In the blog of April 16, I wrote about Ivan, a small malnourished boy. He was abandoned by his mother and he was HIV+. Last week we could bring him back to the village, to his father.... he is strong, smiling, healthy and almost walking!!! It is sometimes hard to let children go, you start to love  them, but they belong with their family and we pray and hope he will do well there. ( we keep in touch with them)... 

In our blog of April 16, I wrote about the premature twin babies we got in Amecet. The girl's weight was 950 gram and her twin brother's was 1200 gram. Honestly, I was scared to loose them and together with the team, we set up a plan to care for them... They were in a separate room, got fed every 2 hours, taken their temperature and we did that for all those weeks!! God had His hand on those little one's, they started to grow and we never had major problems..... I had told the team, when they are both over the 2 kg., we will celebrate!!

Last week, three small babies were brought to Amecet, you can see them on the picture. Left is Emmanuel, he was the first, He was brought on 5th of May, in the morning! His uncle came with a neighbour, the father was not able to travel.... Emmanuel was born the day before, his mother gave birth via a Caesarean operation, Emmanuel was breech... The mother died after the operation..... Emmanuel was her 10th baby!!

Last Sunday evening, baby Hannah went to be with Jesus....... It was a big, big shock to all of us, because Hannah was doing so well. this was the baby who was found in the bush, still connected with the placenta. I wrote about her in the blog of March 9. We all got to love this little girl and there was a family, who was willing to foster and adopt her... Many questions and tears among the staff...... It was more than a year ago that we lost a baby. Hannah was not wanted by her biological mother, but she experienced so much love from the staff while she was in Amecet, and now she is in the loving arms of Jesus!!!!

This is Deborah (at the back) and her twin brother William (front). Last week Thursday, we got a call from the hospital in neighbouring district, that a mother has passed away, leaving 2 baby's behind...... The mother was only 7 months pregnant, but she had developed pre -eclampsia and the Doctors had preformed a Caesarian operation, trying to save the mother and the 2 baby's.  Unfortunately, the mother passed away. The family asked us if we could take the two mini baby's to Amecet. Honestly, when I saw them, I had to swallow, they were so small..... The little girl's weight was 950 gram and the boy weighed 1200 gram. We have had small baby's under 1 kg. in Amecet, but they didn't make it. What to do??? They would for sure die at home, those baby's need a lot of care, warmth, hygiene and feeding..... often they develop complications, because they were not ready to be born.... Earlier that morning I had read in a devotion that we get sometimes chances offered, it is to us what we do with them...... We don't have to do it alone..... So we took them in the car, back to Amecet. We took them directly to the doctor and we had to give them several days IV medication. We gave them both a NG tube and we set up a feeding schedule, with taking temperature, writing down urine and stool etc. At first we fed them only 5 ml. every 2 hours. They couldn't handle more... William didn't poop, so we prayed for poop and he did after 4 days. Now they are both regular with urine and poop.  They are now 8 days with us and they have gained!!!!!! Deborah was 950 gram, now she is 1105 gram and William was 1200 gram and today he is 1370 gram.  We are very happy with this, but we realize that they are not yet  out of the danger zone. They are laying in a separate room, which we keep as warm as possible. we have assigned one staff to attend to them and we pray that they will pull through, please join us in praying for those two precious children.....

This morning a newborn baby was found in the bush. It was in a part of Soroti, not far from  Amecet . The baby was naked, still connected with the placenta and was put in a paper cement bag. people found the baby around 10 am and they called the Police, some women tied and cut the cord and the baby was brought to Amecet. It was a beautiful, newborn baby girl. She was a bit cold, we took her directly to the doctor  and her cord was re-tied and re-cut. She was given a canulla and is started on I.V. medication. Because of being in such a dirty place and we don't know how and where she was born, she is very vulnerable to sepsis. Her weight is 2.1 kg, she doesn't drink very good, but we give her some time. She is fed now every two hours and we keep her nice and warm. It makes me so sad, seeing this lovely little girl, and knowing that she was thrown away in an old cement bag. Nobody should be coming in this world and be treating like this. I pray that God will protect this little girl, we gave her the name Hannah, which means "favour" or "grace". 

This week two new baby's were brought to Amecet. The first baby was brought by his mother and a nurse from the HIV baby clinic in Soroti Hospital. The baby was 2,5 months old and his name was Samuel. The mother was HIV+ and was not doing so well, her Viral Load was very high, so she could not give breastfeeding to her baby. The nurse asked us if we could help the mother, by taking Samuel for some time in Amecet. .... 

This morning I went with Elijah back to the Orthopedic doctor in Soroti Hospital. I went together with Peace, one of our staff, because Elijah doesn't like me so much, I don't know why, but I don't want him to be stressed, so his big friend Peace carried him. It is good that he can express his favorite aunties, I really tried to become friends with him, but no, maybe because I always go with him to the hospital and he doesn't like the doctors either!! The braces, Elijah wears at night are becoming too small, so we went for a bigger size.....

This picture, above, shows the end of this amazing story, but we go back to July 21, when the Police from another District, brought a very small baby to Amecet..... It was an infant of 4 days old, it was a girl and her weight was 1.2 kg!!! 

If you have read over last post (from yesterday), you would know that we said goodbye to 8 children in the last 3 weeks. It means that we are left now with only 4 baby's!!! We have never had such a small number of children, but it is also good for us, we don't have so many staff workers and with Christmas and new year, half of the crew is free....

In the last 3 weeks we said goodbye to 8 children!!! This is really our joy, to see children go back home, happy and healthy!! The picture above was of one of them. This was a special happy occasion, the little Benjamin came to Amecet because his mother has a mental problem. Two years ago we had also a baby in Amecet from the same mother. That baby is adopted by a lovely family, here in Teso. The same family is now adopting this little Benjamin, so he will at least have a real brother. It was a very happy day!! You see the big brother who came with his parents to pick his new baby brother.

Every year we memorize World AIDS day in Amecet. We have a picture of each child that passed away in that year and one of the staff shares a memory of the child and light a candle. It is an emotional meeting, memories come back about the battle we fought for every child. We have also a beautiful bouquet of flowers, next to the candles; they represent all those children who "made" it through Amecet and are now at home with their relatives, or are adopted in their new family. They are going to school or some of them already work.