Thursday, July 10, 2008

He Carries Me through the Deep Waters

from Melissa

Sat. March 29, 2008

He Carries Me through the Deep Waters

A lot has happened in the last few days and I will attempt to write it down. I am sick and weak but am feeling a little better and Brenda has the kids, so all is quite.

I haven’t seen Isaiah since Wednesday when they took him but I have a peace He is being loved and taken care of. I have talked to Mama Beatrice and she says he is doing well.

They got a crib for him and are getting the supplies they need to Foster him as all I had for him fit in a walmart sack.

I miss him and so does Allenni. Hopefully we will see him soon. Right now I am in no shape to even carry him. I probably will have to write this post in sections as waves of sickness come over me.

So, let me start from the beginning what has happened over the last few days.

I slept fairly well except for the massive storm that rolled in at 3:30am! Allenni and Andrew are terrified with storms and so I got up to shut the doors and cover the windows with blankets as the wind was probably 70 miles hr. I thought I had the windows by their bed shut but evidently I didn’t have one of them. Rain was pouring in and soaking the curtain and their beds. We had a small creek flowing from the curtain to the floor. So I wrestled their bunk bed from the wall, squeezed myself between and was about to tackle taking off the heavy wooden mosquito screen when I noticed how bad the lightening was. By our room is the water cistern sitting high above us on a metal tower. Lightening was striking everywhere around. The ground was lighting up pink and was continuous. The window frames and handles are metal. Hello!!! I didn’t want to get electrocuted! So I prayed God, I need to shut this window, don’t let me get electrocuted! In the next instant, that window slammed shut! A smile lit my face, I just was so happy and thanked God for shutting it for me! With everything closed and covered up and the kids beds dried off and blankets changed, we went back to sleep.

The next morning though I woke up not feeling well again. I felt like something was wrong with my kidneys and was having pain in my back that was a dull aching pain. I was also suffering from a sinus infection and severe reflux and abdomen pain. My meds for the sinus infection and the reflux couldn’t be taken together and I couldn’t take advil for the migraine I was fighting because my stomach was so bad. On top of all that my whole body was aching from head to toe. So needless to say, I was miserable. I couldn’t eat hardly at all and if I did , it made me sick. I lay around all day, praying to God to help me. It was sort of a gloomy day, it rained most of the day and the sun never shown. That is rare around here in this paradise. Esther was in low spirits because she had gotten word that her cousin died. She lost a brother a few weeks ago. Anya was struggling with still being here and the issues of being a new mom and I could hear her praying and weeping in the room next to me. my heart went out to her, because I knew where she was. God gave me a scripture to share with her and I slipped it under her door and prayed that God would just reach down and scoop her up and hold her. The kids were great but couldn’t grasp at how sick I was and kept asking me why was I sleeping. I tried to explain to them I was sick. Allenni was very helpful in getting me water and making sure that my feet were covered with a blanket

After talking to Duane that night he determined that I probably had a kidney stone along of course the sinus infection and my GERD. And possibly a mild case of Malaria. I hadn’t run a fever so that all was good. He set down a course of action for me, to treat one thing and then another. That way I could feel some relief.

Later that evening, I began to freeze to death and couldn’t get warm, the kids put socks on my feet and I sent them to get Anya who got 2 more blankets for me as well as a disposable heating pad for my right side back pain.

Anya helped get the kids meds before their bedtime and prayed over me. I finally got warm and drifted off to sleep about midnight. I woke up around 4:30am in terrible pain and running a fever. I knew Duane was in a prayer meeting so called him to pray for me. I could tell he was frustrated that he couldn’t be near to help. I wished he was here too but through this all I knew God was here. He kept my spirits up. I hung up with Duane and then forced my self to get up and walk down to the kitchen to get toast and some pain medicine. It was all I could do to get there. I came back up and crawled back in bed , the whole time praying for God to ease the pain. I had no idea what time I drifted off to sleep but the pain eased up. At 7:30am, my phone rang and it was Brenda. She wanted to take me into town. Scott felt that I needed to go to immigration myself and inquire about the kids passports. They had been praying that morning and felt like that was what I should do. I silently prayed,” God are you sure? I am sick here! I have no strength and I don’t like new unfamiliar situations and am scared of confrontations. “ Do I have to?” I heard him clear as day, “Get up, I am your strength.” Go do this.” So, I groaned out of bed and made myself presentable and woke the kids up to go to Brenda’s. I went downstairs, and ate a toast and lay on the couch until Brenda came and got me. I groaned (well, I am being honest) out the door into the car. Anya joined us. Brenda briefed me on the way about what Scott said I should do and not what to say and how to act. (Ugandan etiquette) Both prayed over me for strength and no fear the whole way there. Surprisingly, the traffic flowed freely and open which is quite a miracle here. They cheered me on as I left the car and went in. White woman by herself in a black world. Think anyone noticed me? You bet. I really wanted to blend in here but that wasn’t possible. Oh well. People were friendly and I prayed to speak to the right people. Anya had briefed me on where to go and what people to inquire from but when I got in there, none of those people or places seemed to appear. “Ok, God who do I talk to?” I then saw a man, moving some furniture and kindly asked him where I could go to inquire about my children’s passports. He was kind and told me to wait just a minute. When he finished what he was doing, he told me to follow him. He asked me if the children were Ugandan and when I said yes, he seemed surprised. He took me to this lady’s office and told me to inquire there. I did and the lady was also nice. She asked me if I had a receipt so she could locate the file. “No, my attorney filed on Feb. 8 and did not give me the receipt.” “Sorry she said we can’t look it up with out that.” See if you can get it.” I thanked her and headed to the car. My attorney had told me there was no receipt and you didn’t get it until you had your passport approved. Wrong! Every other person there inquiring had their yellow receipt! So we headed to his office. Again, I was told the same thing but that C. could take me to immigration to talk to the lady who had the file. But it will be 30 minutes. “Ok, I will wait. So I went to the car to tell Brenda. As I came out of the building, I saw her car going past and started to run after it. I thought I was going to miss her. Finally, she slowed beside a garbage truck and I banged on the car for her stop. She was so close to the garbage truck, I could only squeeze in the back seat. I had scared her to death banging on the car!! My bad! She thought she had hit someone! I told her the news and so she said well, we will just go get some coffee. Call charles and tell him to meet us at the imperial hotel. When I called him, he said, “oh no, meet me at immigration now. I am finished with what I was doing.” So we went through the parking lot to immigration. I met him there and he took me to the office where my file was being held hostage.(Smile) The lady wasn’t there but I inquired when she would return and what her name was and left.

This may not sound like progress but it really was. I knew who had my file and where to find her. She was the same woman who had Anya’s file too. To make a long story short, this woman has several guardianship files and is overstepping her authority and “investigating” that we are legitimate people. Not child traffickers.

The problem with this is that we have already been proved to not be that by the High Court and the orders are that the kids are Ugandan citizens and are allowed to travel abroad. She is dishonoring and disrespecting the High Court rulings. So, Anya’s attorney, head of some judiciary committee, argued against it and filed a complaint and by the time Scott went yesterday and met with the director of immigration, he had already heard about the problem and apologized and said it was being worked and Anya should have her passport by Wednesday! If Anya will have her passport by Wednesday, I could have my in the days soon thereafter. Scott and his attorney can’t work on mine until Anya’s is secure. I am bringing the grandfather in on Monday to testify that the kids are Ugandan and were born here.

God had shown me that morning before that He will fight this battle for me and all I had to do was to “Station yourself, stand, and see the Salvation of the Lord on your behalf. Do not fear or be dismayed. .. “When they began singing and praising, the Lord set ambushes, so they were routed.! (2 Chronicles 20) WOW! Is all I have to say! So, God increased my strength yesterday and Brenda took me to the drug store to get some meds for the pain. They sure helped and made me a little loopy. We met Scott and the kids at an Italian restaurant and had lunch. I got fried Tialpia but couldn’t eat but a few bites so Allenni and Andrew did it for me along with their pizza. Gotta tell you this because most of you wouldn’t believe it. Anya was freaking out. We were headed to immigration and there in the middle of the road was a naked man with feathers sticking out of his mouth. Not one person was paying attention to him except the two white women in the car straining their neck to see such a sight! Not your everyday sight in America! Interestingly enough, there is not a lot of beggars or “mad” (sorry that is the term they use here) people on the streets of the city here that you would expect. I’ve been told that Kampala has really been trying to make the city “presentable”. There have been quite a few distinguishable visitors here lately in the last year and so they have worked to keep the streets clean and presentable.

Any how, we got home that afternoon and I pretty much crashed in my room, exhausted and in pain. God had stretched me today but had shown me I can do all things through Him. I didn’t eat with no appetite and Esther helped with the kids for dinner. Allenni was helpful again and I told them after supper they could watch a movie before bed. I noticed Allenni being quite hyper and ugly to me and Andrew a little later. Her whole demeanor changed. She became rude and disobedient. She kept throwing the clean clothes taken off the line onto me on the bed and pushing Andrew and being sassy and then throwing all the clean clothes on the floor with the dirty. After quite a few warnings of “Allenni, don’t do that, or stop, or obey, get your pajamas on for the 10th time. I managed to get out of bed and put here in hers. I took her pajamas and started to put them on her. Now it was after 10pm and she went into this rage. It took me 10 minutes to get her shirt on her. She was fighting every thing I did and wailing/screaming to high heaven! I warned her to quite down. Micah was sleeping next door. That made her scream all the more. So I tried to pick her up and carry her out to the balcony around the corner where she wouldn’t be heard as much. But she fought me and became dead kicking weight and clawing me so I partially drug her. We mad it around the corner and she wailed/ screamed more loudly. Screams that a 5 year old shouldn’t be coming out of her. She was raging mad. I finally got her in a body hug/ lock with her in my lap so she couldn’t hurt me or her on the floor and started praying out loud. I rocked her and prayed for her and sang Jesus Loves Me. For all that anger to be gone, for God to heal this child’s heart. For God to let her calm down. After about 30-40 minutes and me drenched in sweat, she calmed down and took my hand we went to bed and to sleep. I was exhausted. But from the experience of my other adopted children, I expected times like this and knew she had to get this out of her and in the end learn to trust me and let me lead her. So God gave the strength and calm to do this.

Sometime in the night, a storm blew in and I got up and closed everything up. I kept hearing something like trees falling OR the side of the mountain falling and hoped we didn’t have a mud slide come in on us. Our room is the corner room with the side of the hill looming over us. Come to think of it, we have a hazardous room. The metal water cistern stand 30 ft. above, the water cistern full of hundreds of gallons of water and the side of the mountain. Hmm. At least I’m not getting electrocuted when I take a shower! Ha!

Sure enough, today as I looked outside, the hill had lost a pretty good amount of dirt in several places and it had made pretty significant dirt piles. I REALLY hope no more falls off in the next storm because a tree would fall with it on my window!

Today, Brenda and Anya took the kids to Brenda’s house so I could rest and I spent most of the day sleeping. They went shopping and the kids brought me back a a little trinket ring. It is pretty. They were estactic when they gave it to me.

I did get up a little today. The rest has done me good. I am feeling much better. Still tired and weak but much better. Thanks to those of you who prayed for me and knew about my health. I do appreciate it.

Today God showed me that He would take care of the details of the enemy trying to keep us from being victorious in bringing the kids and I to their family. He gave me Psalm 35. My God is awesome and takes care of us. I really feel our journey is nearing the end. For those of you who got my text about how to pray for the next 3 days. Thanks so much for intercessing for me.

I haven’t heard anything about Isaiah today. I didn’t get to call and check on him. Mama Beatrice is a woman of few words. I hope I will get to see him tomorrow. I think I will be healthy enough to.

I am missing him but have a peace knowing he is where he needs to be at this point.

Allenni had another melt down this afternoon but calmed down after about an hour as I prayed over her. This time I did not hold her but sat on the bed with her. She came back about another hour and apologized to me. It blew my socks off!

I was able to eat some rice and banana bread for dinner.

Well the evening is getting late and I need to lie down.

No comments:

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails