones and the hospital vehicle had a flat tyre! Thankfully we managed to get a couple of vehicles and get them to Arua hospital with Pete enjoying acting as an ambulance driver carrying three bleeding pregnant women, another ten family members and dodging the drunks along the roadside! As far as we know all the women are doing OK but sadly one of them lost her baby.

 

On a more positive note it’s been really good to be back and see all our friends again. We settled back into things straight away and feels like we never left! We’ve still had time to spend playing with the children on the nutrition ward and we’re able to buy things to decorate the ward and new toys with money from Ivy Manchester. Pete’s been setting a bad example to the children by climbing the trees for mangos which they all found hilarious ‘doctor is in the tree!’ The hospital seems to be coping better than we thought it would with only one doctor and all the staff managing well with the difficulties. The good news is that the hospital has been allocated a government doctor who should arrive next week which is great. We both wish we could stay here longer now but unfortunately we can’t.

 

Anyway, will update again soon

 

x P & E

 

Hi everyone!

It’s been a long few months since we last blogged! We’re sitting in Emma’s Mum and Dads caravan in Grassington (Yorkshire Dales) – its cold, wet and rained all week so it couldn’t be further away from Uganda!

People who know us quite well will be a bit surprised that we are going back to Uganda, when we returned having had a very difficult last month at the hospital we’d both said ‘we’re not going back’ but God had better ideas! So we’re heading back to Kuluva tomorrow for six weeks before we start jobs back in the UK.

We’ve been reading a really powerful novel called The Shack, it’s about a man called Mack and his journey to find forgiveness after his daughter is murdered. Towards the end he asks God if his life matters and God answers Mack by saying;

‘….if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important everything you do is important. Everytime you forgive the universe changes; everytime you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same.’

This is in essence why we’re going back, because no small or insignificant thing is pointless if we do it for Jesus. We want to glorify Jesus in everything we do and going back even though it’s only for six short weeks is hopefully going to do that! Jesus himself said in Matthew 25 v40 ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

The last three months have been really busy doing a fulltime diploma at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and catching up with all our friends and family. The course was great,  we had a fantastic course weekend away in Snowdon and also learnt lots about tropical medicine! We’re looking forwards to diagnosing some of the interesting diseases we probably missed like African sleeping sickness, n’yong n’yong, loa loa and paragonimus! (Pete would be pleased to even pronounce n’yong n’yong nevermind diagnosing it!). We also made loads of international friends who will be now all over the world by now doing different amazing stuff – so BIG HELLO’s to the DTM&H class ’09!!

We’ve both had great news of jobs which will start when we get back from Uganda. Emma’s got a lecturers job at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine which will involve lots of travelling to Africa doing research whilst Pete’s going be starting A&E training at Trafford Hospital in August.

We’ve been keeping up to date with Kuluva and have had news of the difficulties and struggles the hospital is going through. Firstly two of the three Ugandan doctors have left and they have been unable to find a replacement, this obviously has left a massive strain on the staff especially Dr Patrick who is left alone but will also be very difficult for us going back into that situation. Secondly the hospital is having big financial difficulties and has been unable to pay staff for two months and last week made 25 staff redundant, again it will be difficult for us to see our friends in this situation and we know it will be the patients who suffer more than ever. We hope that our return for this short time will be of some encouragement and relief to the ongoing difficulties.

Just before we go we wanted to say a massive thank you to Katherine and Rob Davies for letting us stay with them for the past three months and making us feel really at home. You’ve both been amazing friends and so generous to us!

Please keep praying for our safety as we travel, health and that we can be faithful to God in what he has planned for us.

See you soon

P+E xxx

PS.If anyone wants to contact us you can call us on (don’t forget the #!)

Tel: (6p/min) 0871 754 1212 wait for speaking then dial 00256 773687761#

 

We’ve now left Kuluva and we’re almost ready to come home (tomorrow hurray!). Last week we did bush clinics/missions with a group of amazing Americans (or USAidians as they love to be known!!!) lead by the famous Kipp Cheek and Spanky Rouse (they even have funny sounding surnames!). It was a fantastic week and easily one of the highlights of our time in Uganda. Koboko was a very remote town north of Kuluva right on the border with Congo and Sudan (we could see both countries from the clinic sites). We were the doctors for the medical team with 3 nurses, a physiotherapist, a paramedic, an optician and a pharmacist. We went to four sites where the Ugandans wanted to plant new churches and served the community by putting on a medical clinic whilst the local church did ministry in the village. Over the week mission more than 3000 people heard the Gospel of Jesus and hundreds became Christians! For Pete it was like a dream come true finally doing real bush clinics in tents or on shop verandas with bed sheets to make our consultation rooms! In four days we treated over 750 people providing free medicines, glasses, walking frames and wheelchairs. It was a privilege to see people who were crippled from polio crawl in on their hands and knees leave overjoyed in their new wheelchair. There was so much need we couldn’t always help everyone and it was heartbreaking when we ran out of wheelchairs but the people never complained and were so happy with knee pads –incredible, it really makes you think about how lucky we are and how much we take things for granted in England. After the mission we travelled back to Entebbe with them via Murchison Park. We had such a great time and such much fun and laughter with our new friends from North Carolina it was really sad to say goodbye but hopefully we can meet up again soon and work together again!!!! This last week we’ve just been chilling in Entebbe whilst Pete’s also been frustratingly filling out his job applications for A&E training from an internet café with regular power failures! We spent a few days visiting our friends Katharine and Rob at the River of Life children’s home in Masaka (two hours south east of Kampala). The project is run by Pastor Duncan and Mary and works with street children taking them into the home, loving them and putting them through school and university. We had a really fun day with all the children with a trip to a lake for swimming – the children didn’t leave the water all day! Well today’s our last day so we’re looking over our time here trying to come to terms with everything that we’ve been through and seen over the last six months. We can’t wait to come home but know that we’ll find it difficult to leave everything behind and settle back into life in UK We’ve got a few weeks at home before we start our full time diploma at Liverpool so we catch up with many of you then. We want to thank everyone again for your continued support and prayers and thank God for being our constant comforter, counsellor and provider throughout our time here. With Love Pete and Em x

Happy Christmas everyone really missing you all but still having a good time! On Christmas eve we had a bull roast (which didn’t taste quite as nice after watching it get killed) and went to a candle light carol concert with all the other ex-pats in Arua. Was really nice and there was food afterwards with 21 flavours of ice cream which Pete felt duty bound to taste them all (it was just like Fredricks but peanut butter flavour wasn’t too good!). On Christmas day we went to church and then went to give out presents on the childrens ward. After we had Christmas dinner with Alan, Anne and Laura. (and then watched the Queens speech!)

We’re starting to feel better now after being ill last week which is good and looking forwards to the bush clinics with our American friends!

Happy New Year

E+P

Hey everyone hope you all OK and looking forwards to Christmas! It really doesn’t feel like Christmas here temperatures in the mid 30’s (we’re not trying to make you jealous it’s far too hot we’d do anything for a nice frosty morning!), we’re really busy on the wards, no rushing around the Trafford Centre, no X-Factor etc. Things here are a lot more simple……the children on the nutrition ward didn’t know what to do with the advent calendar so opened all the windows on the first day! We’ve just been to the Christmas carol concert where they managed to decorate the church with some branches that resemble a Christmas tree and sing carols in the heat if midday.

Well Emma’s plaited hair lasted 5 days (almost as long as it took to put in!) because it was too painful and because her hair was falling out! You’ll be pleased to know that she isn’t too bald now!

Last weekend we went to our house helpers village and enjoyed visiting her and her family. It was nice spend some time in a Ugandan village the only problem was that Pete had to eat the gizzard from the chicken that was prepared in our honour!

This week Emma has been speaking at a women’s conference about women’s health, it was a really good way of trying to get messages regarding pregnancy, unsafe abortions and use of family planning into the community. They were a bit shocked in the family planning session when they were made to touch a condom! – still so many think that they are something ‘evil’. Whilst there Emma uncovered a scheme to trick people out of money with a cure-all-ailments medicine that turned out to be cleaning disinfectant! Basically a company is recruiting people to go round villages selling this ‘medicine’. The sellers themselves have to pay around £30 to become a seller and get an official badge and a bottle of detergent which they dilute to make around 50L of ‘medicine’. They then sell this onto the villagers who spend a lot of money on these cures with no benefit and often feel a lot worse afterwards. There’s one family we know whose son has leukaemia and have been unable to afford the chemotherapy and so they’ve spent £70 on this so called miracle cure. It’s made us so angry that these people are exploiting the poorest and most desperate people in the communities and taking so much money off them. We’ve reported it to the local health regulators and one of the Ugandan doctors will go on the radio to make people more aware of this scam. Hopefully we can try to stop this but we’re worried about the dangers not just because people are drinking a poison but because people will take the ‘medicine’ and then not come to hospital till too late and then maybe die as a consequence.

Pete’s joined the golf club in Arua and has been having lessons there! It costs £3 a month for everything including membership and equipment hire! So far he’s only lost 2 balls and has been nicknamed the White Tiger Woods!

It was Emma’s birthday yesterday so we went shopping for African cloth, had toe nails painted (only Emma got her toenails painted)! And had a picnic!

No pics this week as not uploading will sort it out soon

See you soon

Thanks Julia and Paul for the curly-wurly’s!!!