Thanksgiving...

We started today with a special service replacing our normal Staff Prayers at 8am.  This was to coincide with the Thanksgiving service for Jamie, the little boy who had become unwell and died after transfer to Nairobi, being held today in UK.  The vicar conducting the Thanksgiving had emailed out a copy of the order of service to Kisiizi so we used some of the same passages and songs.  Nancy spoke a little about the mental health service that the family had come to Uganda to support and of how touched she was that they are setting up a foundation in Jamie's memory to help raise support for the Mental Health Unit.  Various members of Staff read passages and prayed for the family and Ian gave a short talk.  It was a time of mixed emotions, great sadness at the loss and yet hope that comes from an eternal perspective.

We are happy to welcome new Interns to Kisiizi.  This is possible as we now have accredited Consultant level staff:  Francis in Obstetrics & Gynaecology and Gabriel in Surgery.  So we welcome Albert and Onesimus for six months, they will rotate between the two specialties.

Another cause for thanksgiving for Ian was going on the ward round this am and finding a child he had seen in extremis with severe heart failure looking so much better.  He had arrived exhausted, with a very fast heart rate, congested lungs, grunting respiration and a big liver all related to heart failure and today looks a different child - we had expected that it was very likely the child would die in the night so lovely to see the turn around today.

Our youngster with nephrotic syndrome [see previous blog] is making progress, his weight dropping as the excess fluid starts to reduce, so we pray that the steroids he is having in big doses will stop the protein leaking from his kidneys.

Ruth and Beth spoke at the last day of term in the Primary School assembly and then Ruth did a presentation to the teachers on Autistic Spectrum Disorders, an area they have not really focussed on before.  They received the talk warmly and have started to catch a vision for some sort of focus on special-needs children in future, perhaps eventually setting up some sort of centre here not only to help such children but also to train other teachers from schools in the region to better care for these special pupils.

Challenges continue - today we have no water in the house, due to a broken pipe supply.  3 power cuts yesterday evening, not sure why, all only brief though.  But we still have so much compared to many in our community who often, through it all, continue to be thankful.

Ian's vision seems to have fully recovered so again we are really thankful.

Press on!


Ian and Hanna