Murchison Hospital

After the church service, we went to Murchison hospital's pediatric ward.  This hospital looks like it is still 1930 or so- absolutely no computers or other technology to speak of.  The walls were painted with cartoon characters and there was a small TV in the corner playing "football."  There were about 20-30 kids there while we were.  The nurses do a great job with what they have even though they don't have many resources.  We were there to throw a party for the children at the hospital- to love on them, hold them, play with them, and minister where we can.  We brought bubbles, stickers, coloring books, beach balls, play dough, and balloons.

Some of the kids were too sick or hurt to get out of bed, so some stayed with those, and then the others, we gathered into one of the larger rooms to play with.  The kids ate up all the attention! It was awesome.  It was horrible hearing stories of how some of these children got hurt- a grandmother dipped her granddaughter in a pot of boiling water because she didn't want to watch her anymore- and other horrifying stories.  We stayed for several hours and were able to minister to a lot of people.

On this mission, there were several projects going on at once and Russ and I basically did a sampling of most of them.  Other people on the team that have been on this trip for several years, had one project they they headed up the entire time were were there.  Russ and I weren't able to come back to the hospital this trip, but several others on our time did.  Quite a few came back and painted a waterfall scene in the room where new mothers and babies stay.  They also tutored these new mothers on infant and postpartum care and gave them a gift of bottles, washcloths, blankets, and soap.  One new mother, who had HIV, begged one of our ladies to take her baby with her to the USA.  Of course, that couldn't happen, and the mother wasn't being unloving- actually just the opposite.  She knew that her baby would have such a greater chance of surviving in the US that she was willing to give her baby away.  What a demonstration of ultimate love.

After leaving the hospital at about 5pm- we were exhausted! Those kiddos wore us out- or maybe it was the jet lag.  We were able to go back to our homes and take a nap and prepare for the work of the week.