Today Amecet is going to lock down, we are not closing, but we will have a serious lock down. The Corona virus has also reached Africa.... We had some volunteers, who left last week, when the airport was still open. Now all the borders are closed, the schools and churches are closed.  No public transport and we are waiting what the next restriction will be.... It is scary, there will be so much suffering, people live by the day and when there is no income today, what will they eat tonight??? There is violence, people who are  positive , are not safe, there is also a thinking with some people, that it is the fault of the foreigners, they brought the virus into Uganda. All the positive tests up till now, were Ugandan people, who came from travelling abroad.

Gabriel was brought to Amecet on Saturday evening. His mother had been in a traffic accident and was killed on the spot. She had been holding Gabriel (3 months old) in her arms. Gabriel survived, but he has big wounds on his head from scraping over the ground.

Jeremiah can laugh and he can make you laugh!! This was very different just one month  ago. The picture left is the same Jeremiah, one month ago. He was most of the day angry, hostile and when you tried to touch him, he refused you.. he is around 2 years old and he was brought to Amecet by the Police on 23/12/2019. He was abandoned. You just knew that he has not been treated well, a small child like him and already so much mistrust in people. It was sad. Our Social workers has been trying to trace his parents and we now become to know that this little boy has been handed over from one to the other person. His mother brought him to a friend, after a while the friend got tired of him and brought him somewhere else and so he went from one to the other and ended up in the Police station. This has been going on for more than 18 months!! 

Maybe some of you remember the twins Brian and Brenda, I wrote about them in the blogs of August 11 and 14. They were born. 2 months premature at the side of the road. Someone brought them to the healthcentre and the healthcentre referred them to Amecet, the mother didn't want to feed them, she has a mental sickness and she ran away, shortly after that.

Aloysius was brought by his mother. He is malnourished, weak and dehydrated. And he has a sever schisis  cleft palate). The day before, I was called by the social worker of Cure Hospital in Mbale. The mother was send there for the operation, but the baby is too weak and malnourished. he asked our help. I sad to him that the mother could come and the next day she was at our doorstep. The baby is 4 weeks old and his weight is 2.6 kg. The mother has hardly breast feeding, so the baby is starving.  The mother has a lot of burdens to carry, her husband got a stroke, one year ago, and is paralyzed since that time. We took Aloysius ( I really have to get used to the name!) in and took him to the doctor. he was put on IV fluids,   he is so dehydrated. This morning he looks much better, but drinking is the problem. he is hungry, but his stomach is not used to much milk, so we start slowly, every two hours. He wants to drink, but he can't suck, it is frustrated for him. You have to take time with him and be very careful that he swallows right.

Emmanuel and Abraham are brothers. Very close brothers! Emmanuel is the oldest, we think he is around 10 years old and Abraham is the youngest one, we think around 4 years old. They have no one else than each other. I am so impressed with Emmanuel, who cares so much for his little brother, They are always together.. they were brought to Amecet on the 7th of January, by the Police. They lived in the village with their mother, but their mother committed suicide and nobody in the village knew their relatives or where they came from. Those two boys had only each other.....

Very regular children are brought to Amecet by the Police. This are children who are often abandoned by their parents and someone finds them and brings them to the Police. The Police brings them to Amecet and then together, the Police and the social workers of Amecet, try to find the relatives of the child. This is not easy, we put ads in the local newspaper, posters in the area where the child is found, talking with the people in that area and this time it worked out for two children!!

The children love to jump on the trampoline... The trampoline has been such a blessing in the past years. Children became free  and playful on it  and we were so sad when we had a big hole in the trampoline. It is used so much, we do have rules, normally only 2 children at the time (for the picture we did just four, but that is normally not allowed:))

The children are our priority, they were in 2019 and they will be in 2020!

Today , we celebrated Christmas as Amecet family, we were with 39 people!! Also the guys who work in the farm, the extra holiday staff and all the caretakers, the Kitchen staff, the guys who work in the compound, the laundry ladies, the whole family!! It was really fun, we had all gotten a name and we prepared a gift for that person. One by one we gave our gift to that person on the beat of African music.

We have had a great week, there were around 42 children, the youngest was 10 and the oldest was 19. Our theme this year was from John 15:15, "I am a friend of God". We had our focus on Friendship, how do you make friends? Do I have friends? Am I a friend to others? We had teachings about relationships, family life, HIV/AIDS and taking ARV's every day, Openness and acceptance of HIV+ status. Personal Hygiene and Education. Every afternoon we went into 4 groups, to talk more in depth about the teachings of the morning and these groups were than in age groups. In every group was a lot of talking and they had really picked up from the teachings. Even the young ones of 10 and 11 years could come with such a good questions. 

Every year we remember on World Aids Day, the children we lost in that year. Every year it is an emotional event!! This year we remembered 10 children, they didn't all passed away in Amecet, 5 of them died at home or in Hospital, but we do include them in our remembrance. This year we had the Amunweek  starting the day before, it had even a deeper meaning, because three of their friends were among the children who had passed away..