Meet Lucy

“Jeremiah is an active boy,” says Lucy. “He makes me laugh a lot, especially when he is doing his activities. He has also a sister. When they are playing they like to call me, ‘Mommy, mommy, come and see. Mommy, mommy, we dance for you.'” Hearing Lucy talk about her son Jeremiah, it’s hard not to be left smiling at the sweet scene she describes. Two children dancing happily for their mother. A house full of activity and laughter. A brother and sister playing together. It sounds idyllic. But as any parent knows, raising a family comes with challenges and heartbreak too.

It’s been two years since Lucy started bringing Jeremiah to a BMS World Mission-supported speech and language therapy clinic near where they live in Gulu, Uganda. The journey to reach this point hasn’t been easy. After a healthy birth, Lucy was filled with worry when Jeremiah developed neonatal jaundice as a newborn. While the jaundice was spotted and treated, it wasn’t until Jeremiah was older that Lucy realised that he was missing the milestones that she had expected to see as he grew. “I started asking myself what the problem could be,” she says. “I had to go to the hospital for more inquiries.” Months of monitoring and physiotherapy followed as medical staff investigated why Jeremiah wasn’t able to move independently or sit up. It was a year before a doctor was able to diagnose Jeremiah with cerebral palsy.

At two years old, Lucy still hadn’t seen much change in Jeremiah’s development. Determined to do the best for her son, she began reading more and more about his condition. “I realised that the milestones are going to be slow… but I should not give up,” she says. It was then that a referral from the hospital changed everything. Lucy was given the details for BMS-supported worker Isaac’s speech and language therapy clinic – the same clinic that BMS supporters raised an incredible £59,900 for, alongside other work, as part of our recent Uganda Child Protection appeal.

The clinic is the first of its kind in Gulu, but through Isaac’s work, it’s already having an amazing impact. “Isaac helped me a lot,” says Lucy. Within five months, Jeremiah was sitting up on his own. Now, a year and a half on, he’s up on his feet, walking and dancing. It’s seeing Jeremiah’s incredible progress that spurs Lucy on to think about what they can do together next, with Isaac’s help. Their next goal is working on Jeremiah’s speech, in preparation for sending him to school.

The speech and language therapy that BMS supporters made available to Lucy has transformed life for Jeremiah, but it’s also transformed Lucy’s experience as a mother. “It’s helped me a lot as a parent,” she says. Lucy feels much happier knowing she’s doing the best for her son, whatever the challenges they face. She’s also able to leave him in the care of others for the first time while she goes back to work, meaning she can earn precious income for the family and know he’ll be well looked after without her. There’s just one thing that Lucy would change, and that would be knowing about the clinic earlier. She had no idea that this kind of help was available for parents like her before her referral, and she’s keen that the radio broadcasts Isaac has been doing to raise awareness of this often-overlooked issue in Uganda reach as many people as possible.

In fact, Lucy dreams of a future for her community where conditions like Jeremiah’s are discussed more openly and where support is sign-posted. “I would wish that if there is a neighbor or someone, maybe who is walking and sees a kid [like Jeremiah], they should be concerned to follow up on how that child is… If they cannot help him or her, they should at least check whether their parent knows [about the clinic] or direct them to such a place,” she says. With each parent and child helped through your support, that future is one step closer to becoming a reality. Lucy knows that her son will always need special care, and she’s got a message for other people who might encounter children like Jeremiah. “These children, we look at them as not important but they are very important… especially in the care we should give.”