Pre school Graduation......

Yesterday was a big day for Christine and Helen. It was their graduation of the pre school. Next year they will both go the the primary school. Helen has been on the pre school for 3 years, enjoying the playing, learning and the friendship with the other children, but Christine has been going only for a couple of months. You can see how sick she was in the blog of 29/7/2011. Christine is really doing well.

The graduation is a big thing, all the children wear gowns and caps and their parents are invited to witness the ceremony.

It was a joy to see all those shiny, happy faces, ready to go for the next step, there may be some future doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers and members of parliament among them!

The children had some nice songs for us and a poem and all the parents were very proud of their children.
There was a big cake for the children to cut! And then the children were sharing the cake with the big people.

And of course, I was there also as a proud mother of Helen! I remember I stood there with Sarah, some years ago, she is getting a big lady, and a big sister for her two little sisters. Catherine was also with us. We celebrate together as a family this milestone for Helen!

Mary is 17 years!!!!!

Today we celebrate Mary 17 th birthday!!! We don't know her real birthday, but we gave her a date, so we can celebrate the day of her birth!!

I picked her from the boarding school on Wednesday. Her first year in boarding school is finished, it was not easy for Mary, but is went better in time. For me it is such a joy to see her become 17 years, God is so good, he really sustained her life. And she is a beautiful, intelligent young lady.

This are our two NG tube baby's. Left is Asianut and at the right is Job. I am so happy to see those two little baby's starting to grow. Asianut came on Monday (see our last blog) She only weighed 1 kg and 40 grams, and she is already 9 weeks old. Today she weighs 1 kg and 390 grams!!! In one week she gained 350 grams, that is a lot And also Job, he came in Amecet 2 weeks ago, weighing 1350 grams, today he is 2 kg and 20 grams. That is so encouraging, it is a lot of work, feeding every 2 hours, day and night, but when you see them growing, it is worth all the effort.

Friday afternoon the police came to Amecet that there were twin baby's in the hospital left by the mother. The mother ran away and they couldn't find her any more. We went to the hospital en we found the two baby's in the children ward. Big baby's of 8 months old. There was a father sitting with them, but he was sick himself and admitted in another ward. We talked together and agreed together to take the baby's to Amecet for two weeks. In that time the father would be ok and take the children to his family. The little girls are both on treatment for pneumonia and diarrhoea. Their names are Mary and Martha! On this picture Sarah is sitting with them, they cried a lot.

On Saturday morning came Benjamin in Amecet. he was brought by his mother. He is very malnourished and misarable. He also cried a lot. The good news is that he is HIV-, so we just want to get him eating and drinking. But when they are in this stage, they cry a lot and are really irritable. He cried the whole day yesterday, you could take hin in your arms, he stopped a bit, but with 21 children in the house, you just can't sit with him the whole day.

But in the evening, he smiled!!!!! Is he not a very handsome little boy! I love his beautiful eyes. he eat a bit and he drinks milk, and he smiles, so there are many reasons to have hope.

He slept well, but today, Sunday, he cried a lot again. I have seen it before, he will get over this and start to play and smile more.

Who is 9 weeks old and only weighing 1 kg?

Asianut is 9 weeks old and she only weighs 1 kg and 40 grams. She has a beautiful name, it means Grace in Ateso, the language from this area.

She was brought by her parents today, she has been born as a premature baby and survived!!!

It must be a fighter. She is HIV-, so that is very good, it would be another big problem for her. But she is soooo small and when you look into her eyes, you see that she is older, she is alert. She can not suck at all, so we put in a NG tube and we feed her every 2 hours. We took her to the doctor and he said that it is a miracle that she is alive. So I am looking forward to see more of this little bundle of Grace. God must have a plan with her!

We "pack" her in this little pink sac, it is nice and warm, because her body temperature was low. We also check her temperature every 2 hours.

It was a very busy day, I thought I could do some office work today, but I started the same thing five times today and it is still not done. So I stopped, tomorrow I try again. We got another newborn baby. His mother died this morning in the hospital after a caesarian. His name is Justin and his weight is 2.4 kg. Two other children were brought, but they were not really needing us, at least one of them might come back tomorrow, because I wanted the mother to bring another family member with her and a letter of the local chief in her area. We have now a really full house with in total 23 children!!

Rafiki is gone....

This is Rafiki (means friend). I got Rafiki about 12 years ago, from an American family who left Uganda. Rafiki was first at the YWAM base, until we started Amecet, almost 10 years ago. Rafiki has been a very good and gentle dog. She has been the leader of our dogs and I guess she has been teaching many puppy's how to guard the place. Recently she got sick and after that, one of our other dogs took her place as the leader of the group. She was not allowed to stay with the other dogs in the doghouse anymore. She became more and more lonely and was also walking badly and became skinny. Last week I asked the vet to look at her. He told us that she has a hip problem, which only gets worse, she must have a lot of pain and that is why she is hardly eating. I felt sorry for her and after talking in our team, we decided to ask the vet to give her an injection. That has happened this morning, we just burried her. I feel sad, it was such a nice dog, I am glad we burried her, that is normally not done here, you don't burry a dog, it is not a human being! But I feel that Rafiki earned that, she has served us well.

There will be other dogs coming and maybe even get the name Rafiki, but this Rafiki has been a true FRIEND!

EYALAMA NOI

New plaster for Ruth and 5 Birthday girls

Today we had to go back to Kumi with Ruth, for review her leg. Again on this very bad road, today it was even worse than the last time. Big potholes everywhere!! The doctor just started in his new hospital, it is a beautiful new hospital, specialised for orthopaedic problems. Only there was no electricity yet, and they had to take off the plaster! So they put Ruth with her legs in a bucket with water to make the plaster soft. After that they had a sharp knife to cut the plaster open. It was scary to see, so close to the leg, but they managed without cutting her leg! The doctor looked at her foot and said that it was improved, but they had to give again new plaster for two more weeks. So she is home with another white leg!

Then when we came home we had a BIG birthday party! For 5 wonderful girls, who all had hier birthday within this week. From left to right you see: Ella, Esther, Florence, Leya and Gloria! Gloria celebrated her 4th birthday, from the others, I lost count!

Kick off Amecet cup tournament in Soroti

Who would not like to win this beautiful trophy, it is the Amecet cup, the prize for the winner of our soccer tournament in Soroti town. This tournament is organised by Elias, (his picture is here below)
He is an old friend of Amecet, He has been working with us many times and is also a fervent soccer player. It is a big tournament with 20 teams participating. It is organised because of our 10 year anniversary in Dec. We have several things coming up and this tournament is one of them. We wanted to do something in and for the community, we are also building a playgarden for the children of Soroti. To give it as a gift to the community of Soroti. Soccer is a favorite sport in Uganda, It was amazing how many teams there are in Soroti. teams are formed from the working place ( there is a team from car mecanics) and there are teams from the neighbourhoods. Today was the kick off and we started with a (joker) team from Amecet/YWAM which would play 2 x 10 minutes with a participating lady team. On the picture below you can see our team. We had never practised and some met for the first time. But it was fun and they played 0-0, so that was good.

Then we had the official kick off, I had to say something about the anniversary and then greet the teams and then Catherine would do the kick off, but it was confusing so Helen ended up to do the kick!
It was a nice atmosphere and we hope that people will enjoy the games, in playing and in watching! Th e big final is on December 17th, the winner will receive the trophy and a bull!

Helen goes to the salon....

Yesterday we took the braids out of Helen's hair. Her ponytail was fake, they braid threats in with the real hair to "extend" the hair. Her hair was very long and it stood out like a cloud around her head. We washed it and try to comb it, but that became a drama!!! I couldn't get a comb through it. It was very painful, Helen cried. This morning we got her to school with her hair tied in some little pony tails. We would let it braid again, but this afternoon she told me that she wanted it shaved. So we went to the salon. To the barber for men, they do the shaving jobs. When he started, it looked like the way how they shave a sheep, so thick was the hair. I told the guy that he should not take all off. And he did a good job!

I still want to ask your prayers again for the two Christines. Christine 1, who got the convulsions on Monday is still not doing well. We tested her again for Malaria and this time it came out positive, so she is now on a Quinine drip, I am still concern about her. Christine 2 has a pneumonia, she is on IV injections. It will be a busy night for me, I have go to do the injections on odd hours during the night, then put Christine 1 back on drip for 4 hours. But if it helps them, it is ok.