The Amecet gang......

At the moment we have 10 little boys in Amecet, who crawl/walk or on the stomach, move over the veranda and the compound! from left to right, back row: Moses (twin), Sagal, Peter (twin), Ben, Joseph, Edward. The front row: Yoweri, Nathan, Jackson and Job!
They keep us very busy, next to the 10 little bay's we have as well to care for!

 Sometimes they play on the mat on the veranda, but most of the time, they are all over the compound!

 On the slide, which is going well most of the time, but sometimes there is a quarrel and we have to run to them, before one of them is pushed off....

As almost happened here with Joseph... 

Joseph was operated because of his cleft pallet , you can read about him in the blog of October 20, 2015. He is doing very fine now, he needs a second operation next year, then the doctor will close the inside of the pallet.

Nathan is 1 year and 9 months, he is with us for 3 weeks now. He can not walk, because of sickle cell and his legs are very weak. He moves over the veranda on his buttocks. We are exercising his legs and we see already a change in him. It is a very sweet boy, his mother abandoned him and now his grandma takes care of him. 

 The merry-go-round is also a favorite activity, but here is Moses hanging off.

Edward is helping in the garden, but with the rains we get every night, it is muddy and we have several changes of clothes every day... Edward is doing well, you can read his story, how he came into Amecet in the blog of October 21, 2015

 At 10 am. it is snack time, everybody comes back running to wash their hands and sit on the mat, ready for the snack, today it is bread and milk.

 Helping (?) uncle Calvin in the garden. It is nice to see how much patience he has with them, they do "help" him a lot....

 Sagal en Peter are coloring together. Sagal (left) is doing very good, he gets his medication every day and it is amazing how this little boy has changed!! You can see how he came into Amecet on August 28, 2015 you will not recognise him. He is very strong willed and if he decides not to listen, he will not listen... a challenge!!

 Jackson is "cleaning" up?? He can't yet walk, but crawls with speed all over the place and he pulls himself up on the shelves to empty them... Jackson is in Amecet since July, he has gained and changed a lot, he came in very sick and weak (see blog of July 21)

The twin brothers Moses and Peter, they do play a lot together, but they can fight together as well.....

They are the oldest boys of the gang and they do a lot of things they should not do...like climbing trees... 

They came in Amecet in October, you can read the story in the blog October 2.

Ben is two years old and he came in Amecet 4 days ago. He was referred by the Prisons. Both of his parents are in the cells and his mother is pregnant and will deliver this week. We are trying to contact relatives, where Ben will go to until his parents are released from prisons.

And this is Job, the youngest from the gang! He is almost 10 months old. He has been very sick and for a long time we didn't know what could be the problem. Since a couple of weeks he is really changing. He can't crawl, but he sits and enjoys himself, he is part of the gang!! He smiles and react to people, You can read about him in the blog from April 1, 2015.

Conference about the problems around maternal mortality in Teso

 Friday, Amecet was invited to attend the conference about Maternal mortality in the Teso region. The conference was organized by Teso Safe Motherhood. People from the government, community leaders and medical personnel were together to discuss the problems and seek for solutions.

It was interesting to hear what is going on and what are the main reasons for so many mothers who die after delivery. Good to see that the mortality in Uganda has dropped a lot, it reduced to half from what it was 15 years ago. But still too many mothers die after giving birth. Many times it is of severe bleeding. The good news is that Soroti is trying to get a blood bank in Soroti, so there will be more blood available for transfusion. Now we get the blood transported from Mbale. 

As Amecet, we know of the pain and the struggles a family goes through, after they lost the mother.
Right now, we have 9 baby's in Amecet, who lost their mother after the delivery!!
Nine baby's without a mother, nine families without a mother, nine husbands without a wife!
I hope and pray, more will be done to have mothers deliver safely!!!

Emmanuel has got a Family!!

In our first blog of this year, I wrote about Emmanuel, and you can see his first picture, a small baby whose weight was only 1.8 kg! Over the months we have been busy with him, because we didn't know the HIV status from his mother, we started him on medication, but after the tests we got the results that he is free of HIV! We tried to find his relatives, the mother disappeared, but via radio and newspapers and going to the area where he was found and asking questions around, we tried to get at least someone who knew the mother..but all in vain. At the same time there was a family in Belgium, waiting for a second child and after a lot of paperwork, the High Court in Soroti gave a positive ruling for Bram and Melina Ingels to be the forever parents of Emmanuel and for Franco to be the brother of Emmanuel. 

It was a joy to see the family bonding together and we let them go with our blessings and prayers!!!

Innocent..

Innocent came in April 2015 in Amecet. He is HIV+ en also his mother is sick. They came from the North of Soroti, quite far from here, Innocent has a sister in Soroti, and via her, they came to Amecet.

We saw that he had a lot of skin problems and we also observed that he had not taken his ARV's very regular. Janneke took him to the HIV clinic and they did several tests. The outcome was not very good, Innocent immunity was very low. New ARV's were started, but we were also very concerned about his skin lesions. A biopsy was done and the result was not good, it was cancer. We were referred to the Cancer Institute in Mulago Hospital in Kampala. There they did tests again and a programme was made for for chemo therapy. Janneke went with him for 5 times now, every week. Mostly Elias goes with her and drives the van. Innocent can sleep during the trip, which is always at least 5 or 6 hours. Too long to go on one day, so they sleep in a lodge and come back the next day. This takes a lot from Innocent (and also from us), in agreement with the doctors they decided to admit Innocent in Mulago Hospital, in the Cancer unit. His mother stays with him. She really wanted that, she also came to Soroti and is doing a bit better.

We miss him, but it is better this way, he is close to the doctors and they keep a good eye on him. I found this picture from Innocent, he loves playing with our puppy. We hope and pray that he will be back to play with the puppy again (a bit bigger than) and we want to ask you to join us in our prayers for Innocent. He deserves it!!