Architect students at Neema.
From a slab to a roof in eleven days!
This month thirty architect volunteers; students from all over the world, a professor and his wife, Paul and Barbara Hahn from Minnesota and their team came to build one of the four homes planned at Neema Village for our unadoptable babies.
It was quite amazing to watch them work. It reminded me of a verse in Nehemiah, “The walls came up…because the people had a heart to work.”
Two years ago a young medical student in Arusha studying tropical medicine, Lovise Mhyre, from Norway came to volunteer at Neema.
She fell in love with the babies and when she returned home she decided to do something to help. She decided to build a house for our unadoptable children. Even though we have had 21 adoptions so far at Neema, we have seen that all our babies will not be able to return home or be adopted. Like Malikia who is blind and whom we’ve had since her birth. Mali is Maasai and would not have survived out in that harsh environment. 
And Frankie our first baby who at six months weighed a tiny 5 pounds and is still fragile. And Elesha with Beals Syndrome and others who may have one surviving relative who has AIDS and can’t keep them but will not release them for adoption. We love them, so we will keep them, we decided. But they don’t belong in the baby home, so let’s build four small family style cottages on our 9.8 acres. And Lovise caught the dream. She also caught a cute fiancée while at Neema.
That is Lovise with Eric who got engaged early one morning on the front porch of Neema. I came out to find her ecstatic and Eric, the romantic, leaning over the rail crying. Love it! I told them I wasn’t sure I could take much more of this sweetness!! 
Early every morning the students came piling out
of the rented bus and headed to the construction site. They divided into 4 teams and each took a section of the slab to begin building.
They took turns leading the groups so each could have input in design and management. They added special touches as they went along, little peep hole windows down low for the children to look out, wrap
around corner windows, vaulted ceilings for cooling, and what will be a stunning full wall of glass facing Mt. Meru, the fifth tallest mountain in all of Africa.
To all of you special students who came from so many different countries; Belgium, China, Australia, Norway, Dares Salaam, the USA and left a part of your heart in Africa and with the babies of Neema, we love you guys! (Below student Architects tell the babies bye.)
As we served cake and ice cream on their last few moments at Neema, we told them that we knew they would go out into the world and build great things, sky scrapers and bridges but that we hoped they would always remember this precious work of building a home for some unwanted and thrown away children in Africa as a highlight of their careers.
How appropriate that we close our tribute to some pretty cool young architects with one of my favorite pictures of our feisty, little Dorothy who, as a newborn with umbilical cord and placenta still attached, was thrown away as garbage in a construction site into a gravel pit.
May the LORD bless and keep you and may His Face shine upon you.
Michael an Dorris
I went out walking around our new neighborhood this afternoon and some neighborhood boys wanted to walk with me. Of course they did, I had candy! They had made a little rolling stick toy and were laughing and having fun the whole way 
They can make the cutest toys out of nothing and have just as much fun as if it were store bought. I thought you might like to see the home of one of our closest neighbors. That is Neema’s new green roof just peaking up in the back of this home below.
One of our Maasai babies, Nengai, whose mom died at her birth had a visit from her grandmother on Friday. The father’s new wife came with her. I asked the driver if she was twelve years old and he said no, she is eleven. Oh My!
you will remember Phillip’s special story. He was very tiny when abandoned so he spent a couple of months in the hospital until he was big enough to bring home to Neema. We named him Phillip after Phillip Wood, the only American on the Malaysian flight that went down a couple of years ago. My sister, Lottie McCormack in Edmond Ok, and Phillip Wood’s mother were friends, pregnant at the same time and their two boys grew up together in Oklahoma and later were roommates at Oklahoma Christian. When Phillip’s plane went down Lottie called and asked if we would name a baby after Phillip.
So now the rest of the story. We blogged a few months or so ago about Phillip being adopted and this was our first trip out to check his new home. Simone, a volunteer and her mom, and Angel, our social worker and Mama Musa, the Neema Manager and I traveled the endless or so it felt, rocky path up the mountains for a visit to see how Phillip was doing. His new mom and dad met us as we drove up to the house.
The cement home was surrounded outside by bananas trees, flowers and chickens scratching in the yard, There was a car and a motorcycle at the house so his family seems more affluent than the average Tanzanian family. They graciously fed us snacks of boiled eggs and bananas.
On the way back from Phillip’s house we stopped to check in on another abandoned baby, Michael, all grown up now, and his adoptive family. Michael had been abandoned on a front porch and the people who found him adopted him, which happens fairly often. He now has grandparents, a dad, uncles, aunts and cousins who love him and he is in school.
The builders are cutting the stones for the retaining walls on the property. They are also making the paving stones right here on the Neema property for the walk ways and for some sections of the road.
Mr. Chandu, our contractor, and Matt Erdman, are the two men out there at the land every day making this happen. On any given day there are aroiund 50 men working on this project. Thanks guys!
The rooms for the babies are painted in soft yellows and blues and the big hall down the middle of the home is also yellow. Hopefully one day there will be pictures of animals, giraffe, zebra, elephant, etc. painted on the walls down low enough for the children to see as they run and play in this big hallway.
The kitchen has an island in the middle of the room and big burners on the counter for boiling the 30 litres of milk a day we need to feed these hungry babies. We estimate around a hundred bottles of milk are made at Neema a day! We will also be feeding our staff and volunteers out of this kitchen every day.
Mr. Chandu created the blue prints for the front steps leading up to the porch after Michael had emailed his hand drawn ideas for the steps before we got here last week. It will be beautiful with flower gardens to the sides of the rounded steps. I think the bottom step down is going to be a doosy though!
You might be interested to know that the workers eat at Neema village every day. Two women cook for them, usually rice and beans or like today, Ugali and a dipping sauce of meat and potatoes. They pour the Ugali (pictured to the right) out on big platters and all eat from the same plate with their fingers, just like we used to in the old days of Africa. It was quite delicious and the smoky kitchen just added to the flavor.
A few months ago a young couple began coming to visit Neema House Arusha and noticed this beautiful baby. Sifa was calm, pleasant, quick to smile, sweet tempered and with a gentle disposition. The volunteers and staff all fell in love with her. 
That is Lindsey on the left, a volunteer from Nacogdoches, with Sifa at the mountain church. We love taking the babies to church, dressing them up and putting bows in their hair, if they have hair! and on their cute little bald heads if they don’t!
day playing with her, changing diapers, dressing and feeding her. So last week when Sifa went home to live with them she was not afraid. We are so happy about that. Sometimes it works out this way, a few times babies are adopted by couples who don’t spend time with them. That is pretty rough on the baby. But Sifa’s new mom and dad did it right. We could not be happier for this precious baby and her new family. Once again what evil meant for bad, God meant for good. 
We try very hard to not judge these women who abandon their babies. It is difficult to understand what would make a mother do something like this. We know mothers everywhere love their babies. It must be something so drastic and traumatic that she feels she has no choice but to her lay her baby down and walk away. I cannot imagine the anguish in her heart as she does this.
Monthly sponsorships of the babies pay the monthly bills to care for the babies. You might be interested to know that Sarah Lockett, our incredible bookkeeper, who works free of charge I might add, has separate accounts so that sponsorship money does not go into building funds or tractor funds, or other funds but goes into the monthly operating expenses to care for the babies. That pays for formula, rent, nanny salaries, petrol, food, medical, utilities, lights, and water. That is Sarah, a nurse from Waco, Tx in the picture kissing the baby. The baby Sarah, who was named for her, has been adopted by a wonderful family who moved to Italy after her adoption. 
We also want you to know that we are always looking for ways to save money. In an effort to cut down on buying so much expensive canned formula, our cooks buy, boil and process 30 liters of fresh cow’s milk every day! It takes a huge pan on the stove to process that much milk! Kelly found a recipe for baby formula using fresh cow’s milk.
So once the babies are 6 months old they are switched to the new recipe which we make in our kitchen at Neema. It takes a lot of milk plus lots of fresh fruits and vegetables to get our babies to look like the healthy little Neemaities you see when you visit Neema. With our nannies and volunteers giving lots of TLC, these babies go from the tiny little one Bec Azzopardie from Australia is feeding to healthy little girls like Sharon and Maria pictured below.
We spoke at a business class at ACU this week and we asked the students after the video what they noticed that was different from other pictures of orphanages in Africa they had seen in the past. They were quick to respond that our babies look healthy, clean, chubby and happy, like Sharon and Maria.
When we move to Neema Village we will have our own cows and chickens and grow our own vegetables. Our landscape and gardens manager, Julius, ( pictured to the left) has already planted banana trees, corn, squash and beans at Neema.
We arrive at the sponsorship cost by taking the month’s operating costs divided by how many babies we have that month. Last year it averaged between $300 and $388 per month depending on medical costs for the babies that month. In January we had three preemies, like Loitapuaki, in Intensive Care. Four million shillings in hospital bills for one month can blow a hole in our budget! We have learned that sponsorships is an ever changing thing! Credit cards expire, sponsors drop out, new sponsors come in, new babies arrive and other babies get adopted each month. It changes every month! 
We debated long and hard over whether we should let one baby be over sponsored. Should we tell a new potential sponsor, No, that baby is already taken, chose another baby? Some potential sponsors have a connection such as “My son’s name is John so I want to sponsor John.” So we decided the babies who have more sponsorship money could help cover the cost of the babies who have no sponsors. Thank God we have three babies who are “over sponsored” today. They help us take care of the ones who have no sponsors. Beautiful Saruni, pictured above, is one of our new babies this year. 
To sponsor a baby, go to the web site 
ing Hi! He was about two and half pounds when brought to Neema. His mom had died and he was not expected to live. But the latest news from Neema is that Imran now has a double chin. Praise God!
Newborn Carol Ann was abandoned in February. She is such a little sweetheart. We pray there will be a good family to step forward to adopt her. We work with Social Welfare on the adoptions and they generally give about six months for a member of the family to claim the baby. If no one comes forward then the baby is put up for adoption. Neema has now had 21 adoptions! Neither Social Welfare nor Neema accept money for adoptions. 
Saruni is a Masaai baby whose mom died at his birth. His father brought him into town to Neema. Many of these dads have no income and cannot afford expensive formula. There is also no electricity for refrigeration out in the villages and no clean water. We can help supply those things for the dad in his home and do quite often but if there is no one to care for the baby at home then we take them in at Neema. Saruni will go back home when he is stable, off the bottle and his dad has remarried. He is such a beautiful baby. 
was left abandoned. He was healthy and looked like he had been well cared for. We have no idea why someone who obviously loved him would then abandon him. If we can locate moms like baby Rusty’s mom and get them into the MAP program at Neema maybe we can offer them a better way. Stay tuned for more news about the MAP program (Mothers Against Poverty).
Osiligi also lost his mother in childbirth. That is such a common occurrence out in the Masai villages where there is little medical care. Osi is normally a very smiley baby but looks a bit worried here. We would love to tell him not to worry, that we are working constantly to be able to take care of him. 
Meet baby Ronald. This little guy was found abandoned by a river on the outskirts of Arusha. Someone walking by heard him and called the police, who then referred him to Neema. He was born around the 28th of March, and is currently just over 2.5 kg and in good health. He was named for a truly great man, Ronald Huddleston, a missionary doctor to Africa in the 1960s. I would love to sit down and tell you some fun stories about the good ‘ole days with Dr. Ron and his wife Maxine in Africa when the lions still walked the corridors of the hospital where he worked in Chimala. Maybe some day! But we were honored to be able to name this little guy for Dr. Ron. 
Emmanuel means “God With Us.” I love this little guy’s name and I love telling people that if God were not with us in this we would be lost. To not only provide for the 106 babies who have now been cared for by Neema but to also have 40 full time Tanzanian employees and their families who rely on us for their income is way far above our heads. Thank God it is not above His! 
Our landscape plans call for these beautiful bushes around the fence at Neema Village, our home for abandoned, orphaned and at risk babies in Africa. With almost 2,926 linear feet of fence around our ten acres that is a lot of Bougainvillea! You can honor your mother/second mom or remember her with a gift of flowers to Neema House Arusha. “Buy a $20 Bougie Bush” and help us cover the barbwire fence around the property with these beautiful flowers.
On a visit to Neema House Arusha, a surgeon and his wife from Dar es Salaam fell in love with this quiet, shy, little boy and Danny has now gone home to his forever family. 
So much of what our little Neemaites at Neema Baby Home do and say reminds me of our children when they were little.
One of the most exciting things to happen this trip was the water well and finally getting the pipes laid from the well down in the banana grove up to the top of the property and into the holding tanks so it can flow down into the new buildings.
