The Rain Came DOWN

Week 2: I think it could best be described as WET. It has been a great week, but the weather seems to be unpredictable, at least to me! But, the sun also shines between the rain and the weather overall is really great right now.

I think I'll summarize the week with a short story. And, unfortunately, I don't have great pictures to accompany, so you'll have to use your imagination. Pictures of these places will come, but I'm actually glad I didn't have my camera with me this week.

I went with the Home-Based Care Team (HBCT) to a shanty town for home visits on Wednesday morning. It was cloudy, but I didn't want to give in to their predictions of rain so that we could sit around all morning. It started thundering and raining at our first visit, but we were thankfully inside and it stopped by the time we were ready to leave, so I thought, "look at that, we'll be fine and God has just worked that storm out so we can keep working!" We did a few more visits, but rain was again threatening. It then started to POUR with close lightning. We found a house, which is actually where one of my team members lives and waited there for about an hour until our ride came. The rain was running in the cracks between the slats of the walls and blowing in at the door. I was freezing as we sat there and the rain seemed to be relentless. A few people managed to scrounge up some umbrellas so when it was noon, we ran in the still heavy rain up to the place where we met our ride. The what was once a road, had turned into a RIVER. And we were going up stream. Careful stepping (so as not to slip on a rock or sink to your knees in mud and lose a flip-flop) and large strides helped in this process. Meanwhile, I was trying not to let any of the paperwork get wet! Ha! It was quite an adventure. And eye opening as well. I mean, this is what people deal with every day and it can be challenging and stressful. I now understand what my team members mean when they say they couldn't sleep through the night because of the rain.

We did have some other good visits this week, in the sunshine! As we've been trying to finish assessment forms on each client we're seeing, it has been good for me to visit with the team and help them be more efficient in their work.

This upcoming week will be busy with more visits, some health eduction to the communities on STIs and condom use, and moving into my new house. Thanks for your prayers!