Amecet started really in my heart in 1999, when I met Sarah. Sarah was a very small, sick little girl, who lived in the village, where we came with the Mobile Clinic. I was working that time with FACE, a programme of Youth With A Mission Soroti, The programme was reaching out to the people living with HIV/AIDS in the villages. This was long before the ARV's were available. ARV's are medicines which slow down the growth of the HIV virus in the body. FACE had a Mobile clinic which could only help the people with the opportunistic infections they had, because of being HIV+.

Angella was brought to Amecet via a mission hospital in the village. Some weeks ago, they contacted us about this little girl, but she was so sick, that she first was admitted in the hospital for 2 weeks. She was still severe malnourished, her weight was 5.2 kg and she is 2,5 years old. Angella was brought by her mother and a nurse from that hospital. She was very weak, I saw directly that there was more going on than malnutrition only. I asked the mother some questions and then I heard that Angella didn't cry after she was born and that they had brought her to a bigger hospital after the birth, where she got oxygen... Angella had probably brain damage because of that.... She could hardly hold her head up and she couldn't speak. We took her to the clinic next to Amecet and the tests we did there, showed a very severe anaemia. Normal for her, the HB should be above 10, but Angella's HB was 1.2..... This is very, very low and she was given blood transfusion as soon as possible.  We were lucky that there was blood available in the clinic.. 

There are 2 months between those 2 pictures... and we can see a significance change in the two boys!! They were referred by the neonatal ward in Soroti Hospital. When they came to us their weight was 1 kg and 1.1 kg.  They were in our medical room for long, we fed them by NG tube for a while, because they were too weak to drink by themselves. They were sick a couple of times, inspite of our nets, they got malaria, but after treatment, they are fine again.

We hear a lot of sad stories, when they bring children to Amecet and we see a lot of suffering children. Aaron is around 3 years old, he was abused by relatives. There were old scars and new wounds... It looks like burn wounds and our hearts went towards this little boy. You could see the plea for help in his eyes... His hands were the worst, and we had to cover the wounds for the danger of infection. He enjoyed the care we gave, the food he was offered to eat and the hugs and love we gave him. Our social workers went to the village, to see the situation and the family will not place him back to the aunt and uncle he was with before. His mother loves him, but she can't look after him because of the stroke she has suffered from. Still we will try to place him back to his mother and other relatives. For now, he is still with us, he is doing well, playing with the other children, his wounds are healed, his weight id gaining and he laughs a lot!!!

One  month ago, we got very tiny, mini twin boys in Amecet, Abraham and Joseph, their weight was 1.160 kg and 1.050 kg. It is such a challenge to get those little ones.. They were one month old and of course premature born. They were together in our medical room and we feed them by NG tube, because they are too weak to drink themselves from the bottle. They are gaining, very slowly, but steady, Joseph, the smallest one  (on the picture) his weight is now 1.8 kg!!! His brother is almost 2 kg. but Joseph got malaria, and he was treated by IV medicines. It looked that it went well, on Saturday, we did a malaria test again and it showed no malaria parasites.... But he got some fever the night before and our nurse saw that the feet were white, quite suddenly, so we did a blood test again to see how his hemoglobin was, it was very low... The doctor told us that he needed blood transfusion.. And it was Saturday...  That means that it is even more difficult to get blood in the main hospital...  They called me (it was my free day and was planning to go with my daughters to a wedding). But I went to Amecet and got all the papers and went together with Simon to the hospital.. There was some blood in the blood bank, but not the right blood type. The man with the key to the new blood was coming.. I sat there, and I decided I would stay there until I got that blood, I would not go out of there without that saving 23 ml blood A+.... It took almost two hours, and knowing that this little baby was not doing well, made me nervous. We had taken his saturation before I left, it was also going lower. This blood was the only thing that could help him...

This month, we invited the Police department which helps when there is a fire, to come to Amecet to train the staff in fire prevention  and what to do in case...... We have several fire extinguishers in our homes, they were due for refill, so we could use them to empty, during the training. 

It is full in Amecet, we have 24 children in our home, 5 toddlers and 19 baby's!!! We are busy and lots of laundry!!! In the month January we received 5 new children, but this month, in February, we already received 9 new children and we are only half way... They all come with sad stories,  Several of them lost their mother at birth.. one mother gave birth at home, on her own and after the baby was born, she bled to death, help came too late. We have one baby, who was part of twins, her twin brother died in the womb at 4 months pregnancy. The mother gave birth to both baby's and died herself. There are a couple of children whose mother has a mental problem and the relatives asked us to keep the baby, because the baby was not safe with the mother.... This is so sad, the person who should  be the most safe person in a child's life, can't give that because of a sickness.! Last week the police brought two toddlers to Amecet, we think they are 2 and 3 years old. They were abandoned in the hospital (and they were not registered there!) They had a bag with them and we found ARV medicines in the bag. We tested them and one of them is HIV+. Our Social workers have been trying to find their relatives, they have a lead, so we think we can find the mother, and the other relatives of the two boys.. Another boy was brought to us and it looked that he has been abused, he has many wounds (0ld and new) on his body, he is very malnourished. And he is so sad....

At the moment, we have 3 sets of twins in Amecet. On the picture you see them laying according their age... Left we have Grace Apio and Faith Adongo. They are 4,5 months old. They have been with us since half November. They were very small when they came, weighing 1.2 kg. and 2.1 kg. As you can see, they do quite well, but we are struggling with them. They have both small holes in their heart and Apio has been mostly on our oxygen machine. We take her off more and more, while monitoring her saturation. Her sister Adongo has a problem with her right arm, the doctor thinks that it was damaged while she was born, We do exercises with her. Their weight is now 2.8 and 3.7 kg.

This picture is taken in our Amecet compound on 19th of January at 7 am.... We are busy dressing the chairs, they already set up the tents and the people who are doing the decoration are also busy. It was an exciting day, we had invited all the government official who are working with children issues, in the 10 districts of the Teso region. We had a nice program and after the program, the invited guests could visit the Amecet home and there was a nice lunch prepared for them. It was a big venue for us to organize, we started with planning in September 2023, but today at last the day had started....

Of course, she doesn't smile on a picture, but really, she smiled to me... I am writing about Faith Adongo, part of the twins who was brought to Amecet in November. On the picture you can see her sister, Apio Grace, behind her in the little bed, she is still on oxygen and we feed her by NG tube. In the blog of November 23, you can read their story, how they came to us. Since that time we have been struggling with them, especially with Grace, the smallest one. Grace was only 1.2 kg in weight when she came, today her weight is 2.6 kg, so we see improvement there. Faith was 2.1 kg when she came and today her weight is 3,5 kg. Faith is doing quite well, but Grace is not doing so good, she is again on oxygen, now for already 3 weeks. We took them to the doctor, because several times they crashed. Grace even 3 times and Faith once. The doctor referred us for a heart scan, first with Grace and the scan showed 3 holes in her heart, 2 of them might still close, but one of them was a question. We took also Faith for a scan, as the identical twin sister, she had also 2 holes in her heart, but they might close by themselves.  

Yesterday we celebrated the Birthday of Jesus as the Amecet Family. We were all together and it was a happy party. Earlier the day, several staff had been cooking, together with our cook, a nice meal and two weeks before we had all drawn a name from a fellow staff member and we were all ready to bless that person with a nice gift!

Christmas is the season of giving and blessing other people. As Amecet, we were so happy to receive an extra gift which enabled us to give Christmas blessing to 50 needy families in the villages. They are all somehow connected to Amecet, most of them had children staying in Amecet for a short time, many are grandparents or single mothers. It was such a joy to bring them a packet, as you see in the picture above, this grandma is very happy, almost dancing... Our social workers went around in the villages to bring the parcels.