Hope – another new addition

June 15, 2009

Today John the social worker for the orphanage called and asked Esther if we could take an abandoned child they found. She said she wanted to see the child and that she could stay with us at the orphanage until either her parents were found or they were able to place her in a home somewhere.

Esther had some running around to do so Ray and I headed back to the orphanage to wait for John. He showed up a few minutes after we arrived with two police officers from a nearby village, where she was found. She was very dirty and all of her clothes were either soaking wet or filthy. One of the cooks went to wash her clothes while the rest of us fed her. She was hungry and very thirsty. After she ate, one of the older girls gave her a bath and we borrowed clothes from one of the small girls so she had something dry to wear.

John thought she was 1 ½ years old but looking at her, she appears to be younger. She walks ok but she’s a bit unsteady on her feet still. She doesn’t have all her teeth but that doesn’t stop her from eating.

She seems happy and didn’t have any problems being handed from person to person and didn’t have any problems with us holding her either. Some children scream when they see us as if we are some sort of alien to them…….oh, maybe we are strange to them.
I asked John what her name is and he said they did not know but he was calling her Chisomo (Grace in English). I said I thought her name should be Hope so the kids started calling her Hope. Mphatso said we should name her Mphatso.

After a few minutes, she was sitting and playing with the other kids. She kept following one of the older boys around and other kids started teasing him – telling him that he must resemble her father and that’s why she’s following him around.

I think she’ll be fine until they decide what to do with her. She’s a cutie. Oh, what a smile. We hope you enjoy the pictures of her.

(That night, Mphatso decided that the baby needed some clothes (which she does!!) so she went through her clothes and picked out some underwear, socks and a dress for the baby. The black and white dress is one she gave to the baby. I think I’ll go to the store and look for some nappies (cloth diapers) for her as she has none. Mphatso thinks we need to go into town and buy the baby some shoes since we are buying shoes for all the rest of the kids. I think she is right.)

BRAN

To our BRAN friends,

Have a great time next week. We will miss you all and we will miss not being here.
However, we will be there with you in thought and spirit.

BRAN really helped prepare us for life in Africa. We sleep under a mosquito net every night and it kinda feels like you are sleeping in a tent. Strange food...well, we got that too. Relieving yourself outside.........well, that's a fact of life here, you see it all the time. When you don't have a hot shower, think of us. We don't have hot water at our house either.

Hopefully, you will have tailwinds, dry and cool days and no flats.

No, this picture is NOT Africa. I copied this pic of our SAG last year from the BRAN website (www.bran-inc.org). Thanks Fred!

Ray & Alice

PS – For those who are not “BRANimals”, BRAN stands for Bicycle Ride Across Nebraska. We rode the ride for 18 years then served as crews (stationary SAG support) for four years. BRAN is special to us – as we met on BRAN and several years later, married on the ride.

death

What a gruesome topic but one that is inevitable.

The father of one of the older boys at the orphanage died on Sunday. Esther was informed of this after church. She said that his mother was at the hospital waiting for transport to take the body home – back to Mulanje – about 2 hours away. She asked if I would take her to the hospital to visit with the mother and discuss what to do.

I took Esther, the son (Ganizani) and a couple of the other women to the mortuary at the hospital. The mortuary is out back, behind the hospital. There were a few groups of women gathered in this area, all waiting for transport. Ganizani’s mother and a very young child, were sitting with another woman when we arrived. When Ganizani and the women got out of the car, the mother started wailing. Esther asked me to wait for them so they could discuss with her what to do.

After a while, she came back to the car and said that the mother was waiting for free transportation to take the body home. She had no money and was not able to hire an ambulance or any other type of vehicle to get the body home. She said that the doctor told them to wait for an ambulance that may, or may not, be coming from Mulanje. When an ambulance arrives from an area to drop the sick off at the hospital, they take the dead back to the area with them.

Now, this was about 2:00 on Sunday afternoon. All the offices were closed and the mortuary closes at 5:00. The mortuary staff told Esther if there was no ambulance by 5:00, then they should come back the next day and wait again. If an ambulance arrives and there are multiple people waiting, they take people back in the order they arrive. Esther later told me that people have been known to wait days to transport their loved ones home for the burial.

Esther and I decided that they were probably waiting in vain so we would decided to take her back to the orphanage with us and discuss what to do. I dropped Esther, the mother, Ganizani and the women off at the orphanage. Esther fed the mother and the small child.

Ray & I talked about it and asked Esther to see what she could do about transport for them back to Mulanje. She contacted the MP (member of Parliament) for the area but he was out of town and not going to return until the next day. (If the member of Parliament is available, they have been known to makes these types of trips with their cars, charging just the fuel needed to make the trip.) She contacted someone near the orphanage who has a small truck and they said they would take the people and the body back to Mulanje for K15,000 ($100.). We felt terrible for the mother and especially the son, since we know him very well, so we gave them the money to transport the family and the body back to Mulanje for the burial. They were grieving enough – they didn’t need to worry about how or when they would be able to get the body home too.

Esther escorted them back to Mulanje on Sunday and turned around and came back home with the truck that took them there. She told us the next day that these people are very poor and they did not even have a blanket for the body so she gave them the son’s blanket to wrap the body in. She said the belly was so swollen by the time they arrived in Mulanje that they did not know if they body would even fit into the coffin.

She also indicated that the mother has 9 children, of which Ganizani is the oldest. The youngest child, who was with the mother, was very malnourished. When the mother arrived at the orphanage, she was very grateful for the food. She indicated that this was the first food she and her child had eaten in two days.

We are so blessed and thankful that the Lord is providing for us so we are able to help people like this who truly need the help. Thank you Father! We take so much for granted and these people struggle with every aspect of their lives.

Lord, we thank you for your grace, which we do not deserve and thank you for your graciousness to us that we can be servants to others in need. Lord, wrap your loving arms around Ganizani’s family and any family who has recently lost a loved one – ours included (Ray’s father passed away two weeks ago). Let them know that you care and that their loved ones are safe in the arms of Jesus.