The burned baby has burned a hole in my soul.

child's face hidden to protect him.

I have horrific photos of this child's burns, but it would not be right to post them publicly.
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Since I first heard about the baby who was lit on fire by his own father I have not been able to rest. My heart hurts and my head is confused. How could this happen? What kind of a man lights his 18-month old baby on fire?  It’s the same kind of man who beats his 15-month old baby (same child) so badly around the head and buttocks that the child has to be hospitalized.  But no charges were laid on this man and the boy was taken back home after his wounds healed.

Two months later this same man was angry at his son for “soiling” himself.  The same reason he beat him in January. Yes, this 18-month old isn’t quite toilet trained yet and soiled himself, so to punish him the father lit his bum on fire to teach him a lesson.

Each day I think about this, have conversations about it or pray about it I get more and more angry.

I got home late Tuesday night from my US visit and went straight to deal with this situation on Wednesday morning.  We are being asked by the mother and Social Welfare office to bring the baby to the El Roi Baby home when he is well enough to be discharged from the hospital because the father is determined to kill the child when he is released from prison.  This boy we call Benjamin will hopefully find his permanent home on Project Canaan, if that will keep him safe from harm.

As I was reviewing the whole situation Shirley gave me the original newspaper article about the child, which just fueled my anger even more (see article below).  This man intentionally lit his son on fire (for pooping his pants), the child has THIRD degree burns, no second-degree burns, AND then he HID the child for FIVE DAYS so no one would see what he had done.  Further more, when the children was found and taken to the hospital he demanded that the child go to the government hospital instead of the semi-private hospital because the nurses would recognize him from the January child-beating incident.

All I want to do is go and visit the father in prison with a diaper, some lighter fluid and a pack of matches.  But I am told I can’t visit. Why?  Because if the child comes to live with us it will be to protect him from this monster and I should not identify myself to him so that the child remains safe.  (Maybe Quinton Tarantino is available to go “medieval” on him?)

When I left the US I had a suitcase full of top-of-the line burn supplies and treatment, but we can’t get them to the child until we have Guardianship.  We can’t mandate or direct how a hospital gives care, and it is a dangerous road (and potentially dangerous to the patient) to start interfering with hospital treatment or care.  We don’t want to step on toes, but need to gently navigate through the system to help the child.  We have funding to move the child to a private hospital where he will get his bandages changed every 12 hours, rather than every 48+ hours, and a team of people working on a plan for skin grafting and surgery.  But it all takes time, wisdom and patience, which is not one of my best virtues.

We are praying without ceasing this weekend that the politics and process surrounding this case will be cleared on Monday and we will be allowed to help the child, and the mother (who has left 3 other children uncared for while staying at the hospital for the past month).  We hope that we can help this whole family in some way, starting with food (Manna Packs from Feed My Starving Children), clothing and TOMS Shoes as their clothes are rags and they have no shoes.  It won’t solve all of their problems, but it will help for today and tomorrow, while we try to help in the long term with the little one.

I am frustrated, but I know that God’s timing is always perfect and when we couldn’t remove the boy yesterday I knew there was a reason.  So today I sit and blog to keep me focused and remind myself that this is all HIS plan, not my plan and I am only invited to be a small part of it.  I ask you to pray with me that a clear path is made and that confusion put aside.

On a happy note we received and unloaded a container filled with supplies for the Sisekelo preschool and the EL ROI Baby Home today, sent by our friends at the US Bank and shipped by the UPS Foundation.   This is great news for all of the children living at EL ROI and little Benjamin who will one day attend school there.

Live from Swaziland … I am thankful that this is where I live and serve.

Janine

Bombing in Boston, Flooding in Chicago, Burned Baby in Swaziland.

 Do you ever sit back and think, “The world has gone crazy”?

This week two bombs went off at the Boston Marathon killing three people and injuring 176 people.  With live television and high-speed internet the world was able to watch each moment of the blast as well as the search and capture of the two suspected bombers.  We all want to protect our children and family from harm, but it is not always possible.  It is easy to live in a constant state of fear, but fear is not from God and it can cripple us in our every day life, if we allow it to.

After a great week in Florida and Georgia (with Spencer and Chloe) and the opportunity to speak to many people and raise funds for Heart for Africa I got on a plane to Chicago. When I arrived it was snowing and many streets were closed because of flash floods and rivers overflowing.  The McDonalds in this photo was just down the street from my hotel was an “Island” surrounded by water.  Many people lost their homes in these unexpected floods and now have to pick up the pieces of their lives.  We can’t control natural disasters, but they are a part of life and we must help one another when times like these are in front of us.

Meanwhile back in Swaziland the little baby boy who was burned by his father continues to lie in a hospital fighting for his life.  He has 2^nd and 3^rd degree burns on 20%-25% of his little body and also arrived at the hospital severely malnourished and Anemic.   I am told that he needs to consume 5,000 calories per day in order to get “nutritionally stable” and give his body a chance of living and not dying.  That is pretty hard to do when you are only sipping a cup of water and gnawing on a chicken bone.  We are working on a plan and I will give a full report after I return to Swaziland and am able to share news with you.

These three “news items” don't include so many other critical issues and events that took place both globally and locally, but they are three that caught my attention this week.

I am in awe of the people who are the “first responders” in terrorist attacks, natural disasters and deliberate acts of child abuse.

We saw Firemen, Medical personnel and ordinary everyday people rush to the aid of the bombing victims who lost lives, limbs and blood.  We watched emergency response teams rush in to rescue flood victims while their homes were destroyed.  And I had the honor of watching ordinary everyday people in the US and Canada be deliberate in coming to the assistance of the little boy in Swaziland who was not on the 24-hour news, he was not in the mainstream media, but still needed rescuing from a deliberate act of child abuse.

Last week’s blog prompted an outpouring of prayer, love and financial support from the people who sacrificially gave $10, to other people who gave what they could at that moment, and still others who have committed to do all they can to have this child live a full and un-scared life.  We live in a broken world, full of sin, fear and evil.  But this week I was reminded over and over again that Jesus is securely on the throne, and while I can’t begin to understand the “why” of any of these situations, I am so thankful for people who don’t have to have the “why” question answered in order to help. 

This week I encourage you to take a moment to look around and ask who or how can you provide help and hope for someone today.  You can be a part of something GOOD in someone’s life when a lot around us looks like bad. But we have to be deliberate in our actions, just like the First Responders in this weeks news headlines.

I am in the US for two more days and look forward to spending them with Ann and Doug Williams and their friends and family in Munster, Indiana.  I am thankful for all the people who hosted events for the past three weeks to help us raise awareness and funds for Heart for Africa including:  Shelly & Barry Harp (Texas), Pam Joseph (Georgia), Beth Blaisdell (Georgia), Sandra and Andy Stanley (Georgia), Sandra Green (Georgia), Judy and John Bardis (Nevada & Georgia), Joanne Ivy (Illinois) and Kevin and Karen Burkum (Illinois).  Without your hospitality and commitment many people would have missed the opportunity to be a part of something big that God is doing in Swaziland.  Thank you also to all of you who have given so generously. 

Live from Chicago … its snowing here and I will be heading home on Monday.

Janine

PS – a quick update on “Nomsa” from my wednesdayswithnomsa.blogspot.com . Her culture results are still not back so they have sent another one away for testing. We should have results back in 4 more weeks.  Will post as soon as we know.

Father lit his 18-month old baby boy on fire?

Having one foot in “first world” and one foot in “third world” is very disturbing and it is divisive to my soul.

I have been visiting the United States for two weeks and have had two weeks of "extremes".  

I started my travels in “Sin City” Las Vegas where I was invited to be a part of the MedAssets Business Summit with 4,000 other people staying in a hotel that has almost as many rooms (3,309) as we have people in the community surrounding Project Canaan (3,500).  I then got to visit a small town in Texas where the people love Jesus, the Rattlesnakes are waking up and the Tumbleweeds are blowing across the road as you drive past beautiful Cattle Ranches and farms that are feeding America. I can only imagine that one day Project Canaan will be a farm that feeds Swaziland! 

Next, I spent two nights in Georgia with women from the US Bank who have big corporate jobs, but even bigger hearts.  At one well-planned dinner they successfully raised $34,000 to help educate and bring life-changing jobs to women of Swaziland.  While Lori Marschall and Rona Nix were busy in California raising funds for me to have a good, used, 4 x 4 vehicle “baby rescue” vehicle that will navigate the rough roads of Swaziland, the women from WOMENETICS provided me with a brand new Porsche 911 to drive to Florida to see Spencer (!).  It is SO COOL!  

The best part of the whole trip has been getting to visit Spencer!!  He is studying “Business Marketing" at Florida State University (home to 44,000 students, which is half the total population of the Capitol City of Mbabane, Swaziland) and for his extra-curricular activity he is a part of the FSU High Flying Circus.  We get to see him perform several times this weekend  and it makes me wonder if the babies at El Roi will one day have incredible opportunities like that?!  I am thankful to be here and a very proud mama.

Ian and I are so very proud of Spencer and Chloe.

It has been two weeks of extremes, from locations to conversations, but my “snap back into my other reality” came when I received a phone call from Swaziland last week.

There was good news and bad news.   The good news was that Baby #28 had arrived at El Roi and little 10-day old Elisha was happy and healthy.

The bad news rocked my world.  We were contacted by the Social Welfare Department to see if we could make room for and care for an 18-month old baby boy, who had been badly burned by his father.  I asked Shirley and Ian to gather more information and it slowly came to me as the week progressed. Here is some of what we know, and what I feel that I can share with you at this time, while still maintaining some privacy for the family.

“Social problems” as they are called in Swaziland, are always complicated, so I will try to explain this as simply as possible.

-       Woman was married to a man who died a couple of years ago.

-       Woman lives at her dead husbands homestead with his family and has nowhere else to live.

-       Woman gets pregnant by another man (we do not know the circumstances of this pregnancy).

-       Baby is born, but “culture” does not permit a baby from another man to live with the mother in her husbands homestead so baby has to go live with his Grandmother (biological Father’s mother)

-       In January 2013 (baby was 15-months old) the father beat the baby badly around the face.  The issue was settled “culturally” between the families (?) and no police report was made.

-       On March 13^th 2013 the Grandmother was working in the fields and came in and found the baby crying.  She called him to come and saw that he could not walk.

-       Grandmother found severe burns covering his buttocks and genitals.

-       I saw a photo of this baby in the newspaper at the end of March and the burns were horrific.  They showed his backside and it looked as if the baby was wearing a diaper and it had been lit on fire.

-       The father said he had accidently spilled boiling water on the boy, but the family does not believe this and neither do the doctors.

-       The father is now in prison.

-       The baby is at the Government hospital and while I want to show full respect for that hospital in this blog, I will say that I do not believe that they have the resources to give this child the care he needs to survive and recover.  I have been there and this child needs private care.

-       When the child is released from the hospital he will need somewhere safe to live. The mother has asked that we take him because she can’t take him to her “home” and the father will be released from prison. The whole family is very concerned about what the father will do when he is released.

The problem is complicated.  I am 8,500 miles away. Once I get back I will be taken to meet the mother, the Grandmother and I will go to the prison to meet the father, but in the meantime I sit on the other side of the planet and think about the pain that this boy and his mother are going through. The next step is to get this child proper care so that he can have a chance at a “normal” life.

I don't know what the future holds as there are many questions that still need answering. I don’t know if this child is to come to the El Roi baby home or if the mother and child are to come and live in the Sicalo Lesisha Kibbutz, but I do know that EL ROI sees them both and has a plan, and we can help.

I do know that we can do something now, today.  Shirley and Ian have secured a bed at a private hospital in Swaziland who we believe can provide excellent care for this child.  I can’t imagine what this would cost in America, but in Swaziland the cost for the next 60 days is almost $30,000 US, not including surgeries, skin grafts or other things that might be needed.

I know that $30,000 can feed a lot of children or provide care for many babies, but I think about what if the baby was Spencer or Chloe?  What if the baby who has massive burns on 20% of his whole body, and in the most private areas was YOUR child?  If it were my child I would stop at nothing to get him/her proper care.  This mother has no options, she has no one to call, no one to email and no one ask for financial assistance.  She is hopeless.  But I know that she is praying and asking God for help and He is her only hope. She is crying out daily for Him to send an angel and I am hoping that angel is reading this blog.

I will give you all an update after I get back home, but in the meantime I am hoping to raise a minimum of $20,000 so that we can commit to the mother that we will help her and move the baby to a different hospital. Yesterday I posted this need on Facebook and received $1,000 and I am so thankful for those early responders.  We have a long way to go, but I have faith that He will provide.

If you can give today please click here to make a secure donation.  Alternatively you can mail a check to:   Heart for Africa US,  P.O. Box 758 Cape Girardeau, MO 63702
Heart for Africa Canada, P.O. Box 246, Dept HOPE, Pickering, Ontario, L1V 2R4

I live in a world of extremes. I struggle having one foot in “first world” and the other foot in “third world”.  I long to be at home with my husband, my other babies and my Swazi family, but I give thanks for the opportunity to be here in this blessed country and I give thanks for every opportunity that I am being given while here.

Live from Florida … I am going back to the High Flying Circus today (and praying for a baby 8,500 miles away).

Janine

Hello Las Vegas? This is Swaziland calling.

It was 2:30AM in Las Vegas (which was 5:30AM in Georgia and 11:30 in Swaziland) when my iPhone rang.  I had it plugged in only to use the alarm to wake me in the morning. It never occurred to me that someone could reach me on it while I was in the United States because it is a Swaziland SIM/phone.

I left Swaziland on Saturday morning, drove to Johannesburg, South Africa on Sunday night, arrived in Atlanta, Georgia on Monday morning then flew on to Las Vegas, Nevada arriving around 1PM at the Mandalay Bay hotel.  Mandalay Bay has 3,309 hotel rooms and an average of 2,000 people checking in and 2,000 people checking out EVERY DAY.  It is a beautiful and monstrous building that is designed to have people spend as much money on leisure, entertainment, eating, drinking and gambling as is humanly possible in the few days that each visitor stays there.  Oxygen is pumped in at an alarming rate to keep you alert and awake and there are no windows to the outside in the entertainment areas so you don't know if it night or day.  It is an experience of a lifetime and one that is not easily forgotten.

The Famous Las Vegas Strip.

When the phone rang I was sound a sleep in a very comfortable King Size bed with a window that looks at the full length of the famous “Las Vegas Strip”.  I have a flat screen TV, full mini-bar, large bathroom with double sink, shower and large bathtub, all made of marble of course, and I am staying there FOR FREE as a guest of John Bardis and the wonderful people of MedAssets.  Several years ago Ian and I were honored to be given the first Dr. Norman Borlaug Humanitarian of the Year award, and we are now invited back each year to celebrate with the new recipient of the award.  We are given a beautiful hotel room, invited to a fabulous meal at the famous Aureole restaurant with Dr. Borlaug’s family (Daughter Jeannie Borlaug Laube and Grand-daughter Jennifer Borlaug Marsh) and get to enjoy meeting many of the 4,000+ attendees of the Healthcare Business Summit.  We have a table set up and can share what is happening at Project Canaan and the El Roi baby home and we have gained much support from people we have met over the past five years in attendance.

In fact, we have met several of our Board members through this annual conference, including Sandra Green, Tom Finucane and Ned Lehman, and are thankful for all the friends who continue to support us as a result of the MedAssets partnership.

Board members Sandra Green and Tom Finucane.

Back to my 2:30 AM phone call.

The phone rang and I was in a dead sleep.  I fumbled around and wasn’t quite sure where the noise was coming from, but eventually rose to the surface of my slumber just in time to answer the phone before the caller gave up.

“Hello?”

“Hello Sisi?  Janine, is that you?”

“Yes, its me, who is this??”

“Its XXXX (NAME HELD FOR PRIVACY) from the XXX hospital in Swaziland. I need your help. I have a bad situation.”

By this point I had sat up and turned on my light to try to ascertain where on earth I was.  I was jetlagged and my body was still somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. I actually was quite shocked to have a sweet Swazi voice in my ear and then see the opulence of my surroundings when I turned on the light.  Oh my gosh, how could I ever tell her I was in Las Vegas (of all places!).

She continued, “There is a new baby born on Saturday morning and there is a bad situation. Will you come and get the baby?!”

AHHHHH!!!  I am in LAS VEGAS – literally 10,300 miles away from Swaziland. 

It was funny. I had an immediate moment of shame and guilt that I was where I was and she was where she was.  She was doing her job and I was gallivanting in Las Vegas.

But then a gentle voice came to me and assured me that was false guilt.  She was doing her job in Swaziland, and I was doing my job in Las Vegas.  I was reminded that without the word being spread and without people knowing about the plight of abandoned children in Swaziland that people wouldn’t have the opportunity to pray for the babies or give financially to support them.  Sigh.  I knew that was truth.

I told my sweet sister that I was not in the country, but that she could call the office and speak with Shirley or she had Ian’s number and either of them could go and help straight away.  Then she asked the question I had hoped to avoid. She asked where I was?  I am not gonna lie, while I knew that I was where the Lord wanted to me, I just couldn’t bring my self to say,  “Las Vegas Baby!!” and so I told her I was out of the country and that I would be home in a few short weeks, which is absolutely true.

It was a short call.  No clue what it cost, but it was a huge gift to me.  I loved hearing that Swazi voice so far away from me, I loved that the calls are still coming and babies are still being saved and I loved knowing that I didn’t have to be there in person for that baby to find his way home to El Roi.  I am so very thankful for Shirley and Ian and Helen and the whole team at El Roi who seek out, welcome and love each and every baby who is chosen to come and live with us.  

I am on a 22-day Speaking Adventure and today I am on Day 7, which finds me in Dalhart, Texas (about an hour from Amarillo, Texas).  I am honored to be invited here by my friend Shelly Harp and look forward to an amazing weekend of sharing, laughing, selling jewelry and celebrating all that God has done for us at Project Canaan.

On Monday I head to Georgia to reconnect with Chloe (who has been on Spring Break with one of her best friends for the past week) and join up for a couple of days with the amazing women at the US Bank and WLA (Women Leaders in Action).   I get to see my friends at Womenetics as they film a story of how WLA, UPS and Heart for Africa all came to work together for the children of Swaziland.  It is a great story to tell and I will be sure to post the link in a future blog once the video is complete.   Then I speak at Emory University on Thursday and after that Chloe and I head straight down to Florida State University to see Spencer perform multiple shows in the “High Flying Circus”.  I miss my son desperately and look forward to three days with both of my children together.  YIPPPE!!!!

Tumbleweeds are blowing in Texas - just like in the movies!

I started to type that I wish I were in Swaziland right now, but then stopped and deleted that sentence.  I don’t wish I were there, but rather I am glad I am here, right were I am supposed to be. I am thankful for all the invitations to come and share the story of Project Canaan. I am thankful for all the planning that my assistant Tricia did to make the plan work from coast to coast and north to south. But mostly I am excited to see what the Lord has in store for the next 15 days.  I feel like it is Christmas morning and there are many gifts under the tree to be opened.  Every one is a surprise and look forward to seeing what He has wrapped up for us all.

Live from Texas … the tumbleweeds are blowing!

Janine

PS – the baby is not at El Roi yet.  The paperwork is being completed with the Social Welfare department and we expect our little baby boy next week.  Stay tuned!

Update photo of the new Toddler home (left) and preschool (back center).

Why would a husband and wife arrive at our front gate to give us their two children?

Last Saturday, shortly after I posted this blog, a young family arrived at the front gates of Project Canaan.  They had “bummed” a ride to a gas station on the main road and then walked the 8KM (5 miles) to our farm with their 4-year old son and 10-month old sick baby.  They came to the farm to give us their children.  Yes, you read correctly. They couldn’t feed them. The man couldn’t find work to provide for his family and the baby was very VERY sick. 

What kind of conversation has to happen between a man and wife to get to a decision to give your baby(s) away?  I am not sure I want to even go down that road in my own mind and contemplate the possibilities.

But there they were, all for of them at the gate.  I was sitting drinking coffee on the patio of our home, totally unaware of what was happening, but our team was AMAZING and couldn’t have done anything to make us more proud.  Peter was called to the gate and he asked Stanley to join him (to help with the siSwati). After a long talk with this young family they knew that they must help, but not by taking their children.  The family needed immediate assistance and they needed hope for the future. 

Peter asked the father why his family was hungry and sick?  The man told him that work was hard to find and he was out of a job.  Peter then asked if we provided him with work, would he come?  The man jumped at the chance and said YES!  Peter told him to come on Monday morning and he would be hired.   Have I mentioned that I LOVE our team!?!?  They really “get it”.   They understand why we are here and whom we are here to serve.

This family needed food, the father needed work and the baby needed medical care.  Peter and Stanley gave them 20 KG of rice, Manna Packs for both children and the information for them to contact the Social Welfare Office in Manzini for further assistance. 

They also gave them a ride back to the main road, a few coins for transport home and prayer that the Lord would have His mighty hand on them all.  The family used the money to go directly to the hospital to get care for the baby who had difficulty breathing apparent pneumonia and was almost unresponsive.

Monday arrived and the man arrived to work. We immediately asked about the baby and the father said that the hospital gave the baby an injection for his chest infection, but the baby was really sick. I asked if the baby was HIV positive (which can help ascertain if the baby has illnesses that are from an immuno-suppression).  The man said the baby had been tested and was HIV negative. He also said that both he and his wife were HIV negative. That is always great news to hear in a country where almost half of the population is infected.  Once HIV is a factor it changes how infections and sickness are approached.

Everyone who had seen the baby on Saturday (parents, Stanley, Peter, Denis, Anthony) said that the baby was malnourished and the mother had a very serious case of mastitis (infection in her left breast which she happily pulled out to show anyone who inquired about how she was feeling – very common here) so the baby couldn’t nurse from that side.  It was suggested that we get the mom and baby to hospital with the promise of paying the hospital bill because it was believed that they would both be admitted.

The man left the farm to go back home and tell his wife as well as to find someone to care for the 4-year old when the mother and baby were admitted to the hospital.  Tuesday morning I drove to the hospital where we were to meet. They were both happy and smiling and thankful for the assistance.  I asked to see the baby, so mom untied the towel which was holding the baby and pulled the baby off her back for me to see.  The baby was very weak and lethargic with no neck control of his little head.  His hair was thin and he looked to be malnourished to me.  But he also looked “sick”.

I asked the mother if she was sure that the child was not HIV positive. Without missing a beat she admitted to me, to her husband, and to anyone within hearing distance that the baby had tested POSITIVE.  I looked at the husband and looked back at her.  I then asked her if she would share her own HIV status with me?  It is highly unlikely that a baby would be positive if the mother wasn’t positive.  She nodded and said, “Yes, I am HIV positive too”. 

I looked at the husband and asked why he didn’t tell me that the day before when I asked him.  His response was that this is the first he was hearing the news. 

What the heck?

The next five hours were long and complicated so let me cut to the chase and tell you that after many questions, answers, confusion, lies and avoidance, the mother finally came clean and told me that:

-       She had an HIV test when she found out she was pregnant in late 2011

-       She didn’t tell her husband that she was positive because she was afraid he would run away

-       The husband had an HIV test (routine?) and tested negative (which I didn’t believe – again, highly unusual for her to be positive and not him, but possible)

-       The baby was born May 27^th 2012 and was HIV positive

-       She didn’t tell the father about the baby’s status

-       The baby was sick on and off so mother took baby for new test in July 2012 and again he tested positive

-       She was to take baby back to Pediatric AIDS clinic to start treatment, but she was afraid and didn't go.

-       The baby was still sick on and off so she went back in January for another test (hoping the baby wasn’t HIV positive??? Not sure.)  Again the test came back positive and the baby was to start treatment immediately. She didn’t go back for treatment.

-       I suggested that the father go to the VCT (Volunteer Counseling and Testing Center for HIV/AIDS) and get re-tested.  Anthony from Project Canaan showed up at the hospital about that time so he went with the man.  The test was negative.

By the end of the day the baby and mother were admitted to the hospital and the baby was treated for pneumonia, thrush, malnutrition and would begin Anti-Retrovirals as soon as the Pediatric AIDS clinic came over and got him on the program.  The mother’s CD4 count is still over 500 so she will not start ARV’s at this time. She was treated for her mastitis and her “womb infection” that discovered mid-way through the day.  Sigh.

I spoke at length the father and Anthony did as well.  Our fear was that he would leave his wife (or beat her or kill her) because she had lied to him for so long about her HIV status and put her life, his life and the life of their baby at risk.  But he was very reasonable about the whole thing. Maybe he was in shock? I know I was. 

A few days later I visited the mother and baby in the hospital.  The baby was doing so well and responding well to the treatments.  He had an X-RAY to see if he also has Tuberculosis, but we don’t have the results from that back yet.  I asked the woman if her husband was really angry with her.  She said no, he wasn’t.  He had been in to visit and asked why she had lied to him. She explained that she didn’t want him to run away.  He told her he would never leave her and that they would get through this together.

The man is working on the construction crew that is building the Toddler home.  The mother and baby will be in hospital for a week or two and we will assist with their fees and transport when they are discharged. The 4-year old boy is living with his Grandmother until his mother comes out of the hospital.

It is so rare to see young married couples anymore in Swaziland. It seems like marriage is a thing of the past.  Maybe it is too expensive (lobola is required to be paid for a bride), maybe it is old fashioned, maybe people are dying too quickly of AIDS to bother with marriage?  But this young couple is married and they are a family who care for their children and want a future.  The team at Project Canaan is encouraged by them and even though the situation seems hopeless from the outside we are praying for total healing and forgiveness that will bring real hope to this family. 

Happy Easter from all of us at Project Canaan.

As I look forward to Easter Sunday tomorrow I am thankful for the hope that I have been given through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  I don’t know what I would do or how I would cope with my own fears of life without knowing that El Roi sees me and cares about me.  I love watching His hand on others and give thanks that He sometimes allows me to have a glimpse of what He is up to.

“Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found.  Was blind was now I see.”

Live from South Africa … I am preparing to celebrate the resurrection tomorrow!

Janine

What's going on?

I love when I have a quiet week. I am not good at resting so when I have a week that is not jam packed my first reaction is to try to fill it.  But I am getting better at NOT doing that, instead, trying to enjoy a quiet week, spend more time reading, listening and praying.  I am thankful that He does give me rest before a time of busy travel.  On Easter Sunday Chloe and I will fly back to the US for a whirlwind 3-week trip to raise awareness and funds for Heart for Africa.  Travel will include Las Vegas, Texas, Georgia, Illinois and Indiana.  We are looking forward to seeing friends and family as we share the news of what God is doing here in the tiny Kingdom of Swaziland.

We haven’t had a new baby arrive in more than four weeks.  It’s very strange as we were getting an abandoned baby almost every week over the past year. With 27 little lives being cared for at the El Roi Baby Home it has been nice to have a month for the Aunties to get some more training, hire more staff and have time to settle in to new roles that have been established. We are thankful for the amazing people who serve the babies at the El Roi Baby Home.  Sadly one of our little girls tested positive for HIV this week and started a lifetime treatment of Anti-Retroviral medication. We are thankful that of the 27 babies only three are positive. That is a miracle.

Things are very busy all around Project Canaan.  The Labaketsiwe Toddler Home is moving along nicely and the foundation was poured on Friday, March 22^nd.  It will be home to 40 children age two to six and will be open in the fall of 2013. 

 

The walls are up and roof is on the Sisekelo Preschool and the interior will be painted next week. It has two classrooms, four toilets, a small kitchen and an office.  We will have a “soft opening” in June when the furniture is installed and chalkboards hung, but the school will officially opened in January 2013 with qualified Preschool teachers!

The Lusito Shop (Lusito means *Help Giver in siSwati) has been opened at the Farm Managers Building (FMB) and Denis and his team are busy doing maintenance on all of our equipment as well as fixing vehicles as they breakdown, get flat tires etc.  It is a hub of activity and the guys are happy with their new welder and other “toys” (I mean tools) that recently arrived in a container shipped from the US.

Speaking of equipment … look what was donated to Project Canaan last week?  A beautiful, gently used D5N XL CAT Bulldozer arrived and we all see it as being a “game changer” here on the farm as we can maintain our own roads, clear more farm land, clear land for building etc. 

The Manna Distribution Center has gone from being a dream to being a reality. Building commenced this week and when complete it will be a our central distribution location for everything that we deliver to our church partners including Feed My Starving Children Manna Packs, TOMS Shoes, rice from Taiwan, Bibles, clothing, Duduza Dolls and blankets.  We currently provide 10,000 hot meals each and every week to orphans and vulnerable children around the country through our partner churches.  

The farm at Project Canaan is busy.   We have 14 acres growing vegetables and green maize in rotation.  They area all under drip irrigation and will be sold in local grocery stores (i.e .Pic’n’Pay, Spar and local markets) as they are harvested.  We also have 38 acres of dry maize planted that will be harvested in April.  This is the maize that is dried, ground and used for our church feeding programs.

We now have a Sunday service at the Chapel on Project Canaan where everyone is welcome to come and worship.  This saves many hours of driving to and from town and gives everyone at Project Canaan a chance to be together after a busy week. 

 

The Kufundza Center is being used daily and among other carpentry needs they are busy building more double decker cribs for the babies at El Roi. 

For those of you who have read this far, you may be interested in a new blog that I post on Wednesdays.  It is called “Wednesdays With Nomsa” and is the story of a young woman who is fighting for her life.  She is HIV positive and has MultiDrug- Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB).  You can follow her story at wednesdayswithnomsa.blogspot.com.

A lot is happening here at Project Canaan in Swaziland and we are thrilled to be employing more than 100 Swazi workers this month on the farm, building teams and at the Baby Home.  In a country with a 70% unemployment rate, this is GREAT NEWS and it means that more than 1,300 people are being provided for from those income generators.  We are thankful for His provision of workers, volunteers from the US, Canada, Ireland and South Africa as well as the funding to continue this work.  As my husband Ian often says, “It’s all good”.

Live from Swaziland … it’s all good.

Janine

No baby? Sometimes things are not as they appear to be.

In early February 2013 I was approached by a Social Welfare officer as well as a Social Worker at a local hospital and they asked me to please hold space at the El Roi Baby home for a newborn who was due to arrive around February 23^rd.  They told me a very sad story of a 14-year old girl who had been violently raped and her family did not want the baby. The girl desperately wanted to go back to school and get an education and a baby would prevent that from happening.  I agreed to hold a spot for this new baby and then went and met with the 14-year old (whom I will call “Precious” for this blog) and her mother to hear her story first hand. 

Precious is very young, very quiet and had little to say.  I heard the same story from the mother as I had heard from the Social Workers and I agreed to serve as their “driver” from the rural community they live in when Precious went in to labor, somewhere at the end of February. 

February came and went and I wondered if they had decided to keep the baby?  I contacted Precious’ mother to see if everyone was okay and she told me the baby was late, but was now expected on March 14^th.  Sure enough, on the evening of March 14^th I got a call saying that Precious was sick.  Could we come and get her and take them to the hospital to deliver the baby. 

Now, I am not going to lie here. I was sitting on the patio of our house with Ian enjoying the view at the end of a long day.  The last thing I wanted to do was get dressed properly and drive 70 minutes to go take a young girl and her mother to the hospital.  But I knew that I was to go and both Ian and Chloe offered to come with me so it was a strange “road trip” of sorts. 

Precious had a 30-minute walk from her hillside hut to the road where we would meet her. It was well after dark (no street lights) when we pulled around a corner on the dirt road and our headlights revealed them standing and waiting for us.  Precious got in to the back seat and her mother handed her a big fluffy blanket and a thermos of coffee.  Then she waved good-bye.  What?  I asked the mother if she wasn’t going with her 14-YEAR OLD DAUGHTER to the hospital and she said no, she had other Great Grandchildren that she must care for.  I knew then that we were in for a long night.

We got to the hospital and took her to the labor room to get checked out.  I explained to the nurse the “situation” and she agreed that we would work together to help this young girl through labor and delivery.  She tried to examine Precious and came back and told me that the girl didn’t want to be examined (I understand that!) and that she was not in active labor so I should take her to the “Birthing Hut”.  The what?  The “Birthing Hut” – an old run down building outside the hospital, but still within the hospital compound, where women go when they are in labor.  So off we went to find a Birthing Hut.

Before the events of the following day I was going to write a whole blog called “Go to the Birthing Hut”, but I will have to shorten this part to get to the events of Friday.

The Birthing Hut is no doubt a long-standing cultural place where women have gone for generations when they are in labor.  In this case it is an old building with three small rooms. Each room is approximately 12’ x 12’ (2 meters square) and two of the three rooms had a low watt light bulb dangling from the ceiling.  There was a small bathroom with a broken down piece of wood that you lift and move by hand to enter the bathroom, which has with no light. The wood is about 3 feet high so doesn’t really provide privacy. 

As we walked in to the room we were stared at my no less than 30 women who were in various stages of labor.  Not the happiest group of women I have ever met. They were all lying like sardines on old pieces of thin foam.  Their underwear were hanging on nails on the wall and their clothes were neatly folded at their feet. Their naked bodies were wrapped (or not) in the fuzzy blanket that they arrived at the hospital with.  None of them were particularly pleased to see Chloe and I walk in with this young Swazi girl, especially not when we asked one of them to squeeze a little tighter to the woman beside her so that Precious could have 10 inches of dirty foam to lie on.  There was nothing I could do, nowhere else for me to take her and I was clearly not to stay there with her … so we left, and we prayed for Precious and for them all.

Early on Friday Chloe and I got up and headed to the hospital. We went to the labor ward thinking she might be in active labor. She was not there.  We went to the delivery ward and spoke with the nurses (who all know us by now) and they had not seen her.  We went back to the Birthing Hut and she was there, awake, quiet and not visibly in labor.  We fed her then took her to the labor ward to be examined.  After an unusually long time passed the nurse came out to speak with me.  She said that Precious had not dilated at all and asked about her due date and the circumstances.  In this case we knew that she had been raped on June 4^th 2012 and we were certain of that because it had been reported to the police, the man was charged and currently serving 15 year in prison!!  So there was no question of the date of conception.

The clinic had calculated her delivery date to be February 23^rd (a friend of mine who is a labor and delivery nurse said would have been calculated in the US to be March 1^st), but either way, it was now March 15^th and she was either two weeks or three weeks past her delivery date and could be heading in to a critical time.  The nurse asked us to go in, get the girl registered, see a gynecologist and get an ultrasound because the baby likely needed to be induced.

Four hours later Precious’ mother and Grandmother arrived at the hospital just as we got the ultrasound report and were in the Doctor’s office discussing the situation.  Here is where the story turns.

The Doctor told us that the ultrasound showed us that the baby was only 32 weeks old.  I assured him that was not possible because we knew the date of her rape – June 4^th 2012, there was a police report, the man was in prison, yadda, yadda, yadda.  The doctor is a Swazi Doctor and very graciously explained why he believed the conception date could not be June 4^th.  (In hindsight I am sure he was thinking, “Lady, I have seen and heard it all – sometimes things are not as they appear to be”).  He said the baby is only 1.9 KG (4.1 LB), has lots of fluid around it and for other reasons he explained he said the baby is not yet ready to come out. 

It was an awkward moment.  Precious just stared at the floor. My brain was short-circuiting and frantically trying to interpret what code the Doctor was speaking to me in.  He then asked the mother if there was any chance she was raped a second time.  The mother shook her head slowly to say “no”.  He then asked if she had been sexually active?  Again, slowly the mother shook her head “no”.  I asked the mother how/when she knew that Precious was pregnant?  She said she noticed her round belly in November and asked Precious when she had last menstruated.  Precious told her “May”, which was in line with the June rape. 

The Doctor then asked if she had gone to the hospital after the rape and they said yes. He asked if she had been given treatment for the prevention of pregnancy and contracting HIV (70% effective for pregnancy) and they said “yes”.   He then asked Precious to get up on the examining table and he pulled up her dress to examine her abdomen. He called me over and showed me something that He found interesting. He had his thumb and index fingers on her belly and said, “See?  This is the baby’s head.  There is lots of fluid around it. It is still very small. I do not believe that this is a full term baby.”

Silence.  A long, awkward silence.  The doctor and I looked at each other, but Precious and her mother seem to become invisible in the room (or they wanted to be). 

I want to be clear with something here. There is confusion in this case.  The doctor is not saying for sure that the baby is only 32 weeks, but at the same time he is saying that he believes that to be the case and does not want to risk inducing the baby.  We were all visibly confused and left scratching our heads.

I thanked the doctor and we went out of his office, only to be greeted by Precious’ Aunts who were there to celebrate the arrival of a new baby, even if the baby wasn’t staying in the family.  I gave them both a hug, told them I needed to get going, but would continue to pray for them, and to call if there were any complications.  If not, we would meet again in eight to ten more weeks.  (!)

I just called Precious’ mom (while writing this part of the blog) to see how everyone is doing.  My biggest fear is that Precious would be beaten by her Stepfather.  Her mother appears to be very kind, but no one knows what happens behind closed doors and in this culture it would be a “beatable offense”.   The mother said that she had sat down with Precious and had a long talk.  Precious assures her that the rape was the only time that she could have been impregnated and her mother believes her.  She said Precious is still complaining of some pain so they will go to a clinic on Monday.  We will stay in close contact with her this weekend and go see her on Monday with the Nurses from Project Canaan. 

Please pray for Precious, her mother and the baby who is either 32-weeks old or 42+ weeks old.  El Roi, the God Who Sees, sees them all and He knows exactly when the baby was conceived. He knew the baby even before he/she was in Precious’ womb. 

On a much lighter and happier note, while Chloe and I were at the hospital the cornerstone for the Labakhetsiwe* Toddler Home (*means “Chosen Ones” in siSwati) was being poured at Project Canaan.  A Children’s Bible was placed in the cornerstone while the building team and El Roi Aunties gathered to pray over the building and the children who will call it home.  It was a happy day at Project Canaan.

Building team, Aunties and babies join to give thanks for this building.

Helen and Peter Muli place the Bible in the Cornerstone.

Live from Swaziland … praying to see things clearly.

Janine