April 29, 2024
Kim says the monsoons have come in gully washers this year. It makes the grounds at Neema Village beautiful but causes some major problems since Neema is built on the side of a hill.
The banana trees look good though don’t they.
Two walls, the retaining wall and the side wall of the soccer field, came down with all the heavy rains. Neema Village is at the top of the cliff in the picture below. Our chicken and cow barns are close to the edge of that cliff. We are praying the cow barn does not get washed over!
Along with the walls falling, the hospital where Michael had drilled a well had no water because the pump for the water well stopped working. Then the stove at the volunteer house blew up when Ritha tried to light the oven to cook the morning biscuits! It blew the stove out to the middle of the room and broken glass was flying everywhere. Thank God Ritha was not hurt. At the end of the day Scott Lockett’s comment was, “How do you get anything done here!”
Lazaro is four months old today. He is still in the isolation room. He has had a couple surgeries due to hydrocephalus. He is doing well, praise God, and continues to heal and get stronger. His family visited him before he had his fist surgery. Please continue to pray for this sweet boy’s health journey and future.
Kim and the Neema group traveled out to the Simanjiro area this month to do a Days For Girls program and to check the water well which Neema had drilled for them. They thought 50 young girls would show up but took food for 100. Around three hundred showed up!! Thankfully the loaves and fishes multiplied.
If we can save some of these sweet faces from having babies at 12 or 13 and dying in childbirth it will all be worth it. Our GIFT (Girls Informed For Tomorrow) program uses the Days for Girls format and three of our directors are certified to teach that program.
Maria’s Village asked if Neema could help a young mother who was released from the government hospital after giving birth to a very tiny baby, pictured with Kim below.
He is all head, tiny baby Masia was born weighing 1.3 kgs which is about 2.8 pounds. We will keep mama and baby at our emergency housing at the MAP apartments. Mom will kangaroo (skin to skin) with little Masia in an overly heated room which will act as an incubator. The other MAP moms will look after her and will cook her the rich bone soup all new mothers in Tanzania must drink after giving birth. Mama and baby will stay with us until Masia is healthy enough to return to his village.
Volunteers got to help with the Save the Mothers program for April. It was a younger group of twelve traditional birthers who came for a week this month so most of them could read. Later the volunteers went out to a Maasai village with Ester to check on some of the older Bibis who deliver babies and had been through the Neema STM program in the past.
Ester gave them a refresher course in safe delivery and they talked about the problems they have had and how many births or deaths they have had. She also took more gloves and items to help them in their deliveries. I wish you could hear them sing, it is so lively and beautiful. After the last STM session nine of the women decided to follow Jesus and wanted to be baptized.
Please pray for these sweet women that when they return to their villages they will be able to lead the life to which they have been called.
Our six big school girls were home from boarding school for Easter break this month and Lucia, Yacinta, Memusi and Zawadi along with a neighborhood girl named Heavenlight also made the decision to be Christ followers and were baptized. Ya’ll these are our babies!! Michael and I were crying. And someone told me years ago that they didn’t think keeping these babies was really mission work! Malikia, Maria, Jojo and Nengai are next.
I will leave you with this sweet photo of Liam who was like a little skeleton a few months ago when he came to Neema after the death of his mother. He has gotten so big and handsome while we have been gone. Doesn’t this just warm your heart!
Michael and I will be heading back to Africa in a couple of weeks. We have missed so much that Kim and Scott and Sarah have accomplished while we were in America speaking everywhere we could. It has been amazing to hear about the water wells, the paving, the remodeling and bookkeeping changes and all they have been able to get done while we were gone.
Please pray that God will Bless these three Mighty Warriors who work as volunteers without pay to save the babies and moms in Tanzania.
Africa is calling and it is time for us to get packed up and go relieve them!
Nakupenda Sana,
Bibi and Babu (Grandmother and Grandfather)