Melissa Graham

15^th July 2012 Prayer Points

Please be praying for Summer and I as we head back to Karamoja for:

            - safe passage and fair roads

             - solid learning as we visit the OPC missionaries again on Monday and spend the day learning the ins and outs of our wonderful 4WD vehicle from Bob the amazing handyman mechanic there.

            - me as I work with 10 women from the community next week to revive ethnoveterinary medicine in KACHEP starting with Neem oil production. Wisdom to make this project sustainable and something the community can take on themselves and benefit from with the eventual aim of not needing KACHEP to fund them in it.

            - opportunities to speak truth and light into our community and where God places us every step of the way, continued storying and bible study groups; that God would open the doors for us to spend more time in the manyatas/villages than we have been.

           - praise and glory to God for our Thursday Bible study with all the KACHEP members, that it is going really well and that as we read the Bible together in English and Karamajong, the Word is speaking into the lives of everyone who comes and is clearly growing them in their faith and knowledge of our great God and Saviour.

            - the growing friendships between us and the Karamojan people of Nabilatuk

             - Miriam, as she heads back to Germany and for wisdom and guidance and fun times with friends and family as she finishes her studies there.

             - Alyce and the blessing she was and the fun we had together (love you sis)

            - Tom and Jean in America

            - partnerships with new friends at OPC and CLIDE (Dr Val)

             - raising up new team members for the harvest of Karamoja

             - praise and immense gratitude for everyone here in Uganda supporting us and for everyone overseas supporting us; Calvary Chapel, esp. Bev and Jesse Rich, CVM, esp. Fred Van Gorkom, Pioneers International, Unichurch (Wagga Wagga) and our friends and families.

Alyce in Karamoja

14 July 2012
Last week my sister Alyce came to visit us in Nabilatuk! I want to thank her for being an amazing help and blessing to me and to the team. She arrived to find Summer and Miriam malaria stricken and most of KACHEP out or sick too. It was such a crazy week with so many fun things that happened!

I had just spent the week with Dr Val and upon hearing that my beloved teammates were practically dying in Nabilatuk and so probably wouldn't make it to come get us, Val and I went and picked Alyce up (Mon 2nd) from the small airstrip in Moroto where she was flying into. So 2 hours from Nabilatuk and not sure how we're going to get back there, we hear that Miriam had driven up to a hospital near us to get tested for malaria and bruscellosis. So we spent the morning in Moroto, Alyce did some souvenir shopping and we had lunch while we waited to get another update of the situation. Miriam came to Moroto, picked us up and somehow we arrived safely in Nabilatuk later that afternoon.

Miriam's malaria count was 180. People have malaria at anything higher than zero. People feel sick and unable to get out of bed at a count of 4. Miriam had 180 and drove 240 km that day, she shouldn't have been walking or talking let alone driving. Hmm the things you discover after the fact.

The day after, Miriam was on an intravenous drip with malaria medication and fluids for extreme dehydration, rotated for three days. On the second night the IV line came out and when she went back to the clinic to get it put back in, the nurse had to jab her in about 10 different places because her main veins had mostly all collapsed. It was a scary time for all of us, especially Summer and I in fear for her, let's put it that way.

So Alyce came in perfect timing and we were still able to spend quality time together despite the crazy circumstances.

Alyce came bearing gifts. I've got a licorice allsort in my mouth.
(in case you were wondering)

 Wednesday was, for all who are American or who have ever watched an American TV show would know, 4th of July, aka Independence Day. Alyce and I tried to make the day as special as we could for Summer. We have of course never celebrated the day so didn't really know what to do but we still had fun. Together the three of us (between checking on Miriam) drew an American flag (50 stars & 13 stripes and all!), made garlic bread and pizza for dinner and cinnamon rolls and a peach pie for dessert (which took most of the afternoon to do as all we have in the way of a kitchen here is a small fire), had fun singing national anthems together, Summer sung hers very passionately and played cards (4 corners, which became a game Alyce loved to play but never won until the last day she was here :). 

Summer, Alyce and I making the American flag

Alyce's swishy skirt.

On Friday we started a project that we'd been wanting to do for a while but was catalysed by the fact that we wanted to share it with Alyce who would be leaving the following Wednesday and Miriam who would be leaving the following weekend. So we got together with our Karamojan girls (Nabor, Valentina and Christine) and we all sewed traditional K'jong skirts! See photos :) We bought 7 large cloths of blanket-like material all of different patterns to make 7 skirts for us all. Working together we cut the blanket in rectangle panels and sat down and made 7 skirts that had 14 panels in each, all completed in a day! It was sooooo much fun! We are officially Karamajong now with our swishy skirts :) The best part about it was seeing Valentina, Nabor and Christine really get into it as well. They were just as excited, if not more excited about the whole thing!

This is me choosing the best cuts of donkey meat for dinner.

On Saturday we went to a local market and bought donkey meat for dinner. We were planning to go out to a nearby mountain and have a picnic under the great expanse of K'jong stars but then Miriam (who was on the mend by this stage) got a message inviting us to another 4th of July celebration (only it was the 7th of July) with some missionaries from America with the Presbyterian church who live about an hour away. From now on I will refer to them as the OPC missionaries for convenience :)

Our cooking stove.

So change of plans! We took our donkey meat with us but they had prepared hotdogs, so there was plenty of food to go around :)

Sunday was another crazy fun out of the blue opportunity in which Summer, Alyce and I went to a prison in Namalu, about 1hr from Nabilatuk. I gave my testimony of how Jesus has changed my life and Summer spoke about Zacchaeus the tax collector and how, although he was a thief,  he was forgiven when he made the choice to change his life and give back what he had stolen, asking Jesus for forgiveness, (Luke 19:1-10) "For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost." I won't mention that we didn't get home til around 9:30pm because we put petrol in our diesel land cruiser and then had to empty and replace it all again. Fun times!!

On Tuesday the three of us went to a local primary school and we were warmly welcomed with a song from the students with bongo drums and impressive harmonies. Alyce is a primary school teacher at home and so had brought 200 pencils that the students from her school had donated to give to this Karamajong school. We spent some time with the whole school (around 200 students) in their assembly and then we went into a classroom that had 20 kids of equivalent grading to Alyce's Australian students.

 Alyce's students had all drawn pictures for these children and wrote a few sentences about themselves. Alyce had taken photos of each of her students and attached them to the drawings so the K'jong could see their Australian student counterparts. It was nice to see their faces devouring these photos of fair, blonde haired, blue eyed children and read about their families and pets and favourite sports. We got the kids to write messages back to the Aussies with things like, My name is..., I have... people in my family, In my garden is... (all the children will have family gardens they work in with maize or sorghum or beans in them, etc.), at home we have...animals, etc. Then they also drew drawings and we took photos of them with their pictures. It was really fun to have such a reciprocal activity and I can't wait to hear what Alyce's Australian students say when they see cute Karamojan children holding up the drawings they have drawn! It'll probably blow their minds to think of their drawings all the way in Africa!

Tuesday night we had a massive party together with the KACHEP members and the four of us singing and dancing.

 We were not really celebrating but commemorating Miriam for her time serving in Karamoja and also saying goodbye to Alyce as well, as she flew out the following morning. I'm not going to lie, I cried when she left; having family visit you in such a place as Karamoja gives you a teasing taste of home that is both wonderful and horribly sad when the time comes to an end.

For a short time we were four! Now as I write this I am down country in Jinja and when we return to Karamoja tomorrow (Sunday), we will be two.