Neema House Arusha has helped seventy two babies since opening our doors three years ago. Fortunately some of them we were able to keep in their homes and bring monthly supplies and support out to them. They are our off-campus babies. Since our return to Africa in January we have been out to the Maasai villages to visit seven of those children. The ones in the picture above with Michael are Yacinta and Lucia, Frankie’s triplet sisters and Meshack, Frankie’s half brother. Frankie was too sick to leave and was brought in to the hospital and has been with us since the beginning of Neema House. Since Frankie is in school now the girls mother is anxious to get the girls in school, too. We will see how we can help with that. Most Maasai people do not have money and instead live off the land and their cattle and goats. Most of them never go to school.
Right are twins about four months old we have been helping in a remote Maasai village. Mothers out in the villages barely have enough milk to feed one baby much less two or three so Neema steps in to help. We were amazed at how many children were actually living in this one room mud house.
The set of twins to the left are about fourteen months old. They live in a small meager village with a herd of goats in the middle of the fly infested compound.
We believe in “Homes not Orphanages” so when it is possible we prefer to keep them in their home. With an abandoned baby, that is not possible and many times when a mother has died, custom will not let an unmarried man have a nanny live in the house to care for the baby. So unless there is a grandmother who can move in, the dads have to make other arrangements and many times we are called to help.
We have never had any of these off campus babies sponsored.
Visiting the villages is a long hard full day trip and we usually take enough food to last a month.
You can find the off campus babies pictured on our website www.neemahousearusha.org if you would like to sponsor one of them. Sponsorships start at $30 a month and are tax deductible. If you have been waiting to help send a child to school, now is your chance.
We were tickled to have our oldest daughter, Kim Fortson White (above) come to Neema and bring her two friends from Billings, Montana. Carol Wald and Jane Garnett were awesome volunteers.
Carol had brought soccer balls to give out and it was such fun to come upon a group of boys playing soccer with a roll of plastic sacks tied with string and watch Carol walk out and give them a new soccer ball. The men in the villages enjoy the soccer balls, too, like the man pictured below.
After a few weeks with impetigo at Neema House, the evil Chicken Pox struck. We have had nineteen of our babies come down with the pox, like Julius below.
We took a water well drilling company man with us out to Frankie’s village and lots of men from other villages got in on the fun of where to put the well. They each wanted it as close to their village as possible (pictured below). They told us some of the women walk as far as ten kilometers to haul water.
We have since contacted another company who has been in business longer and knows the area so we feel more confident they will find water for Frankie’s village. They spent three days at the village and did magnetic testing on three different plots. They found that some water was available at 70 meters but lots of water was available at 130 meters. If you have never prayed for a well to come in, now is the time to start!
We are continually amazed at the hard work being done mostly by hand at the new property site and that we are building for $24 a square foot! God is indeed Good! Pictured above, the foundation for the generator is being poured, so progress is being made and Matt Erdman is overseeing along with our builder, Mr Chandu Lodha. It is pretty exciting to think that in a few months we could have a new baby home, widows home, mothering center and a home for the unadoptable babies, like Malikia below.
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We want to bless you again for being a part of this ministry to abandoned, orphaned and at risk babies in Tanzania.
The set of twins to the left are about fourteen months old. They live in a small meager village with a herd of goats in the middle of the fly infested compound.
Visiting the villages is a long hard full day trip and we usually take enough food to last a month.
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