The first story is about a tiny leader with a huge heart, dramatic vision and brilliant intellect. Musiime K. Patience, a Compassion Child Survival Program Specialist (CSP) is pictured this afternoon with Chris and me at the CSP Project in a hilly, verdant rural area thirty miles outside of Kampala. The road to this area was red clay, hilly and rugged, can you say, very, very bumpy. And very long.
The stories made every mile we traveled and every bump endured worth it all.
"Patience" was born in the Kabale district in the western region of Uganda. Her father was a polygamist and of the Anglican religion. Her mother, one of four wives, was Catholic. At seven years old, she met a pentecostal mentor named Elizabeth, who invited her to her church and subsequently showed her the way to belief in Jesus Christ. As she attended the church, she came to realize that there was more to life than her birth village.
She aspired to attend University and in the first semester her Father suddenly died. Without any support, she packed her clothes ready to return to her village. The Christian Union Fellowship, which I believe hails from Scotland, decided to sponsor her remaining studies. She subsequently graduated with a degree in Education.
She now leads a portion of the amazing Compassion Child Survival Program. She is a vivacious, passionate, visionary young lady of 26. A Ugandan among Ugandans who is effectively leading the work of Compassion in her country. There are no Anglos or outsiders on the staff.
Patience leads us to our second story which is the CSP program itself. An astounding program that we
were privileged to witness up close and personal today.
The CSP program is for infants ages 0-3. It exists to prevent and mitigate the factors that put the child at risk. The catch phrase reads "Rescuing, Nurturing and discipling Little Ones. They accomplish this through the mother. The vision is for Fufilled and Responsible children.
Here are some hard, cold facts.
- 58% of births in Uganda deliver at home.
- 10% of women give birth ALONE.
- Infant mortality is 78 per 1000 live births. (In the US it is less than 5 out of 1000)
- 30% of HIV positive women pass the virus to their babies.
- 1.3 million women get pregnant in Uganda annually.
- That adds up to 101,400 children who die every year at birth.
- 33% of Ugandan women have never been to school.
In spite of these grim statistics, Patience and Compassion are not losing hope nor giving ground. There are 22 CSP's in Uganda with 1262 mother/child units. Currently 58 of them are pregnant.
After arriving at the project, the project "beneficiary" took our group of five (Carlos, Heather, Sophie and Chris-along with our leader Spence) through a poverty stricken village that seemed to be a scene in the Constant Gardner. Extreme poverty everywhere and people staring at us (Muzumbus) white people as we took a dusty walk of a quarter mile in the equatorial heat to the home of two year old Benjamin and his 21 year old Mom.
They live in a brick and mud hut with NO doors, floors, windows, electricity or running water. It seemed to measure approximately 10 feet by 10 feet. The father has several other wives and only shows up sporadically with little or no support.
The CSP program provides a spiritual, emotional and physical support system. We saw a meticulous file recording milestones in each of these areas for Benjamin. We prayed with them and the Mother bowed at our feet as we exited in thanks. It was a very humbling experience.
This is a thoroughly thought out program which amazed me even more as we walked back to the project church and held and played with the babies, watched as the Moms learned trades to support themselves, visited school for the older children and recreation. They also sang and danced for us. It was quite an experience and this post does not give credence to what this day means to us.
I am working on a You Tube video that hopefully will more fully capture the stories from the last three days. I will try to post that tomorrow.
I am convinced that every Ethos reader MUST sponsor a child. Please help us HELP these children. We don't want this trip to be in vain.
Go NOW and gather your children together and pick a child from Uganda and sponsor them NOW. GO HERE NOW to Sponsor your child.
We meet our sponsor child, Sharon, tomorrow. Please comment HERE and ENCOURAGE us if you are following us on this historic trip to Uganda. It is a BIG deal to get comments as we are over here in Africa away from family and friends.
Also, please pray for one of our team members, Keeley, who took a nasty fall in her room and is currently at the hospital. And for riots that are taking place in Kampala at this moment. Pray for Keeley and our teams saftey.
