Tuesday was kind of a low-energy day, but we all made it back to Muntungo for another day of work and visiting. I confess to mostly visiting (I’m just not physically capable of fence-building), although I did help plant Bougainvillea vines along the fence. I know it will be beautiful when they grow up and bloom on that fence!
I was in a group of four who made TAPP and Jajja visits. We walked miles through the slums, and some “nicer” communities, to get to the particular homes. The first was a TAPP client, abandoned by her husband when it was determined that she was HIV positive, and left with two children — a very small three year old who has two holes in her heart and desperately needs an operation (which the Stephensons and the TAPP director are working toward getting taken care of), and a 2 year
old little boy who was just a little dynamo. TAPP had built them a concrete 1 room house to rescue them from the street. She was so grateful for the visit and the gifts we brought (a new skirt, soap, toothpaste, lotion, a blanket and that kind of thing, plus some food stuffs). We sang for them and prayed for them.
In these pictures you can see one of the yellow jugs they use to carry water from a community source. It’s the children’s job to carry the water for the family, usually. Here at Muntungo, you would always see a gang of kids around the water pipe, catching water, then carrying it home on top of their heads. The smaller children couldn’t fill their container very full or it would be too heavy to carry. Also, you can see a woman in an alleyway, cooking over a charcoal fire, making these little hushpuppy-like fritters to sell. In the city, most of the cooking is done over charcoal braizers (little stove-pots). The smell of burning charcoal is pervasive.
The second visit was to a 93 year old Jajja (grandmother). We walked a long way UP a big hill to get to where she lives with her granddaughter. She was home alone and locked out of the house for the day while the granddaughter was at work, because people would break in and steal what little they had while she was there alone. (It was one of the FEW houses I saw that actually had a door at all!) The neighbor TAPP women were looking after her. To be 93 years old in Uganda means she has seen an awful lot of awful things in her lifetime (including the brutality of the Idi Amin regime). She was so grateful for our visit, and insisted that we sit on the benches brought over by the neighbor women, while she sat on the rocky ground. Her prayer request, after we had visited a while, was for her jaw (which was obviously swollen and painful), and for a mat to sleep on. She had been sleeping on the concrete floor with just a folded sheet to lay on. Well, we had brought her a gift bag with a fleece blanket and some toiletries and she was thrilled with that, BUT, we had also brought about 20 foam mattresses to give out, and they were back at the church. They were all spoken for, but when later that afternoon she WALKED down to the church (and I’m telling you, this was a HIKE), arrangements were made for her to get a mattress. It seemed that God had provided the answer to her prayer before she even asked. ; )
After lunch, four of us went to another TAPP client’s house for a very moving visit. This woman was in mourning over her child that had died just the previous weekend from cerebral malaria, plus her 13 year old daughter was in the hospital with an HIV-complicated illness. (The child who had died was the only one of her 4 kids who was NOT HIV positive.) So many people here are HIV+, and it is spreading fastest among teens and married couples. Then, the men just abandon their families when HIV test prove positive–even when it is most likely that THEY have brought it into the household to begin with! While the situation at this home was very sad, I literally SAW Jesus when Paul White put his arms around that grieving mother. It was YOU, Jesus, comforting her! She just melted onto his shoulder and received the heartfelt compassion Paul shared with her. Paul had recently been through the death of a close family member and just naturally (and supernaturally) was able to comfort her with the comfort he had received. It was a beautiful thing.
