Snake!

I'm not sure that I ever mentioned that I have an extreme aversion to snakes. But then again, why would anyone like snakes? I know that some are supposed to be "good" snakes, but I think it's true that the only good snake is a dead one!

So when we surrendered to go to Uganda, snakes was one of the fears I had to face. (Actually I had hundreds of fears, but we'll stick with this one for now.) Uganda is home to the black mamba and the green mamba, reputedly two of the deadliest snakes known to man. Of course you can also find your common every day cobra there too.

Knowing the species available, I really struggled with moving to Uganda. When we got there, we moved into a house surrounded by a cement block wall. We had several dogs, and they were turned lose in the compound at night in order to guard the property. One night, about two months after we arrived, the dogs set up a furious howling during the night. They wouldn't shut up, so Terry went out to see what had stirred them up. A few moments later I heard him yelling through the window, "Jill, get the shotgun! Jill!"

We were holding a shotgun for one of the other missionaries that was out of the country. I grabbed the gun and ran it out to my husband who promptly used it to blow the head off of a cobra that was in the yard. Even after the head was gone, the snake still stretched over six and a half feet.

I spent the next several days fighting the urge to cower in the closet. My husband, typical of most missionaries, put the story in our next prayer letter.

Approximately four weeks later, one of my children encountered a much smaller snake on our back patio. Matt, eleven at the time, jumped out the back door and right over the snake. One of the men killed it promptly, but I still gathered all the children into our living room and considered staying there for the next three years until we went on furlough. I just didn't see how we were going to be able to live in a place where such dangers lurked. Matt was my oldest, and I had five more after him, the youngest being less than six months old. How could we possibly keep them all safe?

That afternoon in the mail we got over a dozen letters from our Sunday School class in our home church in Alabama. They had all read our latest prayer letter (the one about killing the cobra). Each letter mentioned that they were praying for us and for our safety from snakes. I still find it amazing that the day I needed reassurance that God was protecting us, He sent over a dozen letters reminding me that we had people praying for us.

Isn't God good?

Moms on Adrenalin - Part 4

This is the continuing story of a desperate missionary mom in search of medical help for her children. If you want to start at the beginning, click here.

When I dialed the number of the Ugandan doctor, I got his office in Mbale. I was slightly skeptical that he could help me anyway, so I was surprised at the disappointment I felt when I found out that he wasn't even in the office. Turns out he spent several days of the week out in the village--his hometown, so to speak--taking care of medical needs out there. He wouldn't be back in the office for two more days.

"But you can go to the village and see him there," I was told.

Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen.

"It is not far," the voice on the phone insisted. "Right outside of town. Very easy to get to."

That still left the matter of directions. Most Ugandan roads are not named. You can't tell someone to turn by the Walgreens on the corner. Although you might tell them to turn by the crooked tree that sticks out over the road. And you certainly couldn't plug "fourth hut on the left" into a gps unit.

"We have someone here who is going to the village today. If you come to the office and get her, she will direct you to the village."

Well wasn't that convenient. I don't pick up strangers, and I certainly don't follow their directions.

"Tell me how to get to your office," I surrendered. I still had sick kids. I would do what I must.

We swung by the office and picked up a young woman in her early twenties. We asked again how far the village was and were assured it was no more than twenty minutes. So we crammed the eleventh person into our Trooper and headed out of town.

We exchanged a few pleasantries and then everyone fell silent while we drove.

And drove.

And drove.

"How much farther," I asked after forty-five minutes.

"We are very near."

Our passenger had directed me to take several turns, and I was quietly running them over and over again in my head to make sure I didn't get lost. I glanced at my cell phone and realized we were too far out to get any service. That's when panic hit me.

We were two American women out in the bush with eight small children. We were totally at the mercy of our passenger in getting anywhere. If anything happened to the vehicle, including a flat tire, we were basically stranded. No one knew where we were, not even our husbands, since we had neglected to call and tell them what we were doing.

And yet, we were "very near", whatever that meant. Surely it couldn't be much farther.

About thirty more minutes of driving finally put us at the edge of village. There were a few buildings as well as huts and booths. Our passenger directed us to the building where the doctor kept his office. As we pulled up, it was clear this village didn't see many vehicles. And it was even more clear that they didn't see Americans very often. It must have seemed like the circus came to town when our bright red SUV pulled up, and ten Americans climbed out. We had a curious crowd surrounding the vehicle and following us into the doctor's office.

Our passenger introduced us to the doctor and then wandered off somewhere. We didn't see her again before we left. The doctor greeted us graciously, and escorted us into his office as though we were honored guests. The villagers crowded in to peer through the doorway and the windows while I spoke with the doctor and he examined my children. It was kind of an early version of a reality show, I guess.

The doctor spoke excellent English, with a trace of accent. He asked the history of the boys' illness, checked their vitals, looked into their throats and diagnosed them both with a bacterial infection. He would give me antibiotics and he could give Joel an injection to control the vomiting. He was very glad we had come to see him, and I was very glad that he knew what he was doing. We discussed treatment for a few moments and then he turned and asked his assistant(?)--she was the person standing at his elbow while he spoke with me--to bring him certain items.

He kept up a steady stream of gentle small talk as he measured out medicine to give to Nicky. He then handed me the bottle with instructions for dosage. He then prepared an injection for Joel, after I checked to make sure the needle he used came from a sterile package. Then he sent one of the spectators down to the marketplace to buy a Sprite. He gave it to Joel, who was thrilled to have a whole bottle to himself, and told him to sip on it slowly. For all of his special services, including the Sprite, I paid 25,000 Ugandan shillings.

That's about $10 in American money.

Relieved that I had finally found some help for my children, I wanted only to get back to the civilization of Tororo. Such as it was. As dumb as we had been already in this quest, I didn't want to be out on the roads at night. And I surely didn't want to be out in the bush at night. But we were delayed by the doctor. He wanted to show us the hospital (small clinic) that he was building there in the village. And he insisted we take a tour. As we went through the building, he went into great detail about his plans for this place and how he wanted to help his people.

I appreciated his dedication, but I didn't really see what it had to do with me. Only later did it occur to me that all Ugandans think Americans are rich. He was looking for donations. Sponsorship. Money.

He was disappointed.

We finally left the village (without our guide, who was staying there) and headed back. We were a little unsure of one or two turns, but eventually we did make it back to Tororo, pulling into our compound just as the sun was setting.  I was exhausted, but we were home safe, my two boys were on the mend, and I now had a great story to tell my husband when he got back. For one day, I got to be Indiana Jones.

Gotta love that adrenalin.

Moms on Adrenalin - Part 3

Continuing from yesterday's story where two missionary wives and their eight children seek medical help in the jungles of Uganda ...  To read the beginning of the story, click here.

We entered the building and went down a long hallway, and the first person we ran into was a Ugandan workman. When we asked him about American doctors, he pointed us to some chairs lining the wall and hurried off.

I should mention here that running into other Americans in Uganda didn't happen that often. If you happened to be in Kampala and you saw another American in a restaurant, you would stop and at least exchange pleasantries. You know, what state you're from, where you're located in the country, etc. That sort of thing. It was a little bit like seeing someone from home. So we were excited about meeting these doctors, not just for the help we needed at the moment, but for the possibility of meeting someone from home that lived nearby.

Because of that, and because we thought we were close to our goal, we had a buzz of excitement as we sat waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Truly, these must be American doctors. It felt just like the waiting rooms at home. Finally an obviously American woman came hurrying down the hallway.

And I knew this wasn't gonna be good.

She had a professionally pleasant look on her face, and her mouth was almost stretched into a smile, but not quite. I introduced myself and explained that we were missionaries in Tororo. I got out the barest details of why we were there when she cut me off. The clinic wasn't opened yet, she explained. It wouldn't be open for another month. And when it was open it was an orthopaedic clinic. And it was strictly for Ugandans. There was no help here for anyone of any other nationality.

I blinked. We weren't here to visit the clinic, I maintained. But we did have somewhat of a medical emergency and we were hoping to find some help. The woman was adamant that there was nothing she could do for us. Quite frankly, in the time it took her to explain that they wouldn't help, she could have examined both boys. It wasn't like we were taking her from her patients. I kept asking if there was anything she could do, and tried to emphasize just how sick the boys had been.

With a look of exasperation, the woman reached down and plucked Nicky out of my arms. As she felt his forehead (all the latest medical advances here, people!) she studied Joel, who was sitting quietly next to me. Joel had nothing left to vomit, and I had given them both some children's tylenol before we left the house, hoping to make the trip a little easier for them. Neither child was very active at the moment, but they weren't writhing in agony either.

And that was the problem, I guess.

"They certainly look fine now," she commented, handing Nicky back to me. Seriously? Just because Joel wasn't throwing up all over her nice, new hallway? Just because Nicky wasn't having a seizure from excessively high temperatures? Would I make this up and go to all this trouble for nothing?

I don't think so.

"I can't help you," she insisted when I pressed her. "But I do know of a good Ugandan doctor in town. I can give you his number."

I started to protest, but she assured me he had received his medical education in Great Britain and then had come back to work among his own people. He was good, she insisted. Several of them had taken their children to him since they'd arrived.

She wrote his number down on a piece of paper and handed it to me. Then she gave us one last professional smile and hurried away.

I found out later that she wasn't even a doctor. She was one of the administrative personnel that would help man the clinic.

Can I just say, even writing about this part of the story made me mad all over again.

Discouraged, we piled back into the Trooper. I couldn't head back home because I still had two sick children who needed help. With no other choices, I dialed the number she gave me.

To read the final chapter of this adventure, click here.

The Continuing Story

This post continues Moms on Adrenalin, the post from last week's Monday Memories. I'm just getting to it now because I didn't have time to remember earlier in the week. : )

Previously on Monday Memories:  Lisa and I had loaded our combined eight children into my Trooper and were headed off to find a doctor for my two youngest, Joel and Nicky. They were 2 and 1 years old, respectively, and were both running high fevers and Joel was doing a lot of vomiting. Our husbands were away, and Lisa had heard that there might be American doctors in the town of Mbale.

And now the continuation ...


We drove the half hour to Mbale, and started asking around. It shouldn't be too hard to find some American doctors, we thought. Mbale is a town of about 70,000 to 80,000 people. Should be a piece of cake! We asked in various shops if anyone had heard of American doctors starting up a clinic in the area. (Cue banjo music and various shots of us asking for help. Picture kids hanging out of every window and door of the Trooper, and everyone with their arms pointed in different directions.) Most people had no idea what we were talking about, but we finally got some information and vague directions to what we hoped would be a clinic. it was supposed to be an orthopaedic clinic, but surely the doctors could help us with our medical problem.

Many twists and turns later, we were pretty sure we were headed in the right direction. I should mention that, although main roads are paved in Uganda, I use the term paved loosely. Lots of big potholes to drive through or around, and the roads are generally in bad condition. I finally took a turn onto a road that was really bad. It headed uphill and not only was the road crumbling, but it also had a lot of debris. There were fair-sized tree branches in the road and even piles of gravel. But, hey, I was driving an SUV, and I was a Mom with a mission. So I slowly drove over, through and around the obstacle course. Until the road dead-ended at the top of the hill. What was before us couldn't be called a road, and I wasn't sure even an SUV could get over it. I put the vehicle in park, and Lisa and I got out and looked around.

Me:  Why does the road dead end here?

Lisa: I think they're extending the road.

Me:  This whole area doesn't look quite finished, does it?

We both turned and looked down the hill. There at the bottom, to the right, was an obviously new building. It was mostly finished, although there were a few final touches that were needed.

Me: I think we found the clinic.

Lisa: Yes, but how are we going to get down there? This road isn't finished, and I don't see where the road is that leads to the clinic.

By this time we were attracting some attention and people were starting to stare. I looked back over the way we'd come, and then realized something. When Ugandans are doing construction, they don't have regular barricades to put up. So they usually block the road with whatever they have on hand.

Things like fair-sized tree branches and piles of gravel.

We had driven through an area that wasn't even open for traffic yet.

Lisa suggested we drive back down the obstacle course--you know, to the road that wasn't under construction--and find a way to get to the clinic. I wasn't so sure. For one thing, I didn't want to drive through the obstacle course again. For another thing, once we got to the bottom of the hill, we wouldn't be able to see the clinic, and I wasn't sure we would be able to find it again. My mission wasn't just to find the clinic. My mission was to get help for my babies. So I did the only thing that made sense to me.

I left the road completely, and drove down the side of the hill toward the clinic. We bounced and bumped our way down, but really it wasn't much different from driving on Ugandan roads. I brought the Trooper to a triumphant stop at the front of the building. A closer look confirmed that this was, indeed, a medical clinic staffed by Americans. It wasn't open for business yet, but the doors were unlocked, and all ten of us eagerly headed inside, sure that our quest for medical help was at an end.

But of course, if that were the case I wouldn't be continuing this story again, would I?  To read the next part of the story, click here. Ya'll come back now, here?

Moms on Adrenalin

So you've heard of the mom that was so filled with adrenalin, she lifted a car by herself in order to free her trapped child. What, you mean you haven't heard of that? Well you should have. It's urban legend. An average mom can suddenly be filled with superhuman strength or abilities when it comes to taking care of her children.

And sometimes she can find herself in very unusual circumstances for the same reason ...

While serving as missionaries in Uganda, we lived in a small town on the border between Uganda and Kenya. Once a month my husband would make the eight hour round trip to Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. He would pick up our support money for the month. He would also shop for meat, cheese, milk, and some other things that were difficult to find in our small town. Often he also had to deal with the myriad of paperwork involved in serving in a third world country. All of this took a great deal of time, so these monthly trips usually involved two or three days. We had another missionary family staying near us, and the two men decided to make the regular trip into Kampala together.

The men had been gone for about a day when my two youngest children got sick. Joel and Nicky were two and one years old at the time, and both started running high fevers. Joel kept vomiting until he had nothing left on his stomach, and Nicky's fever shot up to 105 degrees.

One of the things I had been given before I left for the mission field was a book entitled, Where There Is No Doctor. I think the title's self-explanatory. Anytime one of the kids came down with something that was not easily identifiable, I'd haul out the book and compare symptoms. "Okay, so there's fever and vomiting, but no headache, so I think we can rule out typhoid." It was an interesting book, but it didn't do much to diagnose my kids that day.

As Nicky's fever climbed higher, I got a little frantic. None of the children's tylenol I had was doing much to bring the fever down. My husband wouldn't be home for two more days, but my children needed help now.

Unfortunately, there were not a lot of medical options in our small town. In Ugandan schools, 30 is considered a passing grade. I wanted a doctor that got more than thirty percent right on his medical tests. I was discussing the problem with Lisa, the other missionary wife, when she had an idea.

Lisa had heard a rumor that there were American doctors in Mbale, a town thirty minutes north of us. She thought they were going to be starting an orthopaedic clinic that was funded by a mission organization. We didn't know if the rumor was true. We didn't know if they'd even started building their clinic, or if it was something planned in the future. We didn't know exactly where in Mbale it was located. So we did the only thing we could.

We went looking for them.

We loaded all eight kids (her two and my six) into our Isuzu Trooper, and set off on a quest to find medical help for my children.

This post is part of my Monday Memories. Part Two of a Mother on Adrenalin will be posted next Monday. In the meantime, what unusual things has motherhood called you to do?

To read the next installment of this memory, click here.