Fatmata had her baby!

Fatmata is one of the nurses I trained up to do the physiotherapy for the ladies who suffer from foot drop after an obstructed labour. She was heavily pregnant when I left to go back to the UK, and she came in last week to show off her beautiful baby - Fatima. She is healthy and putting on weight well. Fatmatat too is happy and doing well.

Helen and I cover the wards for now, but we look forward to having our team mate Fatmata back in October.

September's Newsletter - Introducing 'Enable the Children'

Dear Friends,
I've been back in Sierra Leone for almost a week now and thought I should write you all an update as to our progress over the summer months before I get too busy.

Sierra Leone is still in it's rainy season which means although the temperatures have dropped, it is also very wet. Returning to my room I found much mould, not only on clothes and wood but even on plastic flipflops!! So I spent the rest of my 'settling-in' weekend cleaning and washing clothes. But there I was complaining about the puddles of water collecting at the foot of my window despite it not being open, only to think about how my families were bearing up. I have to say we English like to complain about the rain and cold, but at least we can stay dry and warm inside our houses. Local families here normally live outdoors except for sleeping, so my thoughts went to them cuddling inside small 1 room corrugated iron houses often insulated with cardboard or newspaper, with roof leaking despite plastic coverings, wind and rain pushing their way through every possible gap in ill-fitting doors and wood covered windows. How easy I have it compared to these brave resilient people? It's no wonder people get sick so easily in this season. And I'm saddened to say that yet another one of our patients Saffiatu passed away. Abu has spent time with the family to encourage and pray with them, but what can we say that will make things better? Nothing, but we do go and just be with them in sympathy.

Many of you will remember Ibrahim – a young boy living with his family in Freetown's biggest slum area, Kroo Bay, situated deep in a valley. We visited them yesterday and despite a 4ft high barrier wall their house had been badly flooded a few weeks previous. The water marks were still visible and they were still trying to dry the floor and furniture out. Thankfully no-one was hurt from their family, other families were not so fortunate.

So Abu and I have been able to do some home visits but when the rain is really heavy it makes it very difficult to reach our families. This has given us some time in this past week to discuss all the changes that will be taking place over the next 3 months and beyond.
As many of you will have heard as I've seen you over the summer in the UK, I have made the decision to leave SL in December and return to living in the UK. This has been a difficult decision to make as my compassion for the disabled children of Sierra Leone has not faded. However I feel that now is the time to hand over and allow other people to input their skills and ideas. This especially impacts Abu as he will step into the role of Project Leader in country. He has shown much progress in his management skills over the past year, and has done a super job of keeping the therapy going in my absence. I hope this opportunity will allow him to step up even further to be thinking professionally in running this much needed service to our families and to 'act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God' Micah 6:8. In the meantime I will remain overseeing from the UK, having contact via Skype to support the team and their everyday happenings. We are excited about tomorrows arrival of Sarah our new Occupational Therapist. She will join our team to work alongside Abu, supporting him in his new role, but also bringing an OT focus to our work. All the while, Mr Abdul (the driver) and Abu (mechanic and logistics) also remain committed to us and have been dedicated throughout this rainy season to keep the wheels rolling. I praise God for them all! Our team is growing and we hope that others will continue to join us both nationally and internationally.

Other changes that will take place are that we have a new name.... 'Enable the children' or 'Enable dem pikin dem' in krio. Whilst in the UK I sought wisdom from many people about registering as a charity independently and decided that it would not be the wisest way to go. For one thing it would cost plenty of money, but mainly because there is a Christian umbrella organisation (Links International) that would happily take us on and manage all the coming and goings of our accounts. Therefore for a small fee we would be registered under their charity number and avoid many other costs. This seems the most sensible way ahead for us, although changes in where to give will not change until the new year. I will let you know as and when that happens.

Along with our new name, Abu stepping up, and new team members starting with us, my moving to the UK will also open new opportunities to network and promote Enable the Children. One area I would like to focus on is to run some training for qualified therapists in the UK in how they can adapt their skills to be useful in a developing world situation, hopefully encouraging others to give some of their time and skills to build the capacity of rehab services in places where it is desperately needed.

So having had a great time in the UK spending time with friends and family, this next phase will be extremely busy and new territory for us all. I'm glad I had a good rest while home and enjoyed much time with Rob. Despite much travelling around, we saw and did some great things together including boat rides, seeing a ballet in London, meals out, walks in the great outdoors and our first trip to the cinema! I also loved playing with many friends children as well as my cute nephew – Jack (see photo). Have to say it was quite strange being with white children after all this time, one friend even caught me chatting away to her 1 year old in krio!!

So now it's back to work, and if you would like to stand with us in prayer here's a few pointers:
For Sarah as she travels then settles into this new country and culture.
For Abu in his new role with more responsibility for planning and organising himself and others. For his patience, integrity and wisdom working in this challenging country.
For our families who have struggled in the rains with poor health, fragile homes and increasing demands with the financial crisis the rest of the world is struggling with.
For safety as we travel on slippery muddy roads and steep paths. Praise God that (despite costing lots of money) mechanic Abu was able to identify and fix major work on the cars brakes and suspension, preventing potentially nasty accidents. Please also pray we manage to fix the steering problem – turning right would be quite useful!!
Pray for myself that I will know what to do, how + when regarding all the big changes.
Finally pray for us as a team that we will know God's everlasting peace and protection as we endeavour to be Jesus' gentle healing hands and words to these children and their families. Thank you

With love from
Vez

1 Chronicles 4:10
“Oh Lord that you would bless me and expand my territory! Please be with me in all that I do, and keep me from trouble and pain”

Mr Abdul, my driver....

Let me introduce you...

Mr Abdul is my new driver
He started at the end of May and we've been VERY happy with him from Day 1
He's a quiet and gentle man, but faithful to his word
He's patient with the bad drivers in this country and takes time on the terrible roads
I'm confident to let him drive Abu and I around, and Bertie seems to have taken to him well too.
and best of all he's always ON TIME!

Vez's Adventures in SL June 09

Dear Friends,
This is the last newsletter that I will be writing before I go back to the UK for some leave. I will be spending some time working, training, reporting back but also (and maybe more of a highlight for me!) will be taking some time to rest with friends and family.

So this month, I thought I'd feedback to you with some photos, after all a picture speaks a thousand words.
So here we go...

Psalm 150 :1
Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name;

make known among the nations what he has done.

So that should give you a good picture of what we get up to out here. Fun, rewarding, but also very stressful and tiring at times. God always sustains us. A few people have asked about my plans. Well, I will be back to SL early September when I will also be joined by Sarah the new Occupational Therapist. She will take over the supervision of this work, while Abu will hopefully step into more responsibility. The future is always in God's hands, but Him willing, this work has shown to be successful and we hope it will continue to be an evident way of sharing God's love with his people.

Hope to see some of you over my holidays, otherwise, stay in touch...

With love, Vez

Feeling sorry for myself...

After a little Ultimate Frisbee collision I've ended up with a very bruised and swollen elbow. Not thinking it was too bad, I did drive the next day, but soon realised it was a mistake.

(the photos really do not to it justice!!)

Headed to Emergency Hospital the next morning, and although I had a fair wait, finally got the xray which confirmed no obvious break.

Have to say though, a week down the line I'm still hurting, can't put much force through it and some movements are still restricted. I'm trying to be good and rest it as much as possible. But having spent one day in the sling, it really did attract even more attention than normal, now I don't wear it any longer, but I am trying to protect it as much as possible.

Lets hope for a speedy recovery or I will be heading to the nearest NHS when I get back to UK!!

Crowds and Passers by...

One of the many things that annoy me about trying to work in the communities

is the passers by.
I can go nowhere without being noticed, and when I linger in one place for longer than a few moments, like when I'm treating a child, give it a few minutes and a crowd has gathered.

Sometimes it's children, who then make lots of noise or start fighting,

distracting the child who is supposed to be working.

Or maybe other women, who chip in their bit of information about the childs history,

hich often makes the story very confusing and often untrue.

It can be the older men in the community, who come to tell me how to do my job,

which I wish they wouldn't.

Or the younger men, who just want to come and watch the white woman

crawl on the floor and 'play' with the children.

The crowds can sometimes be useful, in terms of teaching the value of the disabled child. If I put in the importance to keep visting the child, then they realise that the child is someone special and worth their love too. The crowd can help at traslating information, or help encouraging the carer to do the exercises when we're not there. I often also use them to coax the child into doing what I'm trying to do, often it comes better from a sibling or friend, though generally not by an adult with a cane!

But this afternoon the 'crowd' did nothing but annoy me.

Having chased them off, children and adults alike, as I tried to assess a severly malnourished and dehydrated 1 year old. It took about an hour to get a clear history and make a plan with the carer. It turns out the mother died in childbirth, and the baby has been passed from aunty to aunty, till this aunty got him 3 days ago, and knowing the a white man visits his neighbour every other week, decided to wait for me to arrive and make the child my problem. How women or anyone in fact can leave a baby to become a bag of bones I just don't understand. So I was so cross about this already.

Then as I was trying to take some plaster casts off another 1yr olds feet (who has clubfoot),

2 other men walked past, stopped and stuck their noses in. I refused to continue as I hate working with an audience, and a lapse in concentration could lead to cutting Khallon's leg,

I decided in my fuming it was better to just stop.

When I wouldn't continue, the men proceded to tell me that it was a public walkway, which it was as were were right outside the patients house in a slum area behind a busy market. They told me to go somewhere private if I didnt want anyone watching, but this family for sure would not be able to afford to come to a private clinic even if I had one! Inside the 1 roomed house the floor could not be seen for the mats that they lie on, and it was too dark anyway as obviously no power. So these men persisted in being annoying and rude, and not leaving, till they told me I'd be better going back to where I'd come from. I shouted back in my anger, yes, well I'd love to go back to England, just send me!!

They just laughed at me, and I then added, but

"I won't go because it the children of your country that are benefitting".

It's is only them who would suffer if let the frustrations of working here get to me too much.

So my thought at the end of it, was that if we were not there in the depths of that camp,

the malnourished kid may have died,

and Khallon would always have clubbedfeet and may never walk.
Instead, hopefully, we saved the life of one child,

and enabled a child (in the long run) to have a chance to learn to walk.

So on we went, albeit with smoke coming out of my ears in anger and frustration

and the sun pounding down mercilessly on my head just to help the matter.

Oh Salone!

Medicine man.....Can I blame her?.....

Last week one of my 4 year old patients 're-appeared' again in Freetown.
She had been gone for nearly 2 months.
Where?
Her family kept telling me she's gone upline....to get medicine to get better.

Sadly, the bright little girl has Cerebral Palsy caused by brain damage during a traumatic birth (very common here), and will never fully 'get better'. She will always have physical problems aswell as speech problems, and due to those she will unlikely succeed at school even if in the very unlikely event that she even gets a chance at school here.

So who had they taken her to?

Well the story goes that a lady had seen her in the market and spoken to her mum, saying she knew of a old man upline that could fix the problem and make this child walk again.

Now, if your chid had a disability and were promised this, would you not go for it?

Then if you found out that it meant going to see a traditional medicine man,
.........would you still go for it?

It's easy for us to be quick to jump and say she did the wrong thing. But as a desperate mum she was only trying to help her child get better.

A medicine man practices in traditonal medicine and witchcraft which is why I certianly DO NOT think it is a good idea. Spiritual practices are all too common here and there is great power in them, though not a good kind of power. Strongholds and curses are totally believed in and in reality do make a negative difference on people's already desperate lives.

So when I asked what exactly he did....
Apparently using various kinds of local herbs, seeds and leaves, pounding and boiling them together, he then wrapped her legs in the leaves to dry out. This happened daily along with stretching the legs.

So is that so bad?
- well actually depending on how the stretches were done, that is something we had already taught mum to do.
As for the leaves, well I can see how warmth could help reduce the stiffness caused by abnormal tone.
But I dont like is the witchcraft that is the basis of it all. And the likely large amounts of money invovled. No one has spare money around here and everyone is desperate to make money, but it is totally wrong for one poor person to give false expectations and rob another poor person.

I asked my patients mum if she feels her child had improved at all, she said no.

I'm just thankful that the child came back alive. I have heard many stories before about witch doctors offering to take these disabled children 'back to where thay have come from', in other words disposed of. The thought of killing a helpless child just because they are disabled churns within me. But here being able bodied is hard enough to survive - what chance do you or your family have if you are disabled?

I explained that I understood her reasons for going, but begged her not to go again. Explaining again that the cause of the problem is in the brain and that no medicine or operation would change and that getting invovled in witchcraft is certainly not the answer.

For a while now they had been doing well with the exercises and activities we had been doing with them, so we persuaded them to continue with these. Unfortunately progress with these kinds of kids is slow and can therefore be discouraging for the family.
However she is actually close to walking with a frame for herself now, so lets keep praying to our Almighty and Powerful Lord Jesus - who is the only true and good Healer of all.