From new babies, to cows, chickens and vegetable gardens, it has been a busy month at Neema. You might say, so, what’s new! Right, that seems to be life at Neema. As a busy baby home with more than 40 abandoned, orphaned and at risk babies it is always busy! And Loud! And Messy! And Wonderful!

We could have carved their names on a tree, “Linda loves Rusty.” They had a bond of love at first sight. It made no difference that they lived worlds apart. Rusty had been abandoned and we never knew how old he was, we estimated about three months. He was chubby cheeked, smiled easily and took his bottle in a single gulp like he had been starved. He was definitely Linda’s little love.

When she walked into the infant room at Neema Village, Rusty’s eyes went to her and never left her face. If she picked up another baby he would frown until she picked him up. Then the sun would come out on those round baby cheeks.

Since Rusty was an abandoned baby Social Welfare would wait six months to make sure no family member came forward to claim the baby. As the months passed and no one came to claim Rusty, it began to look like he would get a new family. And we were excited that there was a wonderful family waiting to adopt him. It was a good plan.

But Rusty’s adoption was not to be. His birth mother called her sister and said, “I have a baby at Neema Village, if you want him, go get him.” Once a family member contacts us the adoption is off.

The volunteers and I (pictured above) went to visit him shortly after he went home to live with his aunt. On Linda’s next trip to Africa she couldn’t wait to go to Rusty’s home for a visit.

As soon as Linda came in the door, Rusty came right to her, grabbed her around the neck and would not leave her arms until toys were brought out.

His new home was a bit disappointing but at least it was not a mud hut. His aunt loves him and does the best she can for him but it was pretty sparse with rough cement walls and cold bare floors and no toys for the boys.  So we brought toys.

His aunt is hard working like most mothers in Africa and supports the family with a small vegetable stand in Moshi pictured below.

It was disappointing to lose the adoption family for Rusty but as Social Welfare said, we cannot keep a child from his family just because they are poor. Most Africans are poor! We have placed over thirty Neema babies back with an extended family member. And just like with Rusty, we love to go out to their homes and check on them. When they go home we place their pictures on our wall at Neema so we will never forget them.

But Linda’s heart was touched with Rusty’s living condition and decided that she could help. On our next trip to see the family, Linda and Emanuel, our driver, bought paint, brushes and linoleum and hired a couple of neighbors to come help paint the gray cement walls into a soft yellow.

It warmed the room when they put the shiny green linoleum down so the boys did not have to play on the cement floor.

In one day Linda had transformed the room into a bright and cheerful playroom for the baby she loved.

I know we can’t do this for every baby we put back into their homes but who can stop love at first sight!

Linda had brought a Blessing for the house too, a transfer to put above the door.

I think the scripture fits Linda ’s heart too don’t you? “Blessed are the pure in Heart.”

And May you be Blessed too!

Michael and Dorris

So many of you made donations on behalf of our 20 climbers of Mt. Kilimanjaro this summer that I wanted to share our grandson Tanner’s thank you to his supporters. It touched my heart and typifies how most of our volunteers feel after they spend time with the Neema children in Africa. 

Tanner writes:

“Thank you so much for making a donation to Neema Village on behalf of the Kilimanjaro Charity Climb. I am touched by your support of such a worthy cause on my behalf and it spurred me to reach the top. Each climber chose a child at Neema to honor in the climb. I chose Shabani.

He did not have a sponsor and his story touched my heart. I spent a great deal of time with Shabani during my month long visit to Neema. It was life changing to finally meet these children who have endured so much, and yet have so much love to share. Shabani really is sweet and as passionate about reading as I was told.

All of the children are more filled with life and love than I can put down in words. Also I am happy to report that Shabani has a sponsor now!

(Left Shabani’s cute baby picture) He is a big boy now but still sucks his tongue when he gets upset.

Reaching the 19,341 foot top of Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa, was truly an adventure and I feel it will always be a lifelong accomplishment. But the summit was only a small portion of this life changing experience. (Below Tanner pictured with four of our big kids.)

I walked away changed not by the struggle against the mountain, but by the interaction with the people of Tanzania. (Below Tanner with Maasai children in the village.)

I walked away with a deep love and respect for them.

I am most honored to be a part of the group of people who sacrifice and serve at Neema to care for the babies and children who otherwise wouldn’t have a chance. Thank you for partnering with me to bring attention and support to the precious children of Neema Village Arusha Tanzania!

(Below Tanner pictured with his Aunt Bekah and four Neema babies.)

Sincerely

Tanner White
Age 20
Chemical Engineer major at Montana State Bozeman

(One last picture of Tanner below eating fried termites just like his grandfather fifty years ago. Getting the first one down may have been as hard as climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro!) Great Job Tanner, so proud of you!

Grandmommy and PaPa

Over the last five years, Neema Village has cared for over 130 babies!! Currently there are 45 babies in the house. Below is a picture of our little crawlers having their morning bottle.

Astoundingly ninety one, 91, of our babies have been adopted, returned home or were cared for in their own homes through our outreach program. We think that is impressive! Think of it another way, we have been able to put 70% of our babies back into a family!!

There are a lot of orphanages in Africa and we are not one of them. You don’t have to tell me that orphanages are not the best way to care for children! I was raised in one. Neema Village is not an orphanage, we are a Faith based, Christ Centered rescue center! Our goal has never been to keep these babies.

Below are pictures of new babies at Neema. We need your help to care for these babies until we can safely get them back in their homes.

Baraka, pictured above, was born on 27th of May, His mother went to another region about a 10 hour drive from Arusha in Tanga to look for land so she could farm and make a living. While there she got pregnant and gave birth to Baraka. Unfortunately she got sick shortly after and passed away. Her family didn’t know anything about what happened, so the neighbors in Tanga took care of the baby. They searched for the family and found the brother of Baraka’s mom. When the uncle found out that his sister died and had a child, he decided to take the baby with him back to Arusha. He has a big family to take care of, two wives and six children. Some are the same age as Baraka. So, he feels he cannot take care of Baraka at this time. The uncle went to social welfare for help and they referred him to Neema Village.

Abbas was born on the fourth of September. He came to Neema weighing around 4lbs. His mother had a rough delivery and lost a lot of blood during his delivery. She was sent home but was not well. She went back to the hospital about a week later for a blood transfusion. Unfortunately her heart was failing and she passed away in the hospital. Neema was called by social welfare and we picked Abbas up at the hospital and brought him to Neema.

Joan was born on the 21st of May. She was abandoned by her mother who ran off with Joan’s two year old sibling. The father has filed a police report, and is having the police try to locate his wife and child. For now Joan is at Neema and is a very happy, healthy baby. The father is a good dad and comes to visit. We like that.

Update News!! Joan has been able to return home. Her grandmother from Moshi will be able to keep her. We loved her while we had her but are so glad she is back home with her family.

Majaliwa, above, came to Neema on September 10, 2017. He was one week old. He is very healthy, over seven lbs. (3.5 kg). His mother died during his birth.  He is the fifth sibling in his family. We hope to reunite him with his family when possible.

A baby who loses his mother in Africa has only a one in 10 chance of survival. When there is no electricity in the home, no clean water, no refrigeration, very little medical care and formula costs $16 per can many of these little motherless ones out in the villages will not make it without help. We stopped for lunch on a trip last week and these little guys came to watch. Yes, we fed them their first peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

We gave them some clothes we had in the car.

It can be a rough life in Africa for children and babies. It is our privilege to stand in the gap for these little ones.

But we cannot do it alone! We need your help to do this God Given work. We have made it so that almost anyone can sponsor a baby at Neema, it starts at $30 per month.

Of course that does not keep a baby at Neema. It costs us over $300 per month to keep a baby. That pays our Tanzanian nannies and workers salaries, food, formula, utilities, petrol, medical bills. It does not pay for buildings, land purchase nor director’s salaries.

We are a registered non profit both in the U.S. and Tanzania and in good standing with our auditors. We were voted the number one child care facility in this area last year.

As much as we love our babies we do not want to keep them. We want to get them back into a stable home and we work closely with Social Welfare to do that. They are precious, innocent children of God. Please choose one to sponsor, you will be happy you did!

Be Blessed!

Dorris and Michael

The one room house is barely big enough for the bed where she sleeps with her two children. It’s better than many houses in Africa, at least it’s cement, not mud. She rents the room for seven dollars per month. There is no kitchen and no bathroom, just the small bedroom with only enough room to walk around the bed. But it is neat and clean and she has an infectious smile.

Mama Noela lives alone there with her two children, Noela and the new baby who is three weeks old. They call mothers by their children’s names here. Mama Noela’s name is Felister. She has been carrying this seven year old girl on her back for seven long, weary years. She loves the child and would have continued to carry her but she became pregnant again.

We met her at a local church where she had the seven year old on her back and was eight months pregnant. She was totally exhausted from carrying this big girl. Her minister asked if we could help. I told him God’s people are good, surely we can find help.

So we found a home for handicap children and drove to Moshi with the child’s bag packed, but they wouldn’t take her. They told the mother if she loved her child she would continue to care for her and then told her they would find the husband and make him pay. They didn’t and she does love her child. She is just so weary.

That kind of government help makes me weary. So we have hired a house girl to help her with the children.

We are giving her $30 per month to pay the house girl. Now with our new MAP “Mother’s Against Poverty” program we can work to set up a more permanent solution for Mama Noela. I suggested making jewelry to sell which she could make in her room. Later she showed us her chickens in the chicken coop and asked if we wanted to buy some eggs from her neighbor. Below is her chicken coop made from old mosquito nets.

We realized she was more into chickens than jewelry. Through our MAP program we can help her get started in an egg business. But first we will need to build her a bigger, better chicken coop! Below is where she cooks for her family when she has wood. Other times she cooks on the porch with charcoal. The chicken coop is behind the kitchen.

Since this is our second egg/chicken business we know how much it will cost to build a wooden/cement block chicken house and buy 40 chickens. About $400.

If you would like to help individuals such as Mama Noela with starting a business please consider contributing to our MAP program.

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galations 6:9

Bless you!

Dorris

After a busy summer of volunteers we are down to just three who are living in the Pape volunteer house.

Silka from Belgium, Emily from Colorado and Sumera from Chicago are pictured above.

It is a big job to love so many babies, so say a prayer for these three hard working girls!

If you are new to the blog we are a baby home and we only take in babies who are two years and under so it takes a lot of volunteers. The babies are all either abandoned, orphaned or at risk. At risk means they have lost their mother or they have some physical condition that would lessen their chance of survival out in remote villages.

Volunteers Silka and Emily got to go to the hospital last week to pick up a new baby. They had to take clothes to dress him, the hospital does not have clothes or blankets to give out. If we don’t take clothes we bring home a naked baby!!

This little one had just lost his mother. Babies under five who lose their mothers have only a one in ten chance of survival in rural Africa. This is due mainly to lack of electricity, clean water and adequate medical care. We have cared for over 130 babies like this in the last five years.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Volunteers are a great help. We have had 87 volunteers since May of this year!!

They hold babies, change diapers, teach class, sing songs, read stories, help bathe, wash dishes, peel potatoes, organize storerooms, mow grass, teach women’s classes, and did I say hold babies.

They may build things like play grounds, put in flower beds, dig post holes and lay some bricks on occasion.

They come from all over the world like Belgium, Australia, Italy, England, Norway, America and many other countries.

But they all have one thing in common, they want to help these little ones who have lost the most important thing to a baby, their mothers.

Like our newest baby, Abasi, pictured below.

He weighed a tiny 4 lbs at birth and the hospital called us after his mom died. We will keep him until he is stable and off the bottle, hopefully before age two.

We can only keep these little ones because good people like you chose to sponsor them. We do not take money from the U.S. government, from Tanzania, or from adoptions. Our monthly support comes from people who sponsor a baby at $30 per month or more. And remember no one takes a salary from Neema donations except Tanzanians. 

Our 45 full time Tanzanian staff could not possibly give these little ones all the love and attention they need. That is why we have volunteers. If you came to volunteer this summer, Bless You! I wish I could mention each one of you by name but I would surely leave someone out. Just know that we remember you and miss you! Thank you so much for your hard work this summer.

Love and Blessings,

Dorris and Michael

I think I heard my first Aggie joke over 50 years ago. We were living in Southern Tanzania and a visitor said, “How many Aggies does it take to screw in a light bulb?” The answer, “Four, one to hold on to the bulb and three to turn him around.” At the time I remember thinking, what’s an Aggie? If you, like me, are not up on Aggies, they are students at the prestigious Texas A & M university and are called Aggies. It’s a tough school and the students have to be just a cut above to make it so they developed these Aggies jokes to make people think they are really just normal people. We have learned differently.

This summer at Neema I learned a bit more about who Aggies are.

They are educated and talented, especially face painting.

They can be loud when needed.

They will make good professors.

They go bananas quite often.

They major in bubbles and fun.

They are beautiful people!

They are creative.

They are touched easily by poverty.

They are loving.

They are willing to try new ways.

They are patient even with Osiligi.

So How Many Aggies does it take to love 45 little Neemaities? Seven was just the perfect number. Thanks Aggies for Christ at Texas A & M for helping to make 2017 Summer at Neema Village a blast.

Love and miss you!

Dorris

You never know what might come from something as simple as walking down the road to teach a bible class. Emily Broadbent from Billings, Montana visited Neema in February and she came with the idea of walking down the dirt road in front of Neema and just see if any children were interested in a bible lesson.

Yes, they were, especially since we had bubbles and candy!

We stopped at a lady’s house and the children came from all directions. She was very kind and brought out chairs and benches for us to sit on. We blew bubbles, passed out candy, sang songs and Emily got to teach her class about the birth of Jesus.

We have since gotten to know the sweet lady who shared her yard that day. Her name is Happy Mollel. Below is a picture of Happy in front of her kitchen behind her house.

She is the mother of seven children and tries to make extra money for her family by buying milk and reselling it to make a small profit. Her problem is that quite often her children need the milk so she is not able to sell very much.

With Casey McMullen and Lexi Koon from Abilene Christian University, two business majors spending the summer at Neema, we decided to visit Happy and see if she would be interested in starting a business though our MAP (Mothers Against Poverty) program.  We talked for a while about things she might could do to make extra money for her family and finally realized that she loved to fix hair. She sits outside her house and fixes her neighbors hair but she had never dreamed that she might someday have a chance to have her own business.

And so we talked and listened to Happy talk about her idea and watched as that spark of hope grew in her eyes. We got pretty excited with her.

To begin this entrepreneurial journey with Happy, we decided it would be best if she did an apprenticeship at one of the busy hair salons in downtown Arusha.  We found a successful shop that agreed to take her on as an apprentice and now Happy rides the Dala Dala to the shop downtown on Tuesdays through Saturdays. They are teaching her everything she will need to know to start a business. She is loving it and we are so excited to be a part of this with her.

One of our volunteers from Houston, Lori Thompson had her hair braided by a Neema nanny. Very Pretty Lori!

The total cost for a three months apprenticeship, lunch and transport for Happy to learn the hair business is $261. dollars. When we told Happy we wanted to help her get started in her business she could not stop shaking our hands and thanking us and asking God to bless us. I wish you could see the light of hope as it comes to women like Happy when they realize they might actually have a chance to do something to help their family. We are thrilled to be a part of this incredible dream for Happy.

Wouldn’t it be just the coolest thing for some established beauty salon in the U. S. to partner with an enterprising, hard working woman in Africa in her dream to help her family by fixing hair!  By helping Happy pay for her $261 dollar apprenticeship you can be a part of changing the lives of this family in Africa!! Just put a can at the desk in your shop with Happy’s picture and see how fast your customers will fill it for you!! I think your heart will be filled up too, I know ours is.

You can donate any amount on line at www.neemavillage.org. To make sure it is tax deductible for you please do not put an individual name on the donation. Just put MAP program at Neema Village. Who knows you might come to Africa someday and need a new hair do like Lori!!

And to think it all came from a walk down a dirt road to teach a bible class! God is amazing!

We commissioned an artist at the Maasai market to design an icon for our women’s center. Isn’t this bold and beautiful!! Notice the baby on the back.

Love to all you dream makers out there,

Dorris and Michael

Fridays are field trip days at Neema for our school children. We have been trying to take the big kids to educational places and so this week we went out to Justin and Anna Maynard’s farm at the preacher training school.

Thanks Anna for the great pictures and such a fun craft and exciting day for the children!

The kids were beyond excited and could not wait to pet the cows and chickens. Getting close enough to actually touch the animals quickly became a different story.

I had to peel Frankie off my neck! When I told him, Now aren’t you a Maasai and all Maasai love cows, right? Maasai believe that all cows belong to them and if you have a cow they want it back! Wars are started in Maasai land over cows But not today for Frankie!

It was good for them to get to see where milk comes from as Justin’s helper showed them how to milk the cow.

Then it was on to the chickens. It took a while but we did finally get some of them to go inside the big chicken house and try to find an egg.

We had brought a picnic lunch of boiled eggs, fried chicken, cold milk and cookies.

After the farm we drove into the Arusha airport hoping to find a place to spread our blankets for lunch and watch the planes come in. We did better than that! The kind man at the airport brought us right into the airport lounge and out onto the runway where the children got to see airplanes taking off, landing and loading passengers.

It was so cool and we could not thank the kind man enough who had helped that fun time happen for our children. I asked Frankie if he wanted to grow up to be a pilot and fly planes and he answered with his two missing front teeth an emphatic, “Yeth!”

“Its What Neema does Best!”

Almost three years ago we received a terrified little girl at Neema who had been found abandoned on the road. She was older than most abandoned babies, although she could not walk or crawl, we estimated her to be about 18 months old and it appeared as if this may have been her second time to be left abandoned.

She was extremely afraid of white people, would cry if we came close and would not talk or smile especially if any wazungu were near. After a trip to the doctor we learned she had in the past had a broken femur and other broken bones, too many to be accidents, the doctor said. 

We were so sad for this little girl. All we could do was love her.

But after a long time Careen began to smile, timid and cautious, but a smile no less.

She was extremely afraid of doing something wrong. When our daughter Kim designed the educational toy basket time the instructions were not to get off your mat. Careen was so afraid of disobeying and too afraid to ask pemission to go to the bathroom that she made a mess on her play mat. Kim loved on her and told her it was okay that she could ask permission to leave the mat. The next night she came timidly to whisper in my ear, “Bibi, I will not mess my mat tonight.”

As we work with these precious abandoned children it breaks our hearts to think of what they have been through. That is one of the reasons our staff knows that to hit one of our children is a firing offense. The babies have been through enough.

Before the move, a couple had looked at Careen to adopt her. Watching the children play in the yard one day they asked me why she didn’t talk like the other children. They then decided they did not want her. But now a new mom for Careen has been found. She is a nurse from Karatu and has been coming to visit so that Careen would know her and not be afraid. This week our beautiful Careen got to go home to her forever family! It’s what Neema does best!

“A Cow for Neema.”

A few weeks ago we were contacted by a Swedish couple living in Iringa about buying Neema a cow for Mother’s day. So last Wednesday they took a 12 hour bus ride from Iringa to help us pick out the cow. Tomas, Mariella and their daughter Tuva had a blast playing with the babies

and driving around Arusha looking for cows.

They settled on this little lady whom Tuva promptly named Rosie.

Tomas and Ramah built a temporary shelter for Rosie and the children have been going out in the evenings to pet the cow.

Yes, even Frankie.

“Our little Nuriath returns Home”

One more bit of good news, our little Nuriath was finally able to return home. She was one of the cutest babes ever brought to Neema. Of course they are all cute but this one was pretty special.

Her father had remarried after the death of Nuri’s mother and Social Welfare thought she was stable enough to return home. Ashley got to see Nuri off.

Since we love for people to know we are not an orphanage and do not intend to keep these babies we are always happy when they can return to a loving family. May God go with you sweet Nuri and Careen!

And you also dear friends of Neema,

Michael and Dorris

One afternoon almost four years ago we received a call from the police that a baby had been left on the side of the road. They asked Michael to come pick up the baby but by the time he got there the neighbors had identified the mother. She was young and living on the street, not a prostitute, just on the street with no way to care for the baby so she had laid him down and walked away. When Michael arrived, she was wailing and crying and the police asked Michael to take the baby away while they took the young mother off to jail. I thought then, she doesn’t belong in jail.

That day the dream was born in my heart to do something significant to help these women of Tanzania. The baby was Shabani, one of our sweetest little guys who is a big boy now but still loves to be held and still sucks his tongue when he is tired or scared.

By God’s immeasurable grace we have helped over 130 babies through our Neema Village program both here at Neema and as outreach to the Maasai villages.

But all along we knew that babies in need were not the problem. Mothers who are poor and desperate are the problem. And once again God would not let us forget Shabani’s mom and the dream of helping these women.

June 2017, MAP Begins at Neema!

This has been an exciting week at Neema as the MAP (Mothers Against Poverty) program got it’s first mom started in a very substantial business venture which will add a daily increase in her income.

Six weeks ago, two students arrived from ACU to begin researching how we could significantly help mothers in Tanzania.

Michael and I had spoken at a Business Finance class at ACU last year and met one young man with a spark of interest in his eyes and after a few weeks we received an email from him saying that he would like to come to Africa to help.

His name was Casey McMullan and in May he came with another student, Lexi Koon, to spend eight weeks at Neema.

program making sure we were within the laws of Tanzania as well as the US donor laws and meeting and talking with the women, helping them plan how to start, what they would need to begin and how to sustain a business.

Below is one of the women they visited, the triplets, Anna, Esther and Deborah’s mom who will start a sewing business.

We have interviewed five women, one who wanted to start a chicken/egg business and one who wanted to start a small business selling jams and jellies. We tasted some watermelon mango jam she made and it was yummy. Another woman wanted to expand a failing small duka (or shop) selling soaps, cooking oil, milk from her cow and other items.

Two of the women want to learn to sew on treadle sewing machines and begin selling skirts and bags made from the beautiful African fabrics of Tanzania. Below are two of our volunteers showing off the lovely skirts made with the colorful Tanzanian fabrics. The necklace is also Tanzanian handmade and take a peek at the cute handmade Maasai shoes!

It is an incredible thing to watch that spark of hope in a woman’s eyes as she sees the very real possibility of helping her family have a better life.

And so, this week through the generous help of a family in Montana, Bertha, known as Mama Alan, was able to begin her chicken/egg business by building a larger chicken coop.

Mama Alan works in the fields making 5,000 shillings a day (around $2.50) and now Casey and Lexi have helped her start a business that will make 3 times that amount every day! She is also one of the women who learned to do nails in the Mani Pedi business taught in the spring. Mama Alan is one of those lion-hearted women of Africa we talk about, an entrepreneurial woman with the drive and potential, to really change things for Africa. She wants desperately to help her family have a better life. I am not sure who is more excited, Mama Alan or Casey and Lexi.

In October, a young woman will be coming for a year to help with the MAP program. She is a financial advisor from Germany and will be bringing 10 laptop computers for the computer room in the Koala Center where the MAP program will be housed. One of our business ideas for women is document preparation and the laptops will be needed for that business. Most business transactions here are done with a hand shake so we think this could grow into a substantial business for enterprising women who want to learn about computers. Below Lexi giving Mama Allan her first grant money for her chicken business.

We are so proud of Casey and Lexi for dedicating their summer to get this program started. To give someone hope like this is beyond exciting. It will not only change Mama Alan’s life I think it has changed Casey and Lexi’s lives as well.

I told them one day as we walked home on the dirt path from Mama Bennie’s home that you will meet many people out in the business world with money, so much money they won’t know what to do with it. You can now say I know how to help you with that.

Who would have known that five years ago because we started taking in these little babies that someday we would start a program that would impact the lives of mothers as well. God is always able to do so much more than we think or even dream isn’t He!

May God’s richest blessings be upon you so that you will always have enough and more for every good work.

If you would like to help women in the MAP program go to our website www.neemavillage.org and click on Neema Mothers. You could be a very real part of changing Africa!

Being poor, or crippled or mentally handicap in America is not the same as being poor in Africa. Take a look at this picture I took yesterday just outside the church building. We woke him up from his sleep on a garbage dump to give him some cookies and clean water.

“Let the beauty of the LORD, our GOD be upon us an establish the work of our hands for us.”
Ps 90:17

Dorris and Michael Fortson

They had started out on June 14, pumped, prepared and determined to climb to the highest point in Africa but they were in for a surprise. By day three they realized they were facing the fight of their lives.

“Whoever said this was a walk up was crazy,” one of them said. They had set out to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s tallest mountain as a fund raiser for Neema Village, our home for abandoned, orphaned and at risk babies.

Led off by Michael Fortson, the founder and Executive Director of Neema, three generations of Fortsons would attempt the climb. Our son Rob, a Neema board member, and grandson Tanner White from Billings, Mt. were among those who started out with high hopes of making it easily to the top. It was supposed to be a walk up right?

“I trained for months, was motivated and yet I barely made it,” Howard Castleberry from Nacogdoches, Texas later said.

Anything this beautiful, moving and meaningful doesn’t come without a cost,” Howard said. It was so strenuous their oxygen level and blood pressure were checked twice every day by the camp doctor.

It did start off easy, a nice walk in the rain forest with the black and white Colobus monkeys which Allyson Dibrel aptly named the tree skunks.

By the end of the second day they were above the clouds and got their first clear view of the goal, the top of Kili. It looked immense.

Different men had prepared devotionals each night and the porters would sing them awake each morning. Summit day was to be a glorious sunrise devotional.

“It was an awesome experience that I was not prepared for even though I have done Trek in Colorado several times, but somehow I pushed through,” Rob said.

At this point clothes still appeared clean, hair shiny in the sunlight and the girls still beautiful like Bailey Rogers in the picture below. After a couple more days trudging up the mountain, that all changed.

As one beyond exhausted climber said, “At this point I skipped dinner preferring to sleep instead.”

Fourteen year old Aiden Martin from Temple, Texas appeared to be the most excited to be above the clouds. Great Picture Jason Martin!

There were five women climbing, they called themselves The “Fierce Women Warriors.” To spend eight days without makeup, shampoo or even a bath for these brave women was a challenge but Julia Gentry, Lindsey Vineyard, Bailey Rogers, Allyson Dibrell and Zoe Rascoe were confident they were ready.

On the morning of day three Lindsey Vineyard looked at the wall of rock before them and said, “You have got to be kidding!”

Few people on the face of the earth have spent 5 nights camping in freezing weather above the clouds. They slept in short two man tents they had to crawl into because the wind was too fierce for a stand up tent. The potty tent was sheer torture on a bare bottom and one man said he could barely stagger exhausted into the dinner tent to eat at night.

On the 7th day, nearing the top, one climber remarked my guide had to pull me up the last few steps. The guides climb this almost every day of the year and with 50 lbs of equipment, water, food, and tents on their heads! “My guide was pushing from behind,” another climber said.

In the middle of the night on the seventh day they were woken to begin the night climb to make the summit by sunrise. A mountain goat must have designed this harrowing climb in the dark. They wore head lamps which made them feel like they were climbing in a tunnel. It was disorientingly scary.

But all but one had made it to the top of the African world. Michael suffering from uncontrollable leg and back aches found after he got home he had a raging tooth infection and had to have a tooth pulled. Thank God he was not any further up the mountain, he knew he would have had to be carried down.

What would make 20 perfectly sane individuals attempt this? If you look closely you will see they are all carrying a polaroid picture of a Neema baby. They had climbed for the babies.

Tanner said, “I’m honored that I got to climb for Shabani.”

I am convinced that Peter as he hung upside down on that cross facing the last great challenge of his life, must have thought, Yeah, but I walked on water! These 20 courageous men and women will forever be able to say in the midst of life’s struggles, Yeah but I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro!!

Thank you is never enough.

Love,
The babies of Neema.

It was late at night when the neighbor heard the cry. It could have been an animal or an owl but to the old woman it sounded like a baby.  She ran to a neighbor and together they began searching for the sound. When they came to the gravel pit in a nearby construction site they knew it was not an animal. In her own words, she said, “I saw a baby lying face down in the pit and the cord and placenta were still attached. I took a rock and I sliced the cord.” As she knelt down to show us how she cut the cord she exclaimed, “I wrapped my konga around the baby and lifted her up into the sky saying, ‘Thank you God for my new daughter.’”

(Above, picking new baby Dorothy up at the hospital.)

I remember as I watched this story being dramatically performed in the small baby room at the old Neema House, I thought Meryl Streep has nothing on this woman. But knowing she could not keep the baby the woman later turned the little newborn into Social Welfare and Social Welfare called Neema Village to pick up the baby from the hospital. Abandoned and alone in the world, we named the baby Dorothy after my sister and a dear friend in Abilene, Texas.

We picked up 2 other babies from the hospital that day, Dawson a newborn left on the side of the road, and a beautiful little newborn whose mom had died in childbirth and the father named Doris. Jack and Sylvia Pape kept these three little ones in their room for days until they got settled in and we were taking their bottles.

Now at four years old, funny and precocious Dorothy dances to her own music most of the time. Below she is singing “If all the raindrops were Lemon drops and Gum drops” and running around the yard saying, “Aa, Aa, Aa Aaa, Aa Aa Aa Aaaa!” with her mouth open wide to catch the gumdrops.

While the other children cried to go to church with volunteers she would throw a fit if we tried to make her get into the car for church. She may have associated cars with going to the hospital to get a shot but at any rate she was having none it.

We watched this little girl grow and we wondered when someone would choose her. She kept us laughing most of the time when we weren’t trying to catch her and one of the cutest pictures we have of our babies is the one below of this little giggly baby girl.

Finally jut a few weeks ago, her big day came and her forever family with new mom and dad, uncles and cousins came to pick her up and fly her off to Dares Salem. The family had been coming to visit so Dorothy was not afraid plus the family paid for one of our nannies to fly to Dar with her. We like that.

These are always happy days with just a tinge of sadness for us knowing that most likely we will never see this funny, dancing girl again. We are grateful to have had a part in saving this little girl. It is what Neema does.

May God go with you Little Miss Dorothy and protect you and remember that we loved you first.

Be Blessed All,

Dorris and Michael Fortson