When a Little Means a Lot

A Mattress. How do I complain about household chores and maintenance when a senior in Uganda tells me about the miracle of receiving a mattress? Not a replacement mattress, like for Christmas to replace an old one, but a mattress as in “I’ve never had one before”. Or a small LED lamp to provide their only source of light at night. These are the stories we heard from seniors served by Reach One Touch One Ministries (ROTOM), the ministry in Uganda my EMI team served in September 2016.

Getting Hugs. If you’ve read my blogs before you’ve seen me post photos of being mobbed by laughing, happy kids. On this trip, for the first time, I was mobbed by laughing, happy seniors. We had barely made it out of our van! Frankly, the seniors knew little of the technicalities of our work, they just knew that after EMI showed up seven years ago, the result was ROTOM's medical clinic a facility that has improved their standard of health care.

Inpatient Care. The 1,000+ seniors that ROTOM serves often have medical conditions that require more attention than can be provided for in an outpatient clinic setting. When they need surgery or another form of longer term care, a medical facility needs the capacity and appropriate facilities for inpatient services; surgical rooms, recovery beds, and beds for longer stays. So our EMI team tweaked the initial master plan and designed a 30+ bed inpatient ward to facilitate life-saving or certainly life-improving surgeries.

Doing Life Together. Our team of eight came from Canada, USA, UK, and Nigeria. We came alongside ROTOM to increase their capacity to care and serve. What better reward than a hug from a grateful senior?
Photos. Want to see built facilities that EMI designed back in 2009? How about more photos and stories of the seniors we met? A new set of photos has been placed in my Flickr Photo Gallery. Click here to jump to the gallery.
Thank you for coming alongside EMI and our family in 2016! Supporting us through prayer and finances, your partnership allows me to be remain a part of EMI and makes projects such as this possible.