Lino Update

Once again I thought I would update much sooner than this, but alas time has flown and I’ve been super busy. I guess I’m always going to be real busy, so I really should stop saying I’m going to update often when I know I’m not. ☺
Well, I’m about through my 4th month here and it’s pretty unreal to think that after one more month, my time here will be half over. Wow, makes me wonder what I’ve been doing for the last 4 months. Anyways, I want to send a big hello to everyone at Plano UMC. Thank you all so very much for you love, support, and prayers.
Most of you who read this got an email a couple weeks ago regarding my buddy, Lino. For those of you who didn’t, I’ll give you a brief overview. Lino is one of the high school students at the school. I’ve written about him on here before. He’s an awesome kid and has become a good friend. He’s a rescued child soldier from Sudan. He’s probably about 15, but we’re not entirely sure. Anyways about two weeks ago Lino was playing soccer with his younger brother, Taban and his guardian, Jade when Taban and Lino collided. Lino was knocked so hard that he wasn’t breathing for a while and then when he was breathing again he didn’t know who he was or where he was. He was in the hospital for 3 days and in that time he was hallucinating and he was a threat to himself. The blow to his head caused all of these memories about war and his life on the streets working and begging for a scrap of food to surface. He thought he was 8 or 9 years old, he couldn’t remember anything. The first night I saw him in the hospital, Nick and I made dinner for Jade and brought it up there, it was all I could do to keep from breaking down right there. He was NOT the Lino I know. He told me, “Lino is dead.” I didn’t handle hearing stuff like that very well. The doctors at one hospital said he was faking it all and medically he was fine. Well clearly they didn’t know what they were talking about because Lino is not a self-seeking person. His concern is always for those around him before himself. He is the sweetest spirit I’ve ever met.
After 3 days in the hospital they brought him home, but he was still very off. He was still seeing people and hearing voices that were telling him to do things that I can’t even write about. It was awful. I have never seen anything like that and I hope to never see someone I love go through what Lino is going through. He didn’t even look like my Lino… he would look at you, but not focus on you. He knew you were there, but he’d look right through you. He looked so sad and scared; it’s hard to even think about now.
Needless to say the past few weeks have been rough. Nick and I have been the only ones “allowed” to see Lino. We have built good relationships with him and Jade and Sheila know how much we love him. Lino went to a new doctor and he was taken off some of the medicine that the hospitals put him on, which were actually causing some of the hallucinations. Well the new doctor is saying that the blow to the head has cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to surface. This means that the road ahead of Lino is long and rough, but he will be fine. He is now remembering who he is, who we are, where he is, that he goes to school and has friends, and that he is so loved. He’s a million times better than he was the first day I saw him (the day after the accident), but he still has so much to deal with and go through. Please be praying for him. Pray for his guardians, Jade and Sheila, and his brother Taban.
Taban is not dealing well with life at all these days. Prayer for this young man is essential. He is recalling things from his past that he had suppressed too, but not to the extent that Lino is because Taban was only about 5 or 6 when Jade and Sheila rescued him.
Thanks for all of your prayers for these guys already. They mean a lot to me and I love them so much. Lino may be able to come back to school in a few weeks, and we’re really hoping that it’s even sooner than that.
So the past two weeks of my life have been teaching and visiting with Lino. At this point I am exhausted in every sense of the word; physically because I never have time to sleep more than like 6 hours every night; mentally because I’ve been watching some of my favorite kids go through some really rough stuff; emotionally for the same reason. One thing that has come out of all of this is a much closer relationship with the people I’ve been with every day. Jade and Sheila are great and I’m excited to be getting to know them better.
Moving on… The principal at school asked me if I would be willing to teach an elective for the high school next semester. She knows I’m called to work with youth and this would be a great way to get to know some of the students even better. I’m excited to say that the relationships I’ve built with these youth are growing and I’m loving it. I haven’t officially decided what the class will be, but I’m thinking about doing a ‘music worldview class’ where we’ll discuss different genres of music and the biblical view of the lyrics and the world view. It’ll very much be a discussion class. We’d do like 2 weeks on Christian metal, then 2 weeks on gangsta rap, and 2 weeks on classical… I think the students would get excited about something like that and I want to do something with music other than lead worship all the time, though it’s not a bad thing. I love leading worship. ☺
My sister recently brought up the idea of me going home for Christmas and I was immediately excited of course, but I’m not sure if it will happen. I would love to come home and I’ve already gotten permission from the mission to take time off, but I think what it really comes down to is the money. If I were to come home I would really need to be working to get speaking opportunities at churches and share about the ministry I’m doing here. I think it’d be cool to come home and be able to share with people the experiences I’ve had so far, but I’m also trying to be smart about it. I’m told that when missionaries go home within the first year that they’re on the field, they have a real hard time coming back and plugging back into their ministries. I would like to think that I could mentally prepare myself for that and be ready to come back. I think being home would be refreshing, but by coming home would I be taking away from something that God has for me here? There’s a lot of tough questions that I’ve got to think through rationally… because of course my first thought is I wanna go home!! So ya’ll can be praying for that, for decisions, for the funding, and for my ministries here.
We had another youth group event last night. We had a speaker in from Scotland, so he did the lesson which was a nice break for me. I decided against doing music too because the kids don’t always respond well and I’m not going to force them to worship. We played games, had good fellowship, our host grilled out so we had a bunch of food, and we had great conversations. I’m excited about this group of kids. There are a few that are really rough around the edges, but I believe that they are being worked on and that the plans of the Lord are greater than their plans for themselves. Pray for Heritage International School… I wrote last time about Mischa, and he’s still healing. He’s not back at school yet because he doesn’t have the strength, but he was at youth group last night. And the whole thing with Lino… and there has been many discipline issues with all grades. We’ve had a teacher die in the last month and it really just seems like we’re under attack, so really be lifting HIS up.
This coming week is not going to be any slower than the last few weeks. We have school on Thanksgiving, of course, but then we have Friday off of school. BUT on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday we have meetings all day every day with the entire WGM Uganda field, including those from the north in Arua. I’m leading worship during a very big church service on Sunday morning for the field, so I’d appreciate prayer for that. I need to learn a few new songs this week, and decide on which others ones to do. I was also asked by Francis to write a script for the Christmas program, but I haven’t even started it. I have papers from the beginning of the month that I haven’t even thought about grading since they were turned in and I have some huge projects to write for my class to work on. All of that, plus being busy with meetings after school and visiting with Lino. Yikes!
I’m really glad that I’m doing so much because it’s making the time just fly by, but I get very easily overwhelmed and can shut down. Even this past week I took a half day off as a personal day and came home to sleep, went on a walk and explored, and just got away from everything.
Only 4 more weeks of school until Christmas break. AND only 38 more days until my birthday!! Chamuka!! (means “get excited” in Swahili)
There’s more I’d like to write, but it’s Saturday and I really want to not be staring at a computer screen anymore, so expect something soon, my friends. (and by soon I mean within a month.)
Psalm 139 has been a blessing to me this week. I hope you have some time to check it out. Much love!