The dying baby arrived in a cardboard box.

This past week we celebrated two birthdays for two boys who turned 4-years old. People laugh at me when I refer to them as the “big kids”, but they are our big kids and they are miracles.

For those of you who don’t know Caleb and Emmanuel, let me tell you their short life stories.

Caleb was born on July 11, 2011, and he was given to us in a cardboard box by his own father.

I was not in Swaziland when Helen went to pick up Caleb, but I am told it was a very traumatic day, for everyone. Caleb’s mother had died of HIV/AIDS related illness leaving her husband and baby with full-blown AIDS.

The father had no means to provide Caleb with food, clothing, love or life-saving medication and so Caleb was in and out of the hospital for malnutrition and HIV/AIDS related illnesses. Some times the father would stop the medication completely, leaving Caleb resistant to 1^st line medication.  The Doctors and Baylor clinic worked with the hospital Social Worker to find a solution and that is how Caleb arrived at the El Roi Baby home.

He was a very sick baby when he arrived with lesions all over his body, raw and open wounds and eyes that were filled with sheer terror.  There were days when Helen thought that we might lose him to the disease that was trying to steal his life, but El Roi saw him. With special love, food, medication and praying without ceasing,  his little body returned from the brink of death caused by the effects of poverty and AIDS. 

Caleb will be on his ART (Anti-retroviral treatment) for life, or until a cure is found or he is healed.  It is a twice-daily routine that cannot be missed.  While Caleb is a happy and active boy who celebrated his fourth birthday on July 11^th, he is still wearing clothes that are size 12-18 months (!) and he is on a special high calorie diet to try to put meat on his bones.  

Caleb is loved by all and we give thanks for this little life.

Emmanuel was born on July 17, 2011 and came to us malnourished and puffy from Kwashiorkor. 

I was living in Swaziland when the Social Welfare office called about him and had the opportunity to meet his young mother.  She was only 16-years old, she already had one child and was pregnant with another.  She came from a very poor family and had been working in prostitution for several years by that time. The pregnancies were a result of that life.  Emmanuel was a severely malnourished and sick baby so we had him admitted to the hospital immediately after we were given custody.  He was almost 1-year old when he came to us, but only had the development of a 4-month old baby.  His (ineffective) diaper was a plastic bag.

The mother asked us to take the new baby when he/she was born, but when the time came she gave birth in an outdoor bus stop and ran away with the baby and refused to give up the child. We have since learned that she had a fourth child and then a set of twins!  We pray for her and her other five children and we give thanks that Emmanuel (also known as “Manny” or “Emma”) is with us.

These are only two stories out of the 96 babies who now live at Project Canaan.  I often find myself saying that each child’s story is worse than the next one, but El Roi sees them all and has chosen each child to live at Project Canaan. Why only Emmanuel and not his siblings I do not know, but I trust in the Lord with all my heart and soul and give thanks for each and every life He sends to us

Live from Swaziland … Happy birthday Caleb and Emmanuel!

Janine

Never-ending rain, another pit latrine baby and an intervention of sorts

Swaziland is in a 20-year drought.  Both our dams were dry last week.  Very few people in the country had any kind of successful harvest last year and ours was down 65% vs. the year before … all because of weather (lack of water mostly, but also wind).  Water is life and we can’t make it rain, only HE can.

In Swaziland we don’t have “summer” and “winter” we have “rainy season” and “dry season”.  The rainy season starts at the end of October and goes until March.  Last year we had virtually no rain, which leaves us with no water to irrigate crops during the dry season as we had hoped and planned.

This is usually a small bridge - we cross over it to get home

Dam #2 is starting to fill!

We have been praying for rain (which seems a bit senseless during the already dry season because it would be out of season to get rain).  It has only rained once since we moved here on June 1^st and that was the day that our friends from the International Egg Commission and the American Egg Board stepped foot on Project Canaan in August (a “lucky” and much appreciated gesture).  When we arrived back from the US on Tuesday at 2PM the rains started as we were unpacking the car (not that our arrival had anything to do with it, but that is how I know when it started because I got wet!).  It is now Saturday morning and the rains continue to pour, the ground is saturated and the runoff from the hills around us is starting to fill both our dams.  We are thankful, but we are also stuck … literally.  There has been 6 feet of water rise up and now covers the bridge that we use to get to town (office, school, gas station, grocery store, airport, hospitals … you get my point, eh?).  I am glad that I have a fully stocked pantry, tetra milk for my coffee and matches in case the power goes out.

Many people around the world have been praying for rain and it has come without ceasing. Be careful what you pray for – you just might get it!

Baby Joy arriving home.

Okay, on to our new bundle of joy.  Yes, her name is “Joy” and she came to us on Tuesday at the tender age of ten days.  She was dropped in a pit latrine (outhouse/toilet) when she was born and thankfully someone heard her cry and climbed down in to get her out.  She was immediately taken to the police and hospital to be cared for while an investigation took place.  As you might guess, the mother was found and is now in prison for attempting to kill her baby. Same story, different faces.  Joy is a beautiful baby and we are thankful for our fourth little girl.  We have eight boys and now the ratio is a solid two to one.

On Thursday I spent the day with Gcabile (one of our wonderful caregivers at El Roi) and Robert Smucker (volunteer extraordinaire) trying to have an intervention of sorts and get ahead of the problem of baby dumping.  We know that Emmanuel’s16-year-old mother is almost ready to give birth to her third child, (Emmanuel lives at El Roi and is 13 months old).  The mother is HIV positive and sometimes lives in a bus shelter.  She does not want the baby in her belly and we fear that she will give birth and “dump it”, just like Joy’s mother did.  So we spent the day with her, trying to encourage her to get pre-natal medical care and promise to go to see our wonderful doctor friend at the hospital when labor begins.  But she is afraid of hospitals (both of her first two children were born in someone else’s home because she had been kicked out of her family homestead for her bad behavior=pregnancy).  She is also very young, mentally unstable and is refusing to take live-saving Anti-retro-virals so this was a very difficult day for us all.

In the end, after a short, but unsuccessful visit to the hospital we were able to negotiate “plan B”.  Gcabile’s sister-in-law kindly agreed to allow this young girl to live with them until the baby is born.  I don’t know many people who would offer that to a stranger, do you?

Emmanuel and his mom.

There were times on Thursday that I found myself asking myself if I was helping her only because she had asked that her baby would be able to go to live at El Roi?  And the answer is complicated.  Yes and no.  I would want to help her either way, but sometimes helping is hard to do and people have to want to be helped (and have the capacity to accept help) in order to be helped.  The flip side is thinking about a newborn baby being left in a ditch or on the side of a road or in a filthy, bacteria filled pit latrine.  Wouldn’t you want to get ahead of it if you could?  We will accept her baby (if she still decides she doesn’t want him/her) whether she has dumped him or not, but I would rather give her the choice of making a healthy decision rather than one that will haunt her the rest of her life, which won’t be long if she continues in this lifestyle and without ARV’s. 

This was such an encouraging week to everyone who is living here at Project Canaan.  God’s love, His provision, His promises were seen and felt every minute of the day (even when scooping after our 5 dogs who don’t like the rain and really like our front patio to do their business).  He is faithful, He is Holy, He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and His plans are perfect, but they rarely look like our plans. 

Thank you all for continuing to read this blog. I am truly overwhelmed by the comments I get (most of them positive so far J ) and to know that so many people are praying with us and for us here at Project Canaan. 

Live from Swaziland … we are thinking of building a raft (or ark!)!

Janine

16-years-old, HIV positive, and pregnant with her third child

On Thursday we got a call from the Social Welfare department saying that there was an 8-month-old baby boy who was in desperate need of help.  On Friday morning Helen and I dropped Chloe off at her school bus at 6:45AM and then headed to Siteki  to see what we could do.

We met with the Social Welfare officer who introduced us to the baby, and his mother.

The baby’s mother is 16-years-old, HIV positive, and pregnant with her third child.  The first child is being raised by the father’s family.  The father of the second child (the one in her arms in front of us) ran off and abandoned them both.  The father of the baby in her belly is dead.  She had so much pain, so much sorrow and a face that was totally without hope.

She was living with her step-sister because all of her family is gone she had no where else to go, but the step-sister’s boyfriend didn’t want to have to provide for the little baby and the new one on way so he kicked out of the house.  She had no where to live, and no way to care for her child(ren).  She went to the Social Welfare office to see if someone could care for her baby, while hoping to be able to abort her unborn child. 

We agreed to take the baby to El Roi and she seemed satisfied.  We also agreed to receive the newborn in August if she promised not to harm the baby.  She agreed.

As the official paper work was completed we discovered that the baby we were taking with us turns one-year-old on Sunday, June 17^th.  He is the size of a 4-month-old and is severely malnourished.  His hair is sparse and a light orangy color. He has a distended belly and his “poop” is the color of sand since there are no nutrients in his body.   Despite his condition he has seven teeth (our first baby with teeth!!) and he smiled at us in the office.

Papers were signed and as we headed to the car.  I asked the Social Welfare officer how this young mother would be feeling at this moment?  Scared?  Desperate?  Mourning?  She told me that the girl was happy that her baby would be cared for and sure enough, the girl smiled and laughed as she handed her baby to Helen.  I am not sure how to interpret this.  Happy that the baby will be well cared for or happy that she no longer carries that burden … or both?

We drove straight to the Baylor Pediatric AIDS clinic and had him tested and weighed.  He is HIV negative (THANK YOU JESUS!) and he weighs 12 pounds, 12 ounces (and remember, he is one year old).  We have a long way to go with this little one to get him healthy and happy, but that time begins today and we are thankful for the opportunity to serve him.

 

We asked what his siSwati name meant in English and we were told that it means “God with us”, so this little one will be called Emmanuel, God with us.

It has been another challenging week, but I am thankful for all that we have been given.  Our summer interns arrived yesterday and today they started sorting thousands of pairs of TOMS Shoes, preparing them for distribution to the children who live in our rural church communities.  Tomorrow we hang curtains, harvest our Moringa crop and build a dog pen for our newest addition to the Maxwell family (her name is Nala).  It’s Saturday morning in Swaziland and we are all alive and well.

Thanks for following, reading and praying. 

Janine