Be Strong and Courageous

Be Strong and Courageous

December 11, 2019

“Be Strong and Courageous, Be Strong and Courageous, Be Strong and Courageous!”

It’s a pretty good guess that when God tells someone something three times it’s because they really need to hear it! Joshua was going to fill some big shoes in chapter one of his book and it’s possible he was having some butterflies in his stomach.

That is how I feel this morning!

It was to be our first day of training at the Handicap Baby Day Care and I had just learned the training bed would not be there. Esther, a triplet with some CP pictured below, may be saying, Then what do we do?

We have not made an official announcement about this program yet but most of you already know, Neema Village under the encouragement of Social Welfare and we believe the continual promptings from a Loving God, is opening the only, one-of-a-kind day care to help moms with special needs babies in the city of Arusha. This center will only accept special needs babies, like Bryson in the picture with Nanny Juliette below.  

Social Welfare tells us no day care will accept these babies. As we worked with the MAP moms this past year, many of whom have handicap babies and were consequentially abandoned by their husbands, we saw how they struggled to survive and work a business while caring for their babies. One of our most successful MAP moms was carrying a seven year old on her back along with her new baby. 

Most of these babies sleep on the floor in a corner in their shops or in a dark room in the back of the house. It breaks our hearts and maybe God’s too.

To help these babies reach their full potential we have hired Penueli, who knows how to train women to work with special needs babies. She will begin this month training the nannies.  

Napendaela who was our teacher at Neema Village will be the new director at the day care center. We just sent her to driving school, so she has her driving license now.  

We have rented a house with easy access to town and have been renovating it, scraping walls, resurfacing, painting, ripping up carpet and putting down tile, etc. It is looking good now. 

 In January we will open and begin taking in babies for the day care. 

For now we are training the nannies using our Neema special needs babies, Esther, Bryson and Editha, pictured below. She doesn’t look too happy about standing up on the board.

The center will have a “sensory room” with games, music, a parrellel bar, colored lights, a bird nest swing, etc., anything we can do to help these little gifts from God to reach their full potential and bring some joy into their lives. The room is empty now but Nicky Thomas and her daughter Abby want to fill it up!

I began the day thinking, well the training bed may not be there, but God will be. When he tells Joshua to not be afraid, he also tells him how, because I will be with you!

Thank God!

Now let me tell you the day was awesome! Four nannies, 3 special needs babies and one teacher and we had a great day.  Lots of singing, massaging, stretching and games for the babies all day. The nannies and babies loved it, so did I.

dorris