Four New Babies at Neema Village

Four New Babies at Neema Village

December 18, 2019

There would be no baby book of memories, no happy family homecoming from the hospital, no flowers, no neighbors peeking in the blanket to see the new baby, no casseroles, no one interested in the birthing stories… Just the name “Tuesday” tied with a string on his wrist

That was baby number one’s history, a wrist tag that said Tuesday when we were called to pick up four babies at the hospital, three abandoned and one whose mom had died.

Two of our volunteers, Karly Hoggard and Nicky Thomas went with Angel and Hannah to the hospital to pick up the babies. They came home with three little baby boys. We are waiting on number four. Hopefully the mom has come back to find him or maybe Social Welfare has identified the mom and is trying to find another family member or maybe he is just not strong enough to leave the hospital.

Tonight I don’t even know the babies names or what happened to them, where were they found, on the road, in a latrine? Who found them or did their moms just walk out of the hospital? I’m sure we will get the police reports on them, for now we are keeping them warm and fed.

Bekah Johnson weighed the babies and checked them out as they entered Neema Village. One of the babies, the one whose mom died, is very tiny, about 1.9 kilos and is 2 months old. Please say a prayer for this little one tonight. God gives them each a will to live they just have to be strong enough to fight.

A young Maasai man, tall and strong, a defender of his family, able to kill a lion single handedly, headed to the hospital with his excited wife to have their first baby. He went home by himself last night to an empty house. There are no words to describe this kind of sadness.

The fourth baby may still be pending at the hospital but we did have a fourth baby at Neema Village yesterday. This little guy, pictured below, made his sudden appearance to Daisy our milk cow. He has no name yet, but has one eye with long black eyelashes and one eye with long white eyelashes.

As we gathered round to hold these three new babies I was reminded again of David Platt’s statement in his book, “Radical.”

Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they’re not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes.

I know it did for me.

Thank you to all of you who knew they were real with us this year.

Dorris