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Uganda Trip - Jan. 2020

SLIDESHOWS     VIDEOS

Westminster Medical Missions 2020 Uganda Mission Team Report

On Saturday, January 11, 2020, our team of eleven left for Northern Uganda for the 27th year of Westminster Medical Missions trips The 2020 Westminster Medical Missions Servant team members were Dr. Bill Harden, Becky Harden, David Duritza, Liz Myers, Meredith Hayes RN, Brock Swanson, Kim Matzel-Brown PA, Bob Matzel, Mark Raulerson, Luberta Colley (Whitaker), and Elmira Nellum.

  

 

This year we did not sponsor a surgical camp as our aim was to support repair and additions to the AIDS clinic (noting that we did not have a surgeon anyway). We were able to give food bags to all patients in the children's ward (with toys/sweets) as well as the maternity, surgical and medical wards, neonatal and nutrition wards. Elmira and Luberta had a great time painting fingernails on the wards.

  

With Liz's leadership we were able to hold a kid's camp. Between 150-200 kids participated and it was felt to be very successful although to the new team members it was a bit chaotic. This year we had bags specially made for the kid's camp and they were loaded with goodies. Luberta's daughter (a elementary teacher from Georgia) had her class make "hands" to be given out to the kids.

We bought and packed hundreds of bags of giveaway food that included handmade bags, sugar, beans, oil, posho and soap. As usual our daily hut visits were one of the highlights and after a long the truck we were a tired but 

happy team. We were able to make approximately 50 hut visits and were able to assist those "weak" ones, ones without clothing or food and those whose huts had been burned or the orphans with no visible means of support except for their neighbors. We were again privileged to be the giver of new clothes, toys and sweets, balloons, soccer balls, blankets, hats and money. We not only gave bags of food to be prepared later, but food for immediate consumption. We also gave out gerry cans filled with clean water and serving utensils when needed.

 

 It was especially evident this year that the need for clean water was as important as ever. We saw repeatedly children and adults drinking dirty water from whatever source they could get it from.    

 

 

One hut visit found us with orphans who had been caught in a fire when their hut was burned in the middle of the night. One of the children died and another was in the hospital for six months.   

Even now the one boy had scabbed wounds on his scalp that were draining. We were able to dress his wounds, give them all food and clothes and pay for a new hut.

 

We went to a Babies home, to a dispensary and at the AIDS clinic as well as hut visits. We gave much needed medical supplies to the dispensary.

We found out that the government had stopped supplying the AIDS clinic with any medications except for AIDS or TB. Therefore, we gave them all of our oral antibiotics and NSAIDS (Ibuprofen type drugs) as well as Tylenol type drugs. We also left them with a monthly financial allocation to purchase some of the drugs.

We thank each of you for your continued support. If God is willing we will plan on our 28th year for the 2021 Westminster Medical Missions Team trip to Uganda in January. Tentative dates would be from January 9th-22nd 2021. We ask for your continued prayers as we continue to do the work that we feel God has set before us.

Doctor Bill Harden, Team Leader