Kilo's and Grams...

Every week, on Sunday, we weigh all the children and we write the new weight down on our list. Very often when I come to work on Sunday, I justpeep into the medical room to see how are they doing???? Today they did very well!

Baranassi came on 4th of April, not even 2 months ago, his weight was 1.4 kg, today his weight is 2.8!!!!

                                              

Then we had 8 weeks ago a new baby, her name is Antonia. Her weight was, when she came 1.5 kg en today....1.660 kg. We can be so happy with 10 grams per day gain. Antonia was 2 month premature, in my country, she would lay in an incubator, with all kind of alarm bells etc. But here we are so limited, we don't have that. It is hard work, but it gives fruit!!!We are happy with Antonia!

Yesterday we got again twins.. They were already 12 days old, theyt told us that the mother died, they looked malnourished. Today we weighed them again and we saw that they already gained 100 grams each!!! They are really drinking well. Their names are Betty and Rose. Their weight is today 1.9 kg and 2 kg.!!!

At the moment we have 22 children in Amecet, 16 of them are under  1 year old, I think that we have 14 babys under the 3 months of age! Can you imagine the loads of diapers going through the laundry every day?

But also the older children are doing well, apart from Max, I wrote about him in previous blogs. He is loosing weight, he is refusing to eat or drink, we had to give him a NG tube. But the other are growing: Grace was today 18 kg!!! She came on 30th of January, weighing 11 kg!

So Kilo's and Grams can make our day, today they did!!!!

Sunday in Amecet..

The morning started by driving to church, I stopped at Amecet to take the older children along. And with 8 children I found a place inside. There was good worship today and also the preaching was good. They are having every month another topic to preach about. This month it is the Family. And today they were talking about how to overcome violence in the marriage. Very down to earth and practical. I like that!! 

I have not been writing much this last week, we have been quite busy. We got several children via the Police. The girls, I wrote about in the blog "Child Trafficking" are all gone. They were picked some days later and are back with their families in the North. But we got a baby from a mother who was in jail, she murdered her husband and was taken into custody. A couple of days later she was taken to the prison and her baby joined her there. Then a boy, who was found in town, his parents were located and he is back home. A girl who lived with her grandmother, was walking from a far village, back to her mother, stranded in Soroti and was brought to Amecet by the Police. Later contacts were made with her mother and they came to pick her. Life is never boring in Amecet!!!

Yesterday a little premature baby was brought from a hospital in a neighboring district.

This little baby is called Antonia, she is 4 days old and her weight is 1.5 kg. Her mother passed away after the delivery and she was born 2 months premature. She looks good and we have hope that she will start growing and be fine!

We have some worries about Janet, a little baby who was brought to us 10 days ago. Her mother died after the Cesarean operation. There is not a certain problem that is showing, but Janet is just not doing well, not gaining, lethargic, not drinking good.....  Another baby, Mary, was brought 6 days ago. Her mother got a asthma attack shortly after the delivery and she passed away....

Jessica, a little 3 year old girl, who has been living in Amecet for the 5.5 months, has been taken back to her relatives. It is always hard to let them go, especially when you are not sure if they will care well for her. Please pray for Jessica! 

Then we have a lot of concern about Max. I wrote about him before. He is now so in his own world. He can't walk anymore, he is not talking, I don't know if he is still recognising us. He is very scared and screams.

We all love him and it is so painful to see an 11 year old boy being demented. He likes to be touched (sometimes) and he loves his little pig (stuffed animal from Winnie the Pooh), but we can't reach him....

Please pray for him.

Adoption stories..

When children come to Amecet, our plan is to get them back to the family in 2 months. Sometimes it takes longer, when the child is not stable or the family is not yet ready to receive the child back. But that is our aim with most of the children. Many we do follow up when they go back home, especially the children who are HIV+, they stay in our home visit schedule.

But there are cases where the family is not willing or not able to care for the child and then we look for an adoptive family. We prefer a local Ugandan family, so the child will get to grow up in his/her own culture and country, but sometimes it seems impossible to find a family.....

Like Michel..... He was brought to us in June 2012, left behind by his mother in the outpatients of Soroti hospital. We had no name, no age, no medical history, nothing and he is paralysed, can't talk, can't keep his head up and can't sit without support. We think that he is 3 years by now. He has been with us for almost 2 years and we had no real plan for him, since we don't know any of his relatives and nobody seemed to want to adopt him. We kept praying that God would reveal His plan for Michel. Everybody loves Michel, he has such a beautiful smile!!! And our prayers are answered, there is an American family who is adopting Michel!! We are so happy, we believe that Michel, with the right therapy, will be able to do so much more. we hope the process will go fast, but for sure, we will miss him!!

March 2013

William and Augustan, twins, whose mother abandoned them. We travelled to her village and talked with the relatives, but nobody wanted to care for the two 2years old boys, One was in a serious condition, very malnourished and very neglected. But also for them, a family came, they wanted adopt one boy, but then decided to take them both. Last week the father brought them to Amecet to see us, we were so excited to see those two healthy, happy boys!! The new family has really embraced them and they belong there now!

Last week another baby was brought to us, to see. It was Mercy, a little baby who lost her mother after she was born. The family brought her to Amecet (Jan 2013) , Mercy was very small and weak, but she picked up. There were a lot of difficulties and miscommunication in the family, at the end the family didn't want to care for this little girl. A friend of the late mother, really loved to care for Mercy and everything was agreed and arranged with the Probation officer, the lady and the family. Last week she came to show her little girl, now just over 1 year old. Mercy has a mother now who loves her and a future ahead of her!

Child trafficking..

 Simon called today from the Police station: There are 6 girls here, can we help them for 2 nights? And of course we can!

The Police in Soroti got a phone call from the Police in Moroto to check a bus that was on the way to Kampala, via Soroti. They did and they found a lady with 6 Karomajong girls, they were on the way to be employed as house girls. The Police is organizing to bring them back to their village, but they needed somewhere for them to stay till the time they will be picked.

Simon brought them to our Amun home. They were so scared, they were crying and didn't dare to enter the house. They ran off, not used to buildings. (I wonder what they would have done in Kampala??) There was one older lady with a baby, she was the one to take them, the rest of the girls were only 11-14 years old. 

We got our Ugandan staff to talk to them, she is the one at the right. Some of them understand Atesso, they were still very scared, but Barbra (our staff member) got them inside and showed them where they will sleep. Simon had gone to fetch our laundry lady, who is also a Karomajong and she speaks their language. 

She even came from the same village as some of the girls came from. She sat them down (Pauline is the third from the left) and talked to them, answered their question and even got them smiling. We took them to Amecet where we had food prepared for them, this helped as well, they had not eaten since yesterday afternoon! The Police is organizing their trip back home, they will deal with the fact they were trafficking the girls, and we... just give them a safe place to stay!

Hard labour on Labour day...

Amecet is registered in Soroti as a Baby home and every year we get a re-newing of the license. But we have to be registered in Kampala, with the Ministry of Gender as well. The first application we send in 2003, the second in 2007, the third in 2011. We tried to follow up, how far they were and if anything was missing. This week Simon went with the two Probation Officers to Kampala to really find out what was going on. There they heard the news that it had been in the newspaper that all the children Homes should re-apply. In the beginning of this year there has been a problem with a children Home and after that all the applications were destroyed. The deadline was already over... They talked and then they were given three days to re-apply........

So Wednesday (yesterday), our whole office was full of papers, and extra laptops... The Health officer came and re-wrote his report. Amos the probation officer was with us to write reports, there were also new things to be done and it was a full day, up till 7 pm.

 From left to right: Emmanuel (is doing his practise here for Social Worker), Then Amos the Probation officer and Elias, sorting through papers and answering questions.

 All four on a row: Amos, Elias, Simon and Emmanuel.

And this was this morning, it is labour day, all the offices are closed, but Amos came again to help and also Simon, who had his free day today, was there again. At 12 o'clock noon, all was finished, we arranged it in a folder and Amos and Simon left to go to Serere, where the senior Probation officer lives, he had taken his free day. But he is the one to sign all the papers, so after he has signed, Simon and Amos are on their way to Kampala. Tomorrow morning they will bring all the papers to the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development. And our prayers are with them!!!!!

(will be continued...)