DLM Newsletter December 2023

Friday, December 1, 2023

Update on Sandra

The neurosurgeon called me last night and said that the brain CT scan showed improvement. He said she is better clinically and was pleased she could respond back to him. The neurological issues are to be expected when there is an infection of the brain he said. He said it can take time for her to neurologically return to how she was before, and it is too soon to tell if the infection caused irreversible damage. As for her legs, because the TB was in her spine, they will continue doing the TB treatment and wait. They do physical therapy with her to help her regain strength. But again, he’s not sure if the damage is irreversible or not. We just have to wait and continue the medicine to see and pray for God’s continued mercy upon her life. God has been so merciful to her already. Sandra can now hold a cup and drink porridge and her protein shake. They had the feeding tube in her nose still because they weren’t sure if she was managing to take all the fluid she needed. Hopefully she will have it removed soon. She can talk more words and pretty clearly sometimes. She is sassy and can refuse to drink her protein shake because today it’s nasty, but yesterday it was good! Haha. Apparently, the mother and nurse said she can even snap her fingers and do an upper body dance shake while singing her own song with random words. She’s been off of the panadol without fever for the past 3 days. The culture of her lungs didn’t show any type of bacterial infection besides the TB. She can breath well now it seems. The ultrasound of her leg for the blood clot was done Wednesday. The results were the same as last week. We know it can take time though for her body to dissolve the clot so again, we will just wait to see. It’s always a joy to see her and all her improvements! She asked where Auntie CiCi was yesterday her mom said, among many other things. Thank you all for your prayers and giving! God is good all the time, no matter what. Glory to God Alone!

Saturday, December 9, 2023

Update on Sandra

Sandra’s doctors have cleared her to go home! Yay! She will likely go home Monday or Tuesday. Two specific prayer requests for her are for her brain to completely heal back to the state before the infection and for her to regain use of her legs. She still has some neurological effects, which the doctor said may or may not heal with time. Also, she still has partial paralysis of her legs, so please be in prayer that they are healed for her to be able to walk again. God has been so merciful to restore her this far!

I have been in the hospital with pneumonia since Sunday, December 3rd. I was discharged today from the hospital which is a praise! My oxygen dropped Tuesday to 86-88%. Having such a hard time breathing, they put me on oxygen, but the very smallest dose. This helped greatly to regain strength. A scare of low blood pressure 78/38 also occurred, but was most likely due to dehydration. Before I left the hospital, all my vitals were good with oxygen 97% and BP 118/78. I feel much better now and thankful the Lord allowed me to recover so quickly without having bad effects from the pneumonia, probably because it was caught quickly. Thank you all for the many prayers! Glory to God always!

Thursday, December 14, 2023

I'm feeling much better and enjoying seeing the vegetables grow, especially the zucchini! Glory to God!

Friday, December 15, 2023

Update on Sandra

Sandra is HOME!!! Today was an exhausting but very blessed day!! I left my house at 6:30 AM and reached back home at midnight. Thankfully, I had a driver most of the day until 10:30 PM to midnight. Always thankful for safe journeys!! Sandra was finally discharged this afternoon and was able to go home today! She was so happy because she kept saying she was ready to go home. Her mother and sister are just so grateful to the Lord for everyone who has given financially and prayed for them! All we can do is give God the glory and pray that God blesses each of you! Here are a few pics from today! Glory to God Alone!!

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

For the past 8 years, I’ve always returned to the U.S. to spend Christmas with the family. This year, Mama and Ashley are here to celebrate with me in Uganda! If you know Dad Barry, you know he fears flying such long distances. Haha! So he is celebrating with his family in North Georgia. Each year, we always take a family vacation somewhere during my time home over Christmas. Of course, we still had to take our family vacation, even though we are celebrating Christmas in Uganda. This morning at 3:50 AM, just a few hours after Mama and Ashley reached Uganda, we left to go on holiday to Kenya for a few days. This is a family vacation including Brian, since he’s a part of the family, too!! After flying to Nairobi, we had to board a flight to Mombasa in Kenya. We reached our hotel on the beach on the Indian Ocean and enjoyed walking on the beach this afternoon! Thankful for our yearly family vacation! Glory to God for His many undeserved blessings!!

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Day 2 of our family vacation in Diani Beach which is about 19 miles south of Mombasa, Kenya! Enjoying another beautiful day on the coast of Kenya!

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Day 3 of our family vacation! Glory to God for His blessings!

Friday, December 22, 2023 and Saturday, December 23, 2023

We concluded our family beach vacation on Friday and headed back to Uganda. Once arriving in Entebbe, we made a mad dash for the Victoria Mall to purchase groceries and grab dinner to go from KFC. The mall was nicely decorated for Christmas! We reached home a little after midnight on Saturday morning. We unpacked all seven bags that Mama and Ashley brought for me and for community outreach. We finally went to sleep around 4 AM this Saturday morning. We woke up around 9 AM as workers were here all day installing solar panels on the roof, running solar lines to the power room, and installing the solar batteries. We took a late afternoon nap and finished the evening off by cleaning up after the day’s work and decorating our Ugandan Christmas tree. Glory to God always!

Sunday, December 24, 2023

Our Sunday trip to Kampala looked a good bit different on Christmas Eve as many, many people were traveling for the Christmas holidays. The traffic moving in both directions was extremely heavy today!! The markets were super busy as people were buying fresh vegetables and other necessary items for their Christmas meals. It normally takes me about two hours to travel into Kampala on any given Sunday morning, but today it took three hours. We finally reached our first destination around 9:45 AM and enjoyed a delicious buffet breakfast. We arrived at church a little late because of traffic issues. After church ended at 1:00 PM, we headed home yet again facing heavy traffic. We finally reached home around 3:50 PM and managed to get in a short nap before our guests arrived. We have had a busy afternoon celebrating Jesus and enjoying time with sweet friends. Fun was had by all with toys, puzzles, games, Christmas cookies, Christmas hymns, and the Christmas story. We prepared fresh zucchini and yellow squash and enjoyed fresh mango and pineapple for dinner. After decorating Christmas cookies, most everyone watched a Christmas movie. And now off to bed! Glory to God!!!

Monday, December 25, 2023

It is officially Christmas Day in Uganda! Merry Christmas from all of us! Our landscaper even gave us a live Christmas tree. We had fun decorating the tree and the house on Saturday in preparation for our guests today. Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas from Uganda!! Glory to God Alone!

This is what our Christmas looked like this year in Uganda! DLM provided funds for Mama Fab to purchase food items that we needed for our Christmas Day community outreach. The guys butchered our two chickens that Mama Fab bought. Preparations for the meal began at 8:30 AM. Mama Fab was in charge of the cooking of all the Ugandan foods. Mama, Ashley, and I made mac n cheese, candied sweet potatoes, and an apple crumble to add to the feast. Typical Ugandan Christmas food dishes include matoke (plantains) with a ground peanut sauce, Irish potatoes, rice, pilau, pumpkin, and chicken or meat. These food items are of course only eaten if the family has money to purchase. Most of our sponsored kids wouldn’t eat all of these dishes. We ate at 4:30 PM. We all ate so much food and became very satisfied. Nearly everyone took a quick hour nap! Afterwards we played a game and opened presents. None of our friends have ever received gifts on Christmas so they were so very excited for the new experience! We decorated cookies again, as they loved doing that! We ended with the reading of the Christmas story in Luke again and sang another hymn. Glory to God Alone!!

During our Christmas meal, we thanked God for sending His Son to be born as our Savior. We then went around the table and shared what we thanked God for specifically in our lives. Listen to some of our friends share! Glory to God!!!

Thursday, December 28, 2023

Update on Sandra

Ashley, Mama and I were able to visit with Sandra and her family today. She has improved even more since the last time I saw her. She read a book to us and even showed off her addition skills with a few flashcards! With assistance she even stood for us! We continue to pray for complete healing for her. We then visited with several other DLM sponsor children. We ended the afternoon eating a late lunch at Cafesserie at Arena Mall! Glory to God!!

Sunday, December 31, 2023

After a 3 hour trek into town due to holiday traffic and a bus blocking the road, we finally picked up Mama Fab and a few kids so they could attend church with us! During the sermon this morning, my pastor challenged us to be thankful first for the gift of salvation through Christ and then for the other blessings in life. As we look forward to 2024, may we be encouraged to seek him with our whole heart! Glory to God Alone!