Blog 2: Wheels in Kumi, Uganda 2022
We've got a great team working hard in Kumi Uganda from the 10th to 20th Feb. We'll bring you their life-changing stories and pictures just as often as the internet connection allows. Here's Sam's report from day 2 -- pictures to follow soon.
Day 2 began appearing more organised than the Saturday, with a more reasonable number of clients waiting to be seen under tent. The pastors, Davis and Simon, held their introduction which always seems to raise the mood amongst workers and clients alike. The staff assumed their positions and we began accepting the clients through the system once more.
The beginning of the work always seems the most stressful. With clients eager to be seen many shuffled closer to the registration desk, this proved to be more of a problem than on Saturday, without Paul’s organisational skills Lynne and Ellie Williams had no means of knowing which clients to prioritise and the system fell to a small frenzy.
In spite of this the workers kept their heads down and worked their way through everyone who passed through registration, meeting so many amazing people: Esther, an 8 year old girl, who can only move herself by crawling with flip flops on her hands, Esther’s mother carries her 2km every day, just to get her to school. Esther is the youngest of 7 leaving her mother very little time to transport her, this was Esther’s first wheelchair, and it was amazing seeing how intuitive she was, immediately utilising the self-propelled wheelchair. It was hear-warming seeing her finally have that freedom.
Ivan immediately caught our attention when he came in, such a happy boy with a clearly loving father who told me Ivan’s story. Ivan suffers from spastic movements and is unable to feed himself or crawl anymore than a short distance, Ivan used to be carried to school by his father but he is now too big. He has 5 brothers and 2 older sisters who look after him and he looks up to. Ivan’s sisters go to school, and he is eager to join them, so much so that he borrows their uniform so that he can be as smart as them. This wheelchair will allow him to be taken to school by his sisters.
However hard it was to send the non-registered visitors home, it was good to see they at least were served posho and beans and did not go home with empty stomachs. The fact that there were fewer clients today allowed more time to sit and learn their stories, it was distressing to hear of the hardship these people have, but it made the work we are doing even more emotionally rewarding.
We finished the day with high morale having seen 58 clients and 8 of them giving their lives to Jesus, making a total of 13 people over the two days. As we ended the team cleared and cleaned the site before returning to our accommodation.