Apoyo, apoyo, apoyo!!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
Thank you for your prayers thoughts and financial assistance. The medical mission to Uganda was a great success; during our nine clinic days there we helped about 4000 people! Without your support this valuable work would not have happened.
Our team of ten consisted of three doctors, two nurse practitioners, three nurses, and two medical students. We worked well together, enjoyed being with each other, and developed some great friendships.
Our Time in Uganda started with a program given by the children of the Orthodox primary and secondary school in the capital city of Kampala for us. They prayed, sang and danced for us.
We started most days with a trip to the local pharmacy to get the medicines that would be prescribed and given out that day. Then we would drive thirty minutes to two hours to the village that we would be setting-up our clinic in for the day.
At some villages we would be greeted by a welcoming committee of some of the women singing and dancing for us. Then we would go about setting-up the exam rooms and pharmacy. We listened to the patients, examined them, prescribed medicines, filled the prescriptions in our pharmacy, and explained to the patients how to take their medicines; all with the help of local interpreters who were usually students, and wonderful help.
We saw and treated: malaria, parasitic infestations, dysentery, pneumonia, TB, dehydration, and infections of all sorts. The medicines that we provided will help reduce pain and suffering and will help reduce infant and childhood death due to preventable diseases. Our presence and willingness to help also demonstrated our caring and love for them.
After the day at the clinic we would drive back to the hotel located in one of the two cities that we worked out of. The ride in the van was always a mesmerizing combination of being tired and looking out the window at a very different world. At the hotel we would pray, eat dinner, enjoy our time together, and get ready for the next day. Then we would wake up the next day, pray, eat, drive, set-up the clinic, and see between 300 to 500 patients before returning to the hotel.
On Sundays we celebrated Divine Liturgy (church) in a local Orthodox church which was always a joy. The Ugandans love to sing and worship. After church there would be more visiting, singing, and dancing outside, truly a day of rest and worship.
Some of the villages that we visited were places of great poverty with a life occupied with subsistence and survival. One village in particular was very difficult for us because of its poverty, filth, and seeming lack of joy-very sad for us.
Many of us made friendships with the priests, nuns, students, and others that we only met or spent time with daily. I now have an African brother, Fr. George, we developed a close bond and I miss him.
For fun we visited Murchison falls on the Nile river, they were spectacular and the mist was very refreshing-Uganda is hot and humid and we were just a degree north of the equator. The next day we took a ferry across the Nile as the sun rose and went on a safari. We saw Baboons, birds, wart hogs, a lion, a crock, many giraffes, lots of water buffalo, many hippos, all kinds of antelopes and some elephants-very cool.
I am left with the faces of the children in my mind, God’s children, our brothers and sisters. I am reminded of the bible verse: for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me. …assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me. Matthew 25:35,40
To see some pictures from the trip, visit:
picasaweb.google.com/darrell.a.fox/Uganda200902#
or contact me at Darrell.a.fox@gmail.com and I will email a link to them for you.
Sincerely and in Christ, Darrell
