Broken Hearted

Mwiriwe! Good afternoon!  I apologize for the late post, but the Internet was down

yesterday afternoon.It has been a good week and a half here at Kibogora Hospital so far. Ihave to admit that after the exhausting journey here, I had to remindmyself why I was on this trip. One of my goals is to get to know someof the patients and to try to understand what their lives are like.This past Thursday I spent the afternoon in the men's internalmedicine ward talking to a patient who speaks English fairly well. Hegave me permission to share his story with everyone back home.Emmanuel is in his early twenties and is being seen at the hospitalfor depression and headaches related to his glaucoma. Emmanuel'sparents both died of complications related to HIV. His father died in2003 and his mother died a few years ago. Since that time he and histhree brothers have been taking care of themselves with greatdifficulty. They currently don't have any place to live and Emmanuelis staying in the hospital until one of his brothers is able to bringmoney so that he can pay his hospital bill. He also has thecomplication of having glaucoma, and since medications aren't alwaysavailable in places like this, we don't have any medication to treathis glaucoma. My heart really breaks for Emmanuel because of hissituation, but the sweet thing is that Emmanuel still has hope thanksto his salvation through Christ. Emmanuel shared with me that when heis having a tough time, he just turns to Christ and his spirit islifted and he has strength to carry on.Please pray for Emmanuel. Pray that he and his brothers are able toprovide for themselves and for their safety.I also encourage everyone back home to realize that you don't have tobe doing missions halfway around the world to have a broken heart forthose less fortunate than you. A word of encouragement and a prayer gosuch a long way towards making a difference in someone's life.Please continue to pray for our team. We have a little over one weekleft here at Kibogora before we start preparing to return home. We areall starting to feel the exhaustion set in, so pray that our rest willbe refreshing so that we can finish strong next week.