Karamoja Okkens

Most days temperatures exceed 100 degrees this time of year in Karamoja. Even so, the many wonderful cards we have received from many of you have enabled us to say – ‘It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas’. It doesn’t hurt that the kids are super excited about opening gifts. We plan to just stay around Nakaale and celebrate with the rest of our Mission station here. The Nakaale church will gather for a service in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. We wish you all much joy as we remember the birth of the Savior. Merry Christmas!

Just after dinner, Caleb looked out the window and noticed that two of our Mission’s night watchmen were pursuing something with their bows and arrows. When I ran out they told me that an ‘ebokoli’ (the Karimojong word for King Cobra) had been on our compound but that they had chased it to where it was hiding in a pile of wood. Caleb and Megan were both interested enough to want to watch the hunt but fearful enough to insist on being in dad’s arms. We stood back at a safe distance and watched the men carefully pull away pieces of wood until the big black and yellow snake could no longer hide. It finally put its head up and flared its neck as cobras do. Loumo Peter (pictured in the blue shirt) reacted quickly with his bow and, to my amazement, sunk the very first arrow he shot right in the throat. With several more arrows followed by many blows to the head, they finished off the beast. The body was still quivering for quite some time but only slightly at the time that Caleb had finally ...

Yes, finally our whole Karamoja Mission station is on the field all together. The Eldeens and Tricaricos arrived safe and sound a little over a week ago, for which we are very thankful. This is the first time in almost 4 years that we have all been living here at the same time. Now, we jump in full force. Please pray as Al Tricarico and David get back in the swing of things together and make plans for ministry/outreach opportunities. Also pray that the Tricaricos would be able to transition nicely back into their school schedule for the kids. It is definitely a season to be thankful. And we will be doing that even more when we all gather as a mission on the 24th to have our Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, it will be a few days early but here in Uganda no one will notice much :) Just yesterday, two days after his first birthday, as our whole station was gathered for fellowship on Sunday afternoon, Jacob took his first steps. Very exciting!

The sorghum has been harvested but the rains are still here. As I write, a nighttime downpour drowns out all other sounds. We expect the dry season soon, but you never know. Since our last entry, Megan has turned three! We continue with the speech therapy. We are thankful for the help of one of the Wrights’ teachers, Eden Howard, who works with her a few times a week in addition to home therapy with mommy and daddy. We definitely see progress. Thank you for your continued prayers. The family is doing well, even though Jacob just had his first case of malaria. You wouldn’t even have known he was sick, for which we are very thankful. Perhaps the nursing got some of mom’s immunity into him. Anyway, he will have his first birthday on November 14th, just 8 days after his big brother Caleb turns 6. Where does the time go?! We look forward to the return of the Tricarico family and the Eldeens on November 7. It will be very nice to have the whole Karamoja station together carrying out the work...

We know that many of you have been praying for Megan. Yesterday we went to Kampala to meet with the pediatrician for a check-up and hearing test. We and the pediatrician were both very disappointed that the audiogram machine had not arrived (despite the fact that, two days before, we had called to remind to please make sure that it was all ready as we were coming a long distance etc.). The pediatrician examined Megan nonetheless. Also present was Megan’s speech therapist, Mrs. Sarah Newnham. Without the audiogram, the doctor performed some other tests to check Megan’s hearing. The result was that both the pediatrician and Mrs. Newnham believed that Megan’s hearing was fine and, as it turns out, an audiogram test might not be so helpful or reliable in Megan’s case. If Megan is disabled at all in her hearing, it would be better detected by a test that measures the brain activity rather than Megan’s voluntary responses. The pediatrician is going to look into whether that test is available...

Thank you for your prayers for Megan. We have been encouraged to seek further medical attention in order to make sure that there are no other problems behind her speech delay. Our upcoming visit to Kampala to see the speech therapist will also involve an appointment with a Pediatrician (particularly one with experience in child development) for a hearing test and evaluation (September 25th). This seems to be the best place to start. If necessary, we are also now aware of a Pediatric Neurologist who comes highly recommended. The Lord continues to wonderfully provide. Thank you for the good encouragement and counsel, which we received from many of you!

Some of you already know about our little girl’s delayed speech development. Megan turns 3 next month and ‘talks’ plenty but does so using mostly only vowels. A few months ago as it became more and more apparent that there might be a problem, we began praying hard as we struggled with what to do. Then the Lord brought a pediatrician to us in one of the groups that visited our mission this summer. Dr. Gayle Murray advised us that Megan really should see a speech therapist. So the search began. We were starting to think that there was no help for us in country and were prepared to go to Nairobi, Kenya or even the States. Then we found a speech therapist in Kampala. She and her husband are from the UK and are here with MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship). Her husband is an airplane mechanic. We traveled to Kampala last week to meet with her. She did confirm that Megan’s speech is ‘severely delayed’ but she brought us much hope. She is putting together a course of therapy to use with Mega...

Well, we have finally gotten with the times I suppose and have started a blog. We plan to put our updates out here for you all to read. Please forgive the delay in hearing from us. We have just finished a busy season of visitors. It was a blessing to have them here. We had a total of 4 groups that came from the beginning of June until just this past week. Some overlapped, so at one point we had 19 with us! It’s always an encouragement to have short-termers with us and our kids love having new “friends” around. It was also fun to see old friends back here (like Amy DeWit). We even had our own pediatrician here for a few weeks. Free check-ups for the kids! Dr. Gayle Murray was a blessing to have, not just for her expertise, but also her fellowship. We also had two friends from our home church here. Karen and Laura Goodhart came for 3 weeks. Laura, a nurse, worked in the medical clinic. Karen, a 1st grade school teacher did some “school” time with our 5 ½ yr old Caleb while she was here (...