It is Party time!!! Baby Esther is over the 3 kg.!!!!  last week I told the staff, when Esther weighs more than 3 kg., we will get soda's!! And today we weighed her and she was 3,045 kg. so we have a party!!! It is amazing how this baby changed and survived, You can read her story in the blog of July 21, this baby was aborted and by "mistake", she came out alive, her weight was 1.2 kg. she was 2 months premature. We struggled with her, so small, so fragile, we had to feed her by NG tube and several times we had to put her on oxygen and IV. medication, but Esther is a fighter!!!  I am so proud of her!! We had given her the name Esther, I believe God has a special plan with her, like he had with Queen Esther in the Bible. We took her today for a special HIV test, we pray it will be negative, but since we don't  know anything about her mother, we need to do this test.

This picture is from 2013, Charles and Cathy are playing wedding (must have been after one of the staff got married.) this wedding was probably directed by Helen, who loved to play wedding. In Uganda the family of the groom has to pay dowry to the family of the bride. This is normally agreed during an introduction meeting, where the groom (to be) ,comes with his relatives and friends to the home of  the bride (to be) and the families are introduced to each other. The fathers and the uncles are than negotiating over the dowry price. Mostly they ask cows, goats, money and presents. This is at least done in Teso, the area around Soroti. Sometimes they don't agree and there won't be a wedding until an agreement is made... Sometimes the price is so high that the couple is going into debt, to pay the price. Sometimes the family of the bride agrees that the groom can pay afterwards, or in bits... And that was the case with the parents of David... 

In spite of the Covid 19 crisis, Amecet is functioning... We don't have  so many children as before, we work with less staff, only the staff who is able to live in, but we are do our core business, helping children to shine again!!! On this picture above (in Aug.) our social worker, Elias is going to bring Godfrey back to his family. Godfrey was found by the Police and thru the tracing, by hanging posters around the place where he was found, we found his family. He gained weight during his stay in Amecet and he is much more healthy now. Elias has been meeting the family before and we trust that Godfrey will do well at home again!!

The Amecet farm is part of the Amecet Ministry. It is set up to generate income for the children's ministry. It is a very valid part of Amecet. We hope that it brings more fruits in the future, like vegetables, fruits, milk and funds. In this blog I want to show you what we have in place right now, with pictures and simple explanation ( because I am a simple city girl :)!).

This is the picture of the blog of July 8th. A call from the hospital, it was about this baby Elijah. Elijah was born with a clubfoot and a rotating knee, then he had problems with the fingers on both hands and an eye problem. We are 5  weeks further and Elijah has kept us busy.... The mother died in the hospital on July 8th and the family could not commit themselves to bring the baby once, sometimes twice a week to the hospital. That is where Amecet came in...

A couple of months ago, the police brought Lucy to Amecet. A little girl of 4, maybe 5 years old. She was stolen and nobody knew where is came from. The Police is looking for the woman she was with, but up till today there are no clues where Lucy came from. We have put adverts in the National newspaper and she has been even on National TV. The Police have been checking the reports of missing children also from other parts of the country, all in vain.

Today the police arrived at Amecet with this baby.... It is a little baby girl with the weight of 1.2 kg........ The baby was stolen, but it is unknown from where. Concerned people brought the baby with the lady, who claimed to be the mother, to the police. They told the police that they never saw the lady pregnant, the lady had no breastfeeding and after being examined by a doctor it was confirmed that the lady could not have given birth 3 days ago, as she said... The police brought the baby to Amecet and will investigate where the baby comes from. When I saw the little girl, I felt so sad and also a kind of angry, who could take a little baby like this ?? It is a pre-mature baby, and she is very weak, she was not fed for hours...... I took her directly to the doctor (our neighbours) and she was diagnosed with a septic cord and low temperature. She got a cannula and is put on antibiotics via the I.V. we laid her in our incubator, so she is more protected and also more warm. When I fed her, she drank 30 ml!! She was so hungry, she cries, that is also a good sign. 

Because of Covid 19, we do not go so often to the villages. But today we went, my daughters, Mary and Helen went with us,  because one of the children we went to see was Daniel!!!!  Around 6 weeks ago, Simon and I brought him back to his grandmother, you can read that in the blog of May 29.

Yesterday, Simon got a call from the hospital. A doctor called that there was a baby of 3 weeks, whose mother had died that morning. The family could not take care of the baby, the mother was only 18 years old and there was no father in the picture.... So I drove to the hospital, I went to maternity ward, the doctor was not there, they knew about that baby, so I called the doctor and he told me he was in orthopaedic ward and the baby was also there. I felt that is a bit strange, but I went to that ward and I saw the baby, with two legs in a cast.. Now I understood why the baby was in this ward, there was something wrong with both legs... they had not said that over the phone.. I heard the story, the baby was born 3 weeks ago in the hospital by caesarean. The mother got a sepsis, she stayed all those 3 weeks in the hospital (with the baby) and at the end she needed a blood transfusion, there was no blood available and in the morning at 6.30 am she died... The baby was called Elijah and had a clubfoot at one leg and a rotating knee at the other leg. they had put  a cast on both legs and the family was told to come every Tuesday to the Orthopaedic ward for review and changing of the cast and physiotherapy, every Thursday they also had to come for physiotherapy. The family lived in the village, they had left already with the body of the mother, there was still an uncle and some neighbours around. The doctor was afraid that they would not be in position to come twice a week, that is why he had called us.  The family is willing to have the baby, but they can't make it twice a week from the village to Soroti... So we filled the papers and I took Elijah to Amecet. We have a commitment to Elijah by taking him to the hospital twice a week. Elijah drinks well, but he had a fever and when we took him to the clinic next to Amecet, he was put on IV medication.

We are a bit careful with taking children in, during this Covid 19 time, when  two weeks ago, a young mother came with this baby at our gate, we saw that the baby was in need of help. The mother had no breastfeeding and this baby was already 5 weeks old. But the mother really loved her baby, so we gave milk money and let her come back in one week. One week later she was there again, the baby had gained a little bit, but looked miserable. We talked with the mother and offered her to take the baby in Amecet for two months. She was very grateful, she felt still weak, after the delivery. Baby Samuel was now 6 weeks old and his weight was 2.1 kg. At birth he weighed 3.6 kg. We feed him every two hours and today his weight is 2.7 kg. His mother came to see him, she was so happy, she said she could see that he was already doing better. Samuel was put on antibiotics and we are waiting for blood transfusion. His HB was low, but up till today, there was no blood for transfusion. We hope and pray that Samuel  will start drinking good and gaining and getting stronger so that he can go back to his mother!

I am so excited!!!!  For many years we have been able to place children (with the help of the Probation Office) into local foster families, but for the families to do the last step, was difficult. It cost money to make the adoption legal and how to do it??? There was an organization in the Netherlands, Metterdaad, who was willing to help these families to do this last legal step. The children will be safe and be a full member of the family and also the clan! We have been working on this project for more than a year, the Corona crisis postponed the hearing in court again. Then the Chief Magistrate, who was also in Lockdown in Soroti, offered to work on all of them and together with the Probation Officer and our two Social Workers, Simon and Elias, all the papers were gathered and finished! This week there is a group of some families every day and we will finish the 50 adoptions.

Ali was brought to Amecet around 10 days ago. He was brought by the Police, he was "found".... But they knew his name, we didn't have a good feeling about him. He was very malnourished, had decubitis wounds and he looked as if he had a brain damage. He was really in a bad shape, we think he can be 4 or even 5 years old. He can't talk and he can't chew his food.