Pembury Baptist Church

Priya writes, following an email from PBC asking her to keep us updated:

I would be delighted to keep you updated on my travels; it means a lot to know that there are people back in the UK supporting me!

Just to refresh your memory, I'm at Hospice Africa Uganda which is in Kampala. My role, as I am fond of telling people, is as yet undefined ... something which doesn't seem to be an uncommon experience amongst longer-term volunteers! Each day I make a plan and more often than not I end up doing something entirely different!

The first few weeks at Hospice were incredibly challenging. I struggled a lot with not having any defined role; initially it didn't seem like Hospice knew quite what to do with me! In my second and third week this began to change and, in fact, went the opposite way: people started to ask me to see patients unsupervised and sign prescriptions (which is highly illegal!). Things are getting better though: I have been assigned to a team and go out on home visits 3 times a week. I have also done some teaching which I loved (and God probably loved because I spent just about the whole day praying about it - I was so nervous!).

A lot has happened over the last month but the main challenges have been the poverty (or perhaps more the gap between rich and poor), establishing relationships, getting comfortable with Kampala and perhaps trickiest, reconciling the very 'Christian' culture here with the terrible things I see happening! I can't begin to describe some of the conditions I've seen people living in; it absolutely breaks my heart and yet I fear that I will become hardened to it in the way many people here seem to be.

So specific prayer requests:

- That I'll find a church / home group!!!
- My relationship with God in the face of what I'm seeing / experiencing
- For good strong relationships, especially with people at Hospice
- For my continued safety & health
- A new place to stay (I am hoping to move out of Hospice in a few weeks which is a scary thought as so far I've not really had to cook for myself or wash my own sheets - no washing machines here!)

Although the first few weeks were hard I am absolutely loving being here; Uganda is a beautiful country and I feel so privileged to be here!