The real struggle

I visited a woman called Petra who lives on our street. She lives with her husband and four children, one of much is ten and has a severe disability. 

Her life is the definition of a struggle.

She and her husband try and find bits of work every day to pay for rent, food and school fees. They find it very hard to did ways of getting tiny bits of money. 

Also, if she goes out to was clothes for people or clean a home for money, she had to LOCK her son Emma at home. She has no choice.

She has, in the past, come home to Emma lying in blood as he's fell out of bed in her absence. 

In addition, the 4 kids sleep in one bunk bed. Peter who is in primary school has share the bottom bunk with Emma. Emma bites him in the night and pinches and hits him. It's just an awful situation.

I really respect Petra for persisting with such a hard life with little hope for change. All the kids at Hone of Hope were abandoned because of disability and Petra just loves her boy and cares for him.

She NEVER gets a break or any help. It's like she's trapped. 

When I found out about her home situation I spoke to Edith (founder) and Eddie (therapist) at Home of Hope.

I eventually arranged with Eddie a home visit and he came to the home.

He instantly knew from seeing Emma and how he behaves that he is extremely autistic. The head banging and swinging and other mannerisms all fit what Eddie was saying. It was great to see Petra learning about her son and that others suffer from the same things.

Eddie showed her exercised and ways to hold Emma to help him to calm down and also ways of teaching him to feed himself.

Petra was so grateful and I could see this could be the start of some great help for her. 

So I have spoken to the amazing Pastor George who has agreed to take Petra and Emma on his bike to Home of Hope once a week for therapy and for her to see more ways of caring for Emma. There is a possibly he may even be able to walk independently!

She was so grateful and kept telling me 'God bless you for your work here in Uganda' and all I could reply was how little my workload is compared to her. How inspirational she is. And how if anyone should be blessed it is her! 

I really hope we can work out more ways of giving her a break and some rest time, such as dropping Emma of for a night or so at Home of Hope. 

Seeing people persist through struggles like this blows me away.