And As You Do To The Least Of These...

Well first of all, I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and that you go on to have a Happy (and need I say SAFE) New Year! I am missing everyone a lot around this time, so know that you are in my thoughts and my prayers.

Second of all, so that everyone knows, the CDC has finally come out with an official notification on the sickness that had been plaguing Northern Uganda about a month ago. They are telling people now it is Yellow Fever (I have been vaccinated so I shouldn’t be in any danger) and advising people to get the shot for immunization if they haven’t had one in the last 10 years. So that mystery hopefully is solved and prayerfully no more people will die now that they know what it is.

Ok, now that those two things are covered, I will continue on with the reason for this post.

James 1:27

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Last week when we went out to the village to drop off a few of the staff with their families, we also stopped in to visit a child we had heard was doing poorly. That is one of the understatements of the year. Although his father and “Jaja” (grandmother) tell us he is almost two years old, he weighs about 10 kilos (if that), he can’t walk or even stand and is extremely malnourished. His mother died of cancer about a year ago, and since then his health has slowly gotten worse. Although his father is still alive, his second wife will not allow the children from the dead wife to live with them, so the Jaja has taken them in to her home since the death of their mother. Although the two older children seem to be doing alright, the youngest is suffering. The grandmother is unable to care for the child during the day because she has to go out and dig in the fields so she has to lock him into the house by himself until she gets home. As you can imagine, not a good situation. The boys name is “bad chance” but we are now calling him Emma (a common name here which is short for Emmanuel). After praying about it, the McCourtney’s have decided to take him into their home for awhile to help him regain his strength and hopefully after 6 months to a year, be able to return to his family.  The people here call it “rehabilitating” children. We will go and get him on Monday from the village when we pick up the staff again. So be in prayer that the Lord will use us to help him and his family!

Also, when Summer and Zane went up to church on Sunday night in a different village, a baby was brought to their attention. She is almost a year old but weighs about 5 kilos and is on deaths door step. Summer told the sister who was carrying her that she had maybe two weeks to live unless they could get her some help. Apparently, according to some people in the village, the mother has many children and every year is having another one so she is unable to care for the baby. We are calling the child Esther and on Friday I will go up to the village to speak with her family about prayerfully bringing her back here to Kitgum and “rehabilitating” her as well. For the children to survive in the village, they need to be about 2 years old so if her family consents, she will be brought into the McCourtney’s home for a time as well, probably between 6 months to a year (depending on how long it takes for her to recover). All of this, however is dependant on the consent of the parents for us to take her in, so be in prayer for that!

The Lord knows what will happen to these children and we are praying His will in every decision that is made. After living over here for only a month and seeing the need some of these children have, it is no wonder to me that the McCourtney’s have 12 children. My prayer is that the Lord will use me to assist them in the care of these and the children that they already have. As always, scripture seems to point to the importance of caring for these small ones.

Matthew 25:40
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

So that is what is going on! We will be (Lord willing) getting those two small ones, one on Friday and the other on Monday. God has a perfect plan and it will be exciting to see what that plan is! The Lord knows :) I can’t wait to see what it is...