Help a Mama Out!

I am very excited that I was able to buy 100 Mama Kits today!! One of my goals of this trip was to find the best way to get/make the Mama Kits. I had several good tips and contacts, but so far they had not panned out as I had hoped. I got the name of one medical supplier, but it was going to be difficult getting into it because it is supposed to only be for authorized medical staff. My other contact’s organization had the kits, but they were about $8 a piece and you could only buy them in very large quantities. I had the name of a couple of other places to check out last week, but then I got sick, so it was not possible. I was feeling a bit defeated. It may seem silly to think something could be so difficult to accomplish in nearly 7 weeks, but between juggling lawyer visits, court appointments, embassy stuff, and then just regular life it gets hard. Plus, you have to consider the fact that it’s not always easy to get around in this place. Each time I have to hire a driver to take me into Kampala it costs a minimum of $20, which quickly adds up. You can take a matatu (van taxi… Uganda’s version of a public bus), but depending on where you are going can be quite confusing and time consuming. You can take a boda (motorcycle), but I don’t like taking Mercy on them into Kampala because it is very dangerous, so that means I need a babysitter. And people work on “Africa Time” around here, so nothing happens when you think it will or should.


This morning, I was thinking of several things I wanted to accomplish this week to keep me busy while waiting on the embassy. I thought I could try to find a few medical supply places and leave Mercy with the Howards for a few hours. Then my phone rang, and my original Mama Kit contact called to see if I had had any luck. I told her that nothing had panned out. She told me she wanted to meet her friend, Catherine, who works for an NGO that supplies other NGOs with their medical stuff. Catherine even offered to meet me wherever I wanted so I wouldn’t have to get a driver. Woo hoo! She brought me a sample kit and it has all of the basics needed for a woman to give birth safely in a pre-packaged and easy to use kit. It also has all of the information printed in both English and Luganda… and they are only approximately $4 per kit. The only tricky thing was that I had to buy at least 100 of them. I I had enough money already set aside to buy about 60 kits. I felt like this was such a good deal and Catherine leaves tomorrow for a week long business trip, I decided to go out on a limb and go ahead and get them. So, I went to the ATM and got the money needed and Catherine delivered them this afternoon. Wow, what a great feeling knowing that the lives of 100 women could be greatly affected by these simple kits. I’ve said it before, but the world does not need more orphans. Women should not die giving birth because they had no way to keep things sterile and prevent infection or bleeding. I hate that Mercy’s biological mother gave up her life bringing her into this world, and I hope that these kits will honor her and her memory in some way. All of that to say, I feel so blessed to be able to get these kits today.

I plan to give about half of the kits to Dr. Patrick’s clinic. They constantly need medical supplies. Dr. Patrick told me last week that they have about one baby born there every day. He also says he only charges women about $5 for the birth. That is incredibly low, even for Uganda. It’s actually more expensive to get treated for malaria. I asked him why he charged so little, and he said that he knows if he charged much more that the women would not come to the clinic and he knows the dangers of giving birth at home in a village with no supplies. The others will be passed out in villages or slums to pregnant women or through two local crisis pregnancy centers that I’ve learned about. I hope and pray that this is something that I can continue to contribute towards and educate other people about. I feel like God has given me a heart for this project through Mercy and I’m excited to see what happens with it.

If you would like to contribute toward the kits that I purchased today, it would be greatly appreciated. I promise you it’s a worthy cause. I only need 30 people to give $5 and according to my blog stats, hundreds of you have been reading this blog each day (Wow! Still can’t believe that many of you are following along). You can donate by just clicking on the Mama Kit/PayPal link in the upper right side of this blog. If you don’t want to use PayPal (I promise it really is very easy to use!!) you can email me and I’ll send you my address. Thank you so much!