August 24, 2024
With all our other programs, babies are still the heart of Neema Village. Angel tells me since May, seventeen new babies have come to Neema and ten babies have been adopted or returned home. We had a couple of months with no new babies and then, Wham! Here are five of the newest ones.
Everest
They named him Everest and then threw him in a pit. We pray he is where he can grow to meet that majestic name now. He is about 3 months old, has cuts in a line on both sides of his stomach from a witch doctor but Dr. Teddy has checked him out and he seems to have no stomach problems. Amazing how resilient these little ones are. Such a sweet smile on one of Neema’s newest babies.
Gideon
His address was a tree. Little Gideon lived under the tree with his mom and we could not convince her to come with us to Neema Village. Social Welfare picked her up and she is now in Sober House and baby Gideon is with us at Neema Village. We tried to keep mom and baby together. The village leaders told us she had moved from a cave where Gideon was born and where they had been living u ntil she moved to the tree on one of Arusha’s busy Highways. It was painful to try to help her, she just would not agree to anything.
Poor little guy was terrified of everything but Nanny Orupa got him cleaned up and fed. He is about a year and half old, was caked with mud and dirt and extremely malnourished. We will be supporting his mom while she goes through the alcohol addiction center for a year. Hopefully he will be able to return to her someday.
Jeana
July 2024- This sleepy little girl was born July 21, 2024. She came to Neema weighing a healthy 3.45kg (7.6lbs). Sadly, her mother died in the hospital after battling high blood pressure before and after Jeana’s birth. Jeana’s family is Maasai. We will keep Jeana for two years at Neema unless her family is able to care for her sooner. Her aunties can come visit her anytime.
Diane
Little Miss Diane was left abandoned at the hospital in Arusha. She weighed 2.4 kg when she was born August 2nd, 2024. She is beautiful and precious and will be loved at Neema Village until her forever family comes. You can help us keep these little ones at Neema by sponsoring a baby. Sponsorships start at $30. per month but it takes $300. a month to keep a baby at Neema. Babies are expensive! Go to www.neemavillage.org to set up a monthly sponsorship. Bless you!
Tumaini
Our littlest Tumaini, number 5 we think, came to Neema late afternoon on August 21, 2024. Her mom died out in a Maasai village after childbirth with complications from retained placenta. Tumaini is the little half sister of Saruni who lived at Neema for 2 years. Saruni’s mom died in childbirth and after a few years Saruni’s dad remarried. Now his second wife has died in childbirth of retained placenta. It is beyond sad at how many Maasai women die in childbirth here.
They had not fed baby Tumaini anything but water so she had an unrecordable blood sugar level when Dr. Teddy checked her into Neema Village. She also had a dirty rag tied around the umbilical cord and has a sepsis blood infection. Dr. Teddy has put baby Tumaini into the hospital in ICU to save her life. Please be praying for this little one as well as our Save The Mothers program which helps traditional birthers understand about retained placenta. We will need some help with the ICU medical bills. Thanks everyone.
The barn is full of babies too! Daisy had a little bull last week, we named him Sir Loin. The Mama Cow Judy, had a little heifer a few days ago, we named her Lily and Sparkle had another bull Marq named Prince George about a month ago. They are so cute and will suck on your finger, or your skirt or anything you put in the pen. You know cows don’t have top teeth, right?
This is one of our saddest, yet sweetest adoption stories. This little guy’s mom is a prostitute and she came for a few weeks to see the baby after Social Welfare brought him to Neema. We tried to get mom to move to our MAP houses and told her after training we would set her up in a safe business. She said she could make 50,000 TSH a night on the street and would not move to Neema. We tried to tell her with the high rate of AIDs in this country she would most likely get HIV or worse but she would not come and later she gave the baby up for adoption.
We have loved this little man for almost two years and Kim shed a few tears as he walked down the steps of Neema and into his new life.
Bless you for helping us keep these precious little ones at Neema Village. We could not do this work without you!
Michael and Dorris Fortson