Katherine Hodges- CIO at Starscape Media

   It's pretty much INSANE (God) that my new roomate Carrie, who I'd never met before in my life,  "happened" (God) to be thrown into the same house with us and "coincidentally" (GOD) ran her own video production company.  Then, if that wasn't crazy enough, we both have Rocky Mount, VA roots (someone ancestry.com how we're cousins, please) and almost identical tribulations in our twenties.   I mean, we both "happen" to own harmonicas, and sat here tonight trying to learn how to play.  Never in my life have I come across another girl who wanted to learn harmonica.  (God, God, GOD!)  There are some tough days right now, but I "LOOK AT THE LORD!" (this catchphrase coming to a city near you) and KNOW God is taking care of me and has a plan.  For cryin' out LOUD, I have a rent-free house full of now...FOUR! (not including me).... amazing christian women fighting for the Lord.  
   I was going to wait until the new website was up, but I can't wait anymore....or.......just have nothing else to do this evening.  For a couple weeks now I've been the Chief Interning Officer at Starscape Media.  :)  While painting Carrie's desk in December, I told her maybe God was pushing me back into video.  Then I'd watch them editing the same clip all day long and say, "never mind, this just affirms I would not want to do video".  When I quit my internship with SafeWorld, Carrie said she could use some help, and maybe I could intern with her.  I told her I'd help, it would probably be good for my resume, but I really felt like my heart was in working for a humanitarian organization.  She said, "you know I'd like to start a nonprofit with this one day right?"


:o


  I did not know this.  We talked more about new directions her company was taking and long-term dreams we both had.  I realized this could be something really cool.  I started working on a couple projects for her.  It was so amazing to see the skills I had, and the skills I lacked, mesh with the rest of the team.  I thought I was done with video because I couldn't make cool graphics or do any of the super techy stuff.  I didn't want to spend years doing nothing but editing other people's ideas.  I always wanted to spend time meeting interesting people and interviewing them, but I didn't want to spend years reporting on stories like Leprechaun sitings in Alabama to get there.  Already I've helped produce stories, written creative copy, co-hosted a radio show ALL about interviewing interesting people, helped brand a campaign, and even created artwork for a local television show!  
   Just last week I got to hang out with two different ministries needing media.  It's so awesome that I'm still doing humanitarian work too!  Check out Jason and Bethany Rose's ministry at www.extravagantrevolution.org .  They have a passion for mentally disabled adults, knowing most have so much trouble in life once they're out of the school system.  This is the EXACT topic I spent a whole semester researching for a paper in college.  Coincidence?  I have a specific dream (and I know God's going to materialize it one day) to help this community out in a big way before I leave this earth.  I'm really excited to partner with the Roses.
   Then we've been doing a lot with Carrie's good friend Amy Lambert.  She has a great ministry evangelizing to drug addicts, sharing with them the hope Christ gave her, ending her own struggle with drugs.  She is bringing a free concert to Charlotte, NC to reach these lost and suffering souls.  Listen to her story HERE, and PLEASE consider giving to her first campaign, due in just a couple days!   
   I'm still broke, but again, it's really awesome because it forces me to paint.  And I love it.  God knows what He is doing.   :)


Trust Me one day at a time.  This keeps you close to Me, responsive to My will.  Trust is not a natural response, especially for those who have been deeply wounded.  My Spirit within you is your resident Tutor, helping you in this supernatural endeavor.  Yield to His gentle touch; be sensitive to His prompting.
Exert your will to trust Me in all circumstances.  Don't let your need to understand distract you from My Presence.  I will equip you to get through this day victoriously, as you live in deep dependence on Me.  Tomorrow is busy worrying about itself; don't get tangled up in its worry-webs.  Trust Me one day at a time.
-Jesus Calling by Sarah Young  
     

FAITH > Most anything else

  
    You would think I get a high from quitting jobs, as I've done it twice in one month, however I promise you that's not the case.  It's quite the opposite for me.  I don't know how I'm going to pay my bills.  I don't know how long it will be until my next meal is something other than a Little Ceasar's pizza.  I wonder, "is God forcing me to be a Liberty Tax Waver as some ultimate lesson in humility?"  I had to quit my job as a waitress at Bristol's brand new Cheddar's.  They had me working (as in constantly burning calories) for 7+ hours without any food.  No breaks.  I couldn't believe it, much less stand it.  Please refrain from looking at their menu so it will be easier for you to boycott them for life with me.
   I really didn't know what I was going to do.  I mean, I'm in this itty bitty town during a recession and quit my job at the only place that was hiring. But I was rapidly losing weight and just didn't believe that my God wanted me to keep working at this place!  The tips were getting me nowhere close to minimum wage.  I don't think I could have payed my bills if I stayed.  So in an act of FAITH I quit.  That was all I stepped out on though.  I definitely didn't step out on joy.  I was in a bad mood for days.  I couldn't believe God had me go through all that for nothing.  
   Sunday I went with Carrie to her church and it was weird.  We were late, so we walked in during the middle of some song I've never heard.  The lyrics are all about God providing.  Next, the pastor talks about God providing and how "you have to remember when He's pulled you through before, then you can have FAITH He'll do it again."  Next a member of the church stood up to talk about tithing....womp WOMMMMP.  Having been on the receiving end of tithes for months, and a contributing member to society for only two short-lived weeks, I hadn't given tithing any thought.  This guy talked about how there were times he gave his money to the Lord even though he didn't know how he could buy groceries without it, but God always provided, even blessed him.  
   When we got home, Carrie can tell you, I was still in a bad mood.  I made myself be a hip christian and journal.  I wrote about all those past times God provided.  I started thinking and remembered how after graduation the Lord had given me a part-time job just in time to start making my $200-a-month car payment.  Then right before my student loan payments started, and I was going to need a full-time job, He provided one.  That first paycheck was in the bank just DAYS before I had to make my payment too.  I remembered how I pretty much wrote a letter on the back of the envelope to my creditor, telling them "I didn't know how I was going to pay but look how God provided! Psalm121!!! all blessings flow etc etc".  I give God praise every month on the back of those envelopes.  I remembered how I didn't think I could work for a nonprofit organization because of my loans, but God provided for that AND THEN SOME!  Next Carrie talked to me about tithing, reminding me the fifty-cent tips I got waitressing were still fifty-cent tips I hadn't had before.  I knew I needed to tithe, so with less than three figures in my account I made a donation to Megan Boudreaux's organization, Respire Haiti. 
   Meanwhile...(as in yesterday) I went to Carrie's office and helped them edit videos, praying God would give her a giant job where she could afford to hire me or I'd get a big babysitting gig.  I couldn't see how else I'd be saved.  Carrie reminded me I shouldn't put God in a box.  Uh!!! She's always right!  Yesterday afternoon our friend Elyssia calls saying this woman came in to cater an event for her office.  Somehow the woman found out Elyssia was a christian.  She asked Elyssia to pray for her.  She really needed a christian girl to come work for her cafe/catering co./country store full-time. Soooooo yup.  I am now that girl.  Seriouslywhattheheckthisissocrazy!!!  It's amazing!  My new boss is a mix of the Virgin Mary and Paula Deen.  OH! AND GET THIS------- AS MUCH FOOD AS I WANT ALL DAY FOR FREE!!!!!!!  The first thing I saw when I walked in the store was a chalkboard that had this written on it:  For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome. Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear and heed you.  Another said, "Miracles happen everyday."  Definitely teared up.  
   It's the cutest place!  While I was there someone came in, grabbed a drink, told her they'd pay her later.  We know all the same people.  Everyone knows everyone.  I always wanted to live in Mayberry and now I do!  THEN (God was just showing off with this one.) I come to find out she's a Gamecocks fan!  She was an Army brat and lived at Ft. Jackson for awhile!  She's excited to put my paintings in the store!!! I mean, is this real life?
   I did have FAITH God would provide, but I was annoyed that He was making me go through another "trial".  It's so stupid of me.  How could I ever learn to have FAITH in Him if I didn't go through these unknowing periods?  I'd rather have a life where I'm crying half the time and rejoicing the other, than where everything just seems to work out good-enough.  God and I's relationship is getting so much tighter this way.  Just before this whole job-quiting-extravaganza, God really opened my eyes to the importance of FAITH in Him.  If you think about it, Jesus really only rebuked his disciples for unbelief.  (The only two times I could come up with, when he rebuked them for other things, were when they didn't "let the little children come to" him and Peter cut off the guard's ear.)  We get so caught up in morality (laws) when he just wants our FAITH.  Every religion has great morality.  We have more of a testimony when we can look ridiculously difficult times in the face and say, "I have FAITH in my God!"  That's the stuff that makes zero sense to the rest of the world.  FAITH is what people want.

"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it."
-Malachi 3:10

Unending Crown of Glory

   I finished reading Donald Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years the other day.  So.Crazy.  Just one on the stack I've been waiting to read, and I happen to read it this week.  Miller starts describing this friend of his named Bob and this awesome parade Bob started.  I was like, "wait a minute... it's not..."  No it was.  Turns out one of the main characters in his memoir, the last person he thanks in this book is Bob Goff.  The same guy that invited us to the witch doctor conference in Uganda.  The world got very small.  BUT THEN, TODAY I checked out Jon Acuff's blog and who is he talking about?  The Goff!  Not only THAT, he has a link to a video of the very same parade mentioned in the book.  THEN  who happens to be the Grand Marshall of this year's parade?  Rodrick.  The boy I saw with Bob in Uganda.  (Click HERE to read my post on that day.)  The boy who had been found half dead on the side of the road, castrated, is in this video laughing and smiling. :)  It's so beautiful.  Check it out:

   I really recommend this book.  It talks about looking at your life as a written story, or script.  Would anyone want to read your story?  Are you a good character?  No?  Then do some editing!  A movie isn't a good movie without the character overcoming major obstacles.  It would be a TERRIBLE movie if everything was given to them.  The view on top of a mountain is so much better when you hiked there.  This book really helped my attitude this week.  Whatever people have told me about waitressing... it's that tough and more.  My gosh!  HOWEVER after reading this, I'm truly grateful that I can say I waitressed for awhile, that I WORKED.  I would have thought it was awesome if a guy got down on one knee last week and said, "hey Baby will you marry me and here's $30,000 for your student loans".  (Heck he could have just said he had dental.)  How much better a character I'll be when that guy meets me and I can say, "Yeah I worked my butt off for awhile waitressing and now I'm debt free".  "During this time I also learned to play the harmonica and started a bluegrass band with Kayla and Carrie :b ".  (But seriously. We're doing this.)  
   If Rodrick was some movie star's son who'd had the perfect life this video would mean nothing to us.  It would be nice, but we wouldn't tear up watching it.  We wouldn't feel anything.  Knowing what you know he went through... that crown on his head MEANS something.  I want to live a life that MEANS SOMETHING!  Francis Chan's got it exactly.  Watch this short clip:

I want to live so that when I'm done on this earth I can stand before The Judge with my hands held high!!!

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith - more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire - may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

-1 Peter 1:6-7     

And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unending crown of glory. 
-1 Peter 5:4  

I'm Starting a New Chapter

   I had to make a hard decision last week.  After weeks of advice, thinking, praying I decided it was time for me to leave SafeWorld.  I asked that all leftover support funds I raised go towards buying mosquito nets.  Once I receive a list of my donors I will contact y'all directly.  I'll still be living with Carrie and Sarah.  (Rachel decided to move back to Arkansas.)  
   I still want to work for a humanitarian organization.  Ideally I'd like to be in the southeast, but I've applied for some positions all over the country.  I've even looked at some things overseas.  It's pretty cool actually.  I never would have imagined going to Haiti and Uganda within six months, especially when I had never even flown before.  God got creative sending me to SafeWorld for 2011.  I'm just putting it in His hands and asking Him to get creative again.  I know He has a plan.  Some of it I know was just to get me to Bristol and meet my 'long lost cousin' Carrie.  We've had eerily similar life experiences.  It's been so great sharing struggles and learning about God/loving others from her.  One of my aunts was telling me I needed to come home where I'd have more of a support system.  I didn't want to hurt any feelings, but living with two girls who chase after Jesus is the best support system I could have!  
   Today I drove home from a great wedding/reunion with friends.  I was really sad the weekend was over. (college was over.)  I missed all my great friends, their fun, their support.  I walked up the stairs to my house to put my stuff away, a.k.a some free space on the floor.  Long story, (maybe not but...) I haven't really had a room yet at our house.  My stuff has been a mess all over the place.  I've slept on the couch and other people's beds.  I honestly couldn't work on the situation though because of my back being so bad.  I gave up caring.  But when I walked upstairs I started bawling.  Sarah had moved in furniture, taken all my clothes off the floor and FOLDED it into a dresser, hung my coats in the closet, set my books on the mantle, pinned up my USC pennant, and even given me a framed picture of me and a friend.  I told her it was probably the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.  I was so overwhelmed by God's love for me.  He knows I need the relationships like I had in college, and He's provided them.
   He's provided me a temporary job waitressing also.  I start tomorrow.  I AM thankful for this, though not in love with the idea.  I want to be joyful at work.  I want to "shine a light".  I think it's going to be a big struggle the next couple of weeks (months?) to not get discouraged because I'm no longer doing work I love.  Please pray for me on this.  You can also pray I don't covet my sister's life right now.  If you haven't heard, Emily's traveling throughout the Middle East for the next four months!  I guess you can keep her in your prayers too :b .  That's all for now.  Contacts are back to hodgeske2010@gmail.com and 804-516-6677.

For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.
-2 Chronicles 16:9a

Our Christmas Miracle

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

-Mark 11:22-26

   My new roomate Carrie and I had a Christmas miracle.  Lifetime's already asking us for the movie rights.  When I got back to Bristol after Thanksgiving (and a month away) I was broke as a joke.  I honestly prayed, "Lord, please help me find some food because I don't know if I can afford anything when I get back."  Now yes, I have made some great friends in Bristol who would feed me.  I had people take me out and have me over once I got back, but there's still two more meals in a day.  I didn't even have coffee, and that can kill me.  Literally.  I figured I'd start waitressing, but it would be a couple days until I was payed from that.
   Well I walked into our new great big house that first night and figured I'd be the only one there for a month.  Sarah and Rachel are home until January, and I barely knew Carrie.  There was no food in the fridge, and she didn't answer my calls/texts.  She started her own video production company.  I thought she must be out of the country filming.  We currently have no TV or internet at the house.  I was anticipating a miserable December.  
   Back up a year.  Carrie Cannaday begins looking for the perfect desk for her new office building.  She searches far and wide.  Many months of searching go by.  One day, someone gives her an ugly brown desk for free.  She decides since it's free and has the keyboard pad, drawers she was looking for, she'll take it.  Her search got her nowhere anyway.  She calls the company that made the desk.  An eight inch piece of wood was missing from a window pane on the front.  Instead of sending her that piece, they sent an entire new front panel of the desk.  The day Carrie decided she might actually like the desk if someone painted it white/black and put some kind of painting in the panes is the same day Carrie found out I was a painter.
   The night I got back Carrie finally walked in the door.  I learned she practically lives at her office.  She didn't know I'd be back either and was so glad I could start painting the desk right away.  Her office building is so cozy and everyone is so friendly.  Every day someone made lunch for us all.  I even got to drink coffees from a fancy Keurig!  Then, because the company had sent her a whole new front panel, I could paint the mural on a table.  Working at the daycare destroyed my back.  It would have been miserable if I had to paint the desk assembled.  Quoting Carrie, "LOOK at the Lord!"
   God gave me a job I desperately needed, and the amount Carrie thanks me for this desk is almost annoying.  He gave me a friend too!  I have LOVED  hanging out with Carrie and all her friends!!!  Much like a Lifetime movie, you may have found this post a little insipid, however I hope it still gives you a warm fuzzy feeling to know God cares for us.  I mean, He even was watching out for my back!  Carrie has a ton of cool stories of God answering little prayers.  I know these always get ridiculously long, but I have to share one.  

   I asked Carrie why she has a photo of a blue butterfly on her desk.  She said she went up to the mountains one day to spend some time with God/hang out.  A blue butterfly landed next to her.  She thought it was pretty and tried to take a photograph of it, but every time she did, the butterfly flew away.  She asked God for help.  For TWO hours she tried this off and on until she was SO frustrated she finally gave up.  She told God, "I'm really upset right now Lord.  I don't understand why You won't make this butterfly be still for THREE seconds.  It was a pure and simple request.  I only wanted a picture of YOUR creation that I was admiring."  While she told the story I got upset myself.  Seriously, what is God's deal with that?!  Her taking a photograph of a butterfly wasn't going to affect anything.  It really was just a sweet little prayer.  She went there to spend time with HIM anyways.  BUT THEN as Carrie stormed off to her car to leave, she saw about TWENTY butterflies of all different colors fluttering across the road!  It was beautiful, and she was easily able to capture photos of them.  God really does have a better design and plan than we could ever come up with.  We need to remember that even when we can't see a reason for things, God can.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 

   neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD. 

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, 

   so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts."   

-Isaiah 55:8-9

P.S.  Carrie and I are 88% sure we're cousins.  My grandfather grew up within a one-mile radius of where her family has been for generations.

     

A Call to Nursing

   With my last post you'd think, "how can an American team get anything done at that hospital?"  That's what we thought after the first day.  It took some brainstorming.  I can not say enough how impressed I am with our nurses.  They became doctors on this trip.  I watched them struggle to translate simple things like, "have you had a fever?"  (There are no thermometers.)  I've watched them sit down and do math problems (there are no calculators) to figure out the doses of medicines they had never heard of.  I watched them take notes at 11pm to learn new skills and ways to diagnose.  I watched them drive away in a car to transport a premature, malnourished baby to another hospital- a hospital who's only step up is they have an oxygen machine.  One nurse held the body and hand-pumped air into his lungs while another nurse held his head still on the CRAZY BUMPY african roads.  May I also mention that one of these nurses flipped her car only a couple weeks ago, so she has been extremely scared all week while driving?  None of these things mattered when it came to another human-being's life.
   We've learned that the people here have a very fatalistic way of thinking- they believe that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable.  Their actions do not matter.  They are not responsible for anything.  As bad as the Ugandan nurses seem to me, the patients seem just as bad.  I remember my mom taking me to the doctor, the doctor prescribing something, and my mom telling the doctor, "No. That is not good enough. We are not leaving until you prescribe her [this]."  The patients will hear what their child was supposed to get, yet not ask for it when they don't see it.  The culture is so different.  People die all the time here.  You grow up watching people die.  They don't understand there are actions (many times simple) that can prevent these deaths, that they can fight for life.  
   Let me tell you the story of the baby that was transported to the hospital.  One of our nurses Alicia, discovered a premature baby whose twin had already died.  The mom was only 16.  I'm pretty sure she said the baby was fine (Another thing we learned is no one here wants to disappoint, so they tell you whatever they think you want to hear.) but Alicia opened the blanket to discover an extremely malnourished and jaundiced baby.  She could see his heart, his ribs, etc. He was only breathing 10x a minute opposed to the 60 something times he should have been.  Finally they got it out of the mom that he had not eaten since birth.  Our nurses said they wanted to cry when they discovered this baby was a full week old.  After much difficulty we learned the mom wasn't breastfeeding because of some kind of superstition.  She believed the baby would be cursed if she breastfed him before certain rituals were done.  The ugandan worker who translated for us was the only assertive ugandan woman I've met here.  She had us pray over the mom and baby (in their language) that the baby would not be cursed and would start sucking.  In Jesus' Name.  Amen.  Immediately another one of our nurses, Amanda, went to put the breast pump (a cut-up plastic water bottle with some kind of suction thing taped to it) to the mom's breast in hopes there was still some left for us to use in an eye dropper to drip milk into the baby's mouth, however our translator wouldn't let her!  She said, "we prayed he would suck so he will suck".  As frustrating as this was our nurses kept their cool the whole trip.  After the translator left they squeezed some milk out for the baby.  By this point he had an I.V. and seemed more alert.  He actually started sucking!  Understandably the nurses were still very worried about him.  The next day he got to the point where he was only breathing six times a minute.  This is when they took the car to the hospital in the city.  (The hospital does have an ambulance (a van with a light?) but it is unreliable.)  Alicia and Katie, our other amazing nurse who transported the baby, did say the mom was shaking and showing emotion.  The Chief Medical Officer of our hospital went and pulled the father out of the local drinking hole and gave the family money for food, expenses.  This morning Katie and Alicia went back to the new hospital to check on the baby.  At first they heard he had died.  Then they heard, no, his parents unplugged his oxygen and left at 5am.  Our Chief Medical Officer said he will go to the village and find the family.  He was not happy, and we're sure he will do it.  He is great, but I'm not sure he would have done all of this without the nurses' persistence.  I think now we understand though, that he knew something like this could happen.  Still, I'm glad our nurses have been fighting since they got here, while at the same time "being patient in affliction".  (Romans 12)
   I went to a surgery while here and started blacking out.  Nursing will never be my gift.  At least I have the privilege of mobilizing nurses.  Thank you all nurses for everything you do.  Nursing is a beautiful calling.  We need you here in Uganda.  We're setting up short and long-term trips.  But let me tell you, the bar has been set.  Thank you Alicia, Amanda, and Katie.


...for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable.
-Romans 11:29

The malnourished (really, not nourished at all) baby.

Getting fluids 

About to get air hand-pumped.

Alicia, Katie, baby on route to hospital in Mbale

What to [Not] Expect in a Third World Hospital

Today was our last day at the hospital.  I realize I have failed to communicate what I mean when calling this a "hospital".  People come here to be treated, even Kenyans because we are so far east.  However, there are some major differences from the healthcare facilities you're used to.  Before I tell any more stories I think I should paint this picture for you.  

1.  There is no running water.  If someone chooses to wash hands/equipment (and it is a choice), they pour water over their hands from one bucket to another.  They do not always use soap.
2.  There is no electricity.  There IS a generator used in the one Operating Room to power some sort of sterilizing machine that I believe is from the '70s.  Neither the generator or machine always work.
3.  Trash is thrown in an old cardboard box, totally open, if it is thrown away at all.  I know I saw bloody bandages on top of patient files in the children's ward.
4.  By "ward" I mean bitty room with 12 beds shoved right next to each other. 
5.  Food is not provided.  You must bring your own.  Many family members cook/do laundry right in the yard of the hospital.
6.  Linens are not provided.  You have to duck under clotheslines as you walk from ward to ward. 
7.  Clothes are not required.  Toddler's go around with their behinds flappin' in the breeze.  I definitely saw poop on the back of a child's leg today walking around in the children's ward.  I think he was there with a sibling who was admitted.  If you are a nurse and want to bring your toddler to work with you that is fine too.  
8.  You must bring your own toilet paper for the hole you squat over in the outhouse.  Let me tell you, you can't call yourself a World Traveler until you've gone "number two" in this place.  I am now a World Traveler squared.
9.  You wait in line ALL DAY.  You first see someone who gives you a consultation.  Then you wait in line for treatment.  That person may then tell you to wait in line for the doctor.  Hopefully you don't need surgery and you are then just in line for pharmacy.  There is a government pharmacy you go to first.  If they don't have what you need, you wait in line for the private pharmacy.  The line waiting is even MORE complicated than this believeitornot.
10.  The private pharmacy pretty much tells everyone, "out of stock", and turns people away.
11.  The drugs they DO have sit out with the tops off, barely organized.  Some are even in containers for different drugs, but at least they write over the containers in sharpie right?  
12.  Any writing is a miracle and deserves much praise.  If you are able to find a patient's records/treatment sheet, THAT is extraordinary.  If it actually has notes in it- THAT is a supernatural phenomenon.  
13.  If you get upset with a nurse for not writing anything, not giving medication, you are the biggest jerk in Uganda.
14.  She may even put a curse on you.  Some of the nurses are also witch doctors.
15.  There are zero consequences for any of these actions.      


I'm not always trying to be Negative Nancy, but I know people (Mom, Grandma) who were probably picturing something else when I said I was working in a hospital.  This hospital has actually improved a great deal from what I understand.  Hopefully more will come from my being here and witnessing these things.  (Of course not everything I mentioned needs to change necessarily.  It's a different place with different customs.)  A lot of good came from the amazing nurses/doctor who accompanied us.  I'll share more soon.  Thanks for praying :)

Bugobero Hospital

Lines. Hopefully we can figure out how to get these shorter.

Part of pharmacy...definitely needs organization.

Katie getting the J-O-B DONE!

No shoes, no britches, no problem.