Hello All!
Wow! Is the Lord good or what?? Every day I am blown away at the blessings that the Lord has just been pouring out on me. Praise Him!
I know I have a few new followers to my blog, so I thought I’d just begin this blog post with a bit of an introduction for those who aren’t up to speed yet.
My name is Gracie Mills, and I have been tremendously blessed to have the opportunity to take a year off of school and travel for a year.. seeing the world, but also getting my feet wet in ministry world wide to serve the Lord’s precious people on a global scale. In the fall, I was blessed with the opportunity to travel around different countries in Europe for about a month and a half. Because of a few miscommunications, the MINISTRY aspect of that trip was a bit limited.
But THEN, in the winter months, the Lord directed me to be on staff at a Mission down in Mexico that houses only handicapped orphans. This is one of the most magical places you could ever be blessed to come across. The spirit of the Lord is so strong there, it’s almost like you hit a wall upon entering through their gates. While in Mexico, I was a full- time caretaker, mother, counselor, and friend to 17 of the Lord’s most precious gems.. gems whom I am SURE will all be sitting at the right hand of the Lord in Heaven.. right next to Jesus. There is some idea that these children are placed in our life so we can teach them something.. but I am convinced it is the exact opposite. We learn from them FAR more than they could EVER learn from us. Needless to say, I fell in love with these kids, and my life is changed because of them.
This time in Mexico just fueled an already- existing fire in me. I have always had a passion for children with special needs. I really, firmly believe that the spirit of the Lord can be stronger in a child with disabilities than in any other person on earth. Having worked with special needs children all through high school, and having a younger brother who struggled through school, I found that with an incredible amount of love and encouragement, a child can succeed; no matter how severe the disability. This realization brought me to the decision of making the rest of my life be devoted the betterment of children with special needs through both special education and occupational therapy. One of my very favorite things while living in Mexico was identifying an issue for a child, and coming up with a clever solution to help him/ her function successfully. I saw every child and their issues like a puzzle. Sometimes it can take a LONG time, but with persistence, and trying out “different pieces” to try and solve the issue until it’s resolved. This is why I feel like occupational therapy is so perfect for me. It’s all about identifying a problem in a person, and figuring out a way to make it work better. I am REALLY excited about pursuing this career once I am done with all my travels this year.. Which brings me to where I am right now!
Currently, I am living in Uganda working with an organization called Spring of Hope. Spring of Hope is a community- based, Christ- centered organization that aims not only to care for children with disabilities, but to teach the FAMILY how to take care of their own child with disabilities. One of the biggest issues with special needs children world wide is that people:
#1. Don’t understand WHY their child has a disability. Many believe it is due to a fault in the mother during pregnancy. Many believe it is because they are possessed or cursed with an evil spirit. This often leads to abuse or neglect of the child. Sometimes they are tied up in dark closets, beaten, and/ or taken advantage of sexually.
#2. People don’t have the knowledge to know HOW to care for their child that is different than all the other ones.
Spring of Hope’s mission is to not only provide medication and therapy for the disabled kids, but also to educate parents/ family members on what they can do at HOME that will benefit their child and help them succeed. Sometimes, it’s just convincing the parents that their child is CAPABLE of succeeding that is the trick. There is such a negative perspective on disabled children here in Uganda.. but I will get to that later on!
What I do as a volunteer:
As a volunteer, I go along on home visits, where we travel out into more rural areas to give children physical therapy, and also help teach them activities of daily living skills. We do this IN the home environment so that #1. the child feels familiar and comfortable #2. To educate the parents and teach them these exercises to do themselves, and #3. To be an example to the parents and siblings of how to love on their child. Our MAIN mission is to change the perspective in the community. We do this by being vessels of Jesus’s love and having His attitude towards the children. When the parents see US having fun and interacting with the child, they are likely to duplicate these actions and attitudes.
Along with home visits, I help out when we have any sort of clinic. There are 3 kinds of clinics.
1. Drop- in clinics- these are held AT our office. Parents travel with their child to receive both medication and physical therapy, and also to get tips on activities of daily living (ADL) training.
2. Wobwoko clinics- this is basically a larger- scale drop in clinic, but it’s in a different location (about an hour from our office). We set up camp in a public health clinic building as the people roll in (well, they usually walk… but whatever!) by the hundreds to receive medication and therapy for their children. We spend a LOT of time counting, sorting, and cutting pill capsules to hand out too.
3. Parish clinics- Parish clinics are kind of like an awareness clinic. We use this time mainly to focus on the perspective issue talked about before. We play games with the kids, teach bible stories, and talk to the parents about how special children are, and how they really CAN be a blessing if they choose to view it as such.
Starting next week, I will also be working in a school called Kisega. This is a regular primary school that allows the admission of children with disabilities. (including deaf children) Another big part of Spring of Hope’s mission is integration and inclusion. So I will be working in this school doing things like teaching bible lessons, helping learn English, and what I’m MOST excited about is that I’m actually going to get to make up games to play with the kids outside in their big field. If you know anything about me, you know that my most favoritest thing in the WHOLE world is to have fun. Let alone having fun with KIDS.. Let alone having fun with kids in AFRICA… Needless to say, I’m super stoked!
We will start having staff meetings once a week to spend time in prayer.. both for the community and for specific children. Also to consider the Lord’s word and see what HE says about the work we are doing, and about children with disabilities. This is really a time for regrouping, refocusing, and rededicating our mission and passion to the Lord. We had our first meeting this morning, and I was just SO encouraged and revitalized by it. There were just 6 of us in the room, all passionate and praying about the SAME thing. Obviously, I’ve worked with these people every day for 2 weeks now. But it was so refreshing to just read the word and talk to our Father about our calling. We read Psalm 139, which became one of my absolute favorite scriptures while I was at the Mission in Mexico. Although there are always different interpretations, to me, the passage VERY directly speaks of children with special needs and disabilities. It gives me chills every time I read it. It’s SO powerful, and SO clearly depicts the heart of the Lord towards his children. Here it is:
”For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.”
I just cannot get over the power of those verses. God doesn’t make mistakes. Ever. It’s not like he accidentallycreated a child with disabilities, and said “Oh SHOOT! Man.. I’ll get ‘em next time..” The Lord KNIT each of us together. I love that word picture; it was purposeful. Not just a wave of the finger, BAM, there’s a person. He took time to make intimate details about all of us. Every single strand of DNA was meant to be. Sometimes, even in the Christian community, the phrase is used “Well, God will make something good out of a bad situation.” The truth is: It’s ALWAYS been good! It was never a bad thing in the first place. I LOVED our meeting today.. strategizing about how to bring Jesus into the community, how to bring His love, His light and better yet, His perspective into these homes.
After the staff meeting, I was originally going to the school to start being introduced to the kids, but it ended up not working out. The people had already left for the home visits, so I couldn’t do that, and Israel and Teresha (the directors) had a meeting out of the village with a pastor. Because I’m living with them, there are some circumstances when I need to tag along while they’re going to a meeting, but I’ve never been a part of one of their meetings. I usually have to wait in the car or something. As the only option was to tag along with their meeting, I was a little discouraged that I wouldn’t really be able to work with the kids today.. But MAN did the Lord bless me! We had this meeting at a school LITERALLY in the middle of nowhere in some village that I can’t pronounce. This guy’s name is Pastor Patrick, and he not only is a pastor, but he runs a primary school, and also trains other pastors in the area. When we showed up, I fully expected to just sit somewhere and try to entertain myself.. I didn’t even know what the meeting was about! But They all called me to the “office” (see picture for definition of “office” here) to sit down and participate in the meeting. So I pulled up a chair and just listened. The meeting was about how to reach disabled people through the church. This man’s perspective and insight was SO encouraging and so refreshing. While his full time calling isn’t for disabled ministries, he definitely “gets it.” He fully understands the weight and value of this issue around the world, but specifically in Uganda. He will meet with pastors all throughout Uganda and discuss this issue of disabilities when it comes to the church. If there is going to be change in Uganda, it’s going to start in the church. The church is the nation- wide example of how to live. Once people see the church making an effort to reach and value the disabled community, the rest of the population will follow suit. We weren’t aware beforehand, but Pastor Patrick had arranged for some families with disabilities to come to the school to talk with us today. So after we were done talking one on one with the pastor, he gave us a tour of the school, then we went out back to talk with some of the parents about Spring of Hope and who we are. (again, this area is an area far away from our normal circulation of ministry, so many of them had never even heard of us before). After Pastor Patrick introduced us all, Teresha spoke to the parents kind of like it was a parish clinic. She told them about our ministry and what we do, and that we would love to come out and hold clinics in their area. As they introduced each of us, we kind of said a little word of encouragement to the group of 30 or so parents. Pastor Patrick translated for me as I told the parents that I was so glad to be there, and that I was passionate about children with disabilities. I told them how much I love them, and how much the Lord loves them, and how I hope that they can come to know that feeling as well. It was awesome for me to speak to them like that, and offer a few words of encouragement. I could tell that the parents really appreciated what we had to say, and that really blessed me!
Argh, I have so much more to say, but it is now 2am, and my eyes are shutting as I type. I will TRY my very hardest to write more tomorrow! PLEASE be praying for us, friends.. We are on the brink of really making a significant change. Just pray for the hearts of the people that they will recognize the truth of the Lord’s love for all of us: disability or not. I’m so thankful that the Lord loves me, despite MY flaws, and the areas that I fail. Prayer is a powerful weapon. We (HE) really are capable of kicking this issue in the pants! Pray, pray, pray.
If you have any comments, questions, concerns, etc. PLEASE feel free to leave them here or email me!
Mysunshinemills@gmail.com
Thanks so much for reading. May the Lord richly bless you today!
Gracie
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