Baby Esther can rest now..

 This morning we had a little coffin made, can you imagine, it was only 55 cm long! We were set to go and bring baby Esther to her village.Some relatives, who lived in Soroti also came and some staff members went along as well. It was far, more than 2 hours drive. It had rained, the roads were not good and at a certain place, the road was so slippery, that the car went off in the ditch! Simon had to climb out through the window, it was our luck that the ditch was not deep, we would have overturned, or that there was just someone walking there... We turned the 4 wheel drive on (I did it at the outside and Simon inside the car) and with some sliding, he could get it back  on the road!

When we arrived at the compound from the family, they were waiting for us. Mobile phones are a real blessing here, out in the bush. Otherwise it would have been a big shock when you show up with a coffin in your car. Now we had contact before and the relatives were prepared. They had even dug the grave already. It was so sad to stand there, seeing the grave of the mother and the small grave next to it from Martha. Then the place where they will bury Esther, next to her twin sister. At the right you can see a part of the grave of an older brother who died in February, when he was 10 years old. There is one girl of 13 years left, all alone now, she really cried. It was sad, the family was thankful for what we had done. We left the family, to give them time to mourn and we drove back to Soroti (without any problems this time).      

When I came back, I saw some of the older children play. It was so nice to see Susan, the pregnant girl, play with them (in the blue T-shirt). She is happy and laughing, she is a child again! She is the youngest (known) girl in Uganda who is pregnant. There is quite some publicity around her. Last week the national TV came for an interview with me about her. The visit to the doctor was good last week, a new scan showed that she is between 32 and 35 weeks. We have to come back in 3 weeks and she needs to get a Cesarean. She is too small to have a natural birth. At least we are in the system and we can always call the doctor when there is something. That is good to know! We pray that everything will go well.