May 4th, 2023

I have been holding this story for a few months, trying to decide if I can print it. All our MAP moms have a tragic story but sometimes it is just hard to write them and hard to read. It is easier to read about puppies found in a trash can.

But I can’t let it go and I think you need to hear it. If it helps it does have a happy ending.

One of our lead nannies at Neema Village, was walking home recently when she saw an old friend from her primary school days on the street. Her friend was begging for help from anyone who would listen. She had been beaten up, cut and badly bruised and had a two year old with her and a four day old baby on her back. After talking with her friend, our nanny called Anna, the MAP Director at Neema Village.

The next day Anna and a couple of volunteers went to the house to see her. It was not much of a house, one room mud, just big enough for a double bed given to her by the people who owned the house and a thin foam mattress given by a neighbor. Since she had no money, the neighbor was also giving her food, a little dagaa (dried minnows) and corn meal. But the house was soon to be torn down so the little family would be homeless again.

We will call her Imani. She is 34 years old and had two children with her, she had left her three little boys out in the village. The baby was only a few days old. Her husband had left her and Imani had been working the streets to buy food for the family.

Street beggars are fairly common here since there are no government programs to help the poor.

Imani’s family was hungry so she agreed to carry drugs by swallowing them in a bag and walking across the border into another country in Africa.

On one of the trips, she and her friend were caught and the friend was shot and killed. The police threw her and the body of her friend into the back of a truck and took her to prison. It was a horrible ride, she told Anna, with her friend dead, blood everywhere, bouncing in the back of the truck with her.  In prison, in a foreign country, she had not realized she was pregnant again and after having the baby a kind policewoman tried to help her by getting her a ride back home with a driver hauling corn across the border. The driver asked for sex and she begged that she had a new baby and could not. She was raped anyway.

As she talked to Anna she was crying, “I’ve learned a lot and I really want to change my life, I just do not know where to start.” She didn’t want Anna to leave and was begging her to please come back.

Imani had no idea she had just come in contact with the One Power who could actually change her life!

We moved Imani into the MAP houses at Neema Village and she began meeting with other women who have been through abuse, and abandonment and had made really bad choices. She started classes; sewing, English, Bible, women’s rights, counseling seminars and twice a week she joined a Bible based group therapy session with the other women. (Imani has the red scarf on)

She began coming to church at Neema and one afternoon Kelle Samsill spent a couple of hours talking about Jesus and the power to have a new life and how to become a Christian. Imani knew that was what she had been looking for. She was a Muslim and one glorious Sunday morning Imani decided to announce to the world she is now a Jesus Follower by being baptized.  As we were walking back to the baby home Imani suddenly fell on her knees, held her arms up to the sky and thanked God for her new life.

There is much more to the story of Imani, faith is not always easy but she is growing. She has graduated out of the MAP house now and began her small business selling items like soap, salt and cokes. She returns to Neema for seminars where one day hopefully she will tell her story to encourage other young women coming in for help.

I love this!! Imani with her new MAP business. May God richly bless you if you have been supporting the MAP (Mothers Against Poverty) program through “Outreach” at Neema Village! It is amazing to see Hope come alive for these women!

There are classes everyday in the new Preslar Mothering Center. Women like Imani. who have been marginalized from society, kicked out, told they were unworthy and unloved are coming to know and accept Jesus and are being baptized. Lives are being changed. It is pretty exciting to watch God work at Neema Village!

Yes, God is still in the business of changing lives!

Love,

Dorris and Michael

www.neemavillage.org

April 1st, 2023

Five of our Fort Worth Christian girls volunteering at Neema Village this month went with Kelle Samsill, a Neema board member, and Anna Kimambo, our MAP Director, to visit a grandmother with her granddaughter. We had heard from Social Welfare that this poor grandmother needed help.

It was amazing how happy this widow woman was with her special needs granddaughter. The grandmother and girl could not stop smiling!

They were living in a mud hut with no electricity, no running water, no inside toilet, no car, no family, no medical help, and especially no government or non profit help to support the little family and they couldn’t stop smiling!

Going up into the mountains in Maasai country, the FWC group had to park the car and walk in over a foot path that gets pretty slippery in the rains, through a gully and up into the dirt swept yard of the mud hut.

Janet, the little special needs granddaughter was eighteen years old. Grandmother asked if any of the girls in the FWC group were that age. Kelle said they all were seventeen and eighteen years old, just the same age as Janet. The girls may have been in a bit of a shock.

As she held her, Kelle was surprised at how tiny Janet was, During her bath you could see there was not much to her little eighteen year old body.

The girls listened as grandmother talked about her life caring for her granddaughter. She didn’t complain or accuse anyone and she was not angry at what life had given her. She just seemed full of joy at being able to take care of Janet.

She wasn’t asking for a hand out but she had heard that Neema helps mothers and widows with small businesses. Anna gave her some money so she could buy a little food and then Kelle and Anna worked out a plan for a goat business for her. You don’t have to do a lot of hard work for goats, just feed them and watch them have babies so you can sell them. It sounds like the perfect business for this busy grandmother.

So, this week Kelle and Anna loaded up the cars with goats and volunteers to get grandmother started in her goat business.

Ally, Melanie, Nancy, Elaine and the goats went with Kelle to meet Janet.

This funny little goat below seems to be saying, “Is this my new home?”

We were so grateful to be able to help this sweet family.

Martha ran away from her Maasai village at night. Her father had died and the village elders wanted her to marry an old man who already had other wives. She walked to the highway about three hours at night to get to the main road where she hitched a ride with strangers to town. I cannot imagine how brave you have to be to do this! There are hyenas out there! In town Martha heard about a place that helped girls who ran away from early marriage and FGM. It was the sweet little church orphanage down the road from Neema Village.

The girls from the orphanage come to Neema Village on Fridays to sew and that is where we met Martha. She quickly became a leader in the group, leading the Maasai songs and the girls in prayer before they begin to sew. Dora the sewing instructor says she is a very good seamstress. After finishing the course, Martha received her own sewing machine from Neema Village.

Now she is ready to start a sewing business out in another Maasai Village. She has learned to make school uniforms. All school children wear uniforms here. To get her started we will buy her 3 bolts of fabric, good scissors, thread, other notions and a chair. She will also need rent for six months and money for food for six months. She is young and energetic and will do very well. If you want to help women like Martha please go to the Neema Village website www.neemavillage.org

We just finished our 17th Save The Mothers session helping twelve very brave grandmothers learn how to save mothers during childbirth.

I have to tell you after a week of working with these brave, smiling, lion hearted women I have begun to wonder if maybe we are not the ones who are in need of help!

Be Blessed dear ones,

Dorris and Michael

www.neemavillage.org

March 16th, 2023

I know that sounds backwards but it is really what happened. For this little one it was an end to a pretty sad existence when Social Welfare brought her to Neema Village.

Baby Kelle was covered in bug bites, her skin was red and crusty and I remember she didn’t cry a lot then.  I guess, like all abandoned babies, she had learned crying didn’t work, so why bother.

Kelle was about 3 months old when she came to Neema Village. Her mom had abandoned her in the house while she went out to work the streets.  A neighbor took the baby to the hospital because she was dehydrated and so weak she could not open her eyes. It took weeks to clear the baby’s damaged skin and much longer to heal the scars of abandonment.

But Kelle grew and became a sweet little girl. Always a bit afraid of visitors and shy around most people, she would hide behind us and cry when visitors came to see her. We had prayed someone would overlook that and she would find a Forever Family soon.

God is Good and at two years old he sent just the right family for Kelle.

Jamila and her husband had had one child, a girl named Lightness, who on the day she was to be promoted to bank manager found she had an enlarged heart and soon passed away. The parents were devastated. Dad said it was like a light had gone out of their home.

But they had their daughter’s teenage girl to raise and, on the day all three came to Neema to see about adopting a child, Kelle was brought out to see them. Would she scream and cry like usual when she met strangers? Thank God, not this time, to our surprise she crawled up in a lap and made herself at home. It was love at first sight.

In just a few days the family came to take Kelle home. They changed her name from Kelle to Lightness and dad, with a bright smile, said because a light had come on in their home again. So it was the end of a tragic start and the beginning of a new life for LIghtness.

Yesterday we were invited to their home. We don’t often get to see the new life of our adopted babies so we were pretty excited. They wanted us to see how good she was doing and dad gave us the ok to post so you could see. Marquisette, Heavenlight, Kelle, Aly Lane and Ashley loved their beautiful home and sweet smiles.

Kelle O’ Pry Samsill, baby Kelle’s namesake, had brought a sweetheart cake, lollypops, and toys and stickers.

This time baby Kelle hid behind her new mom’s skirts and didn’t want to come out to see us. It was a really good sign.

She eventually came out for the cake and after her second piece she was letting Kelle show her the stickers.

After a prayer of blessing and protection for their home, we left with full, happy hearts. Once again what evil had meant for death, God had meant for Life.

May the light and love of Lightness and her new family bring you joy in your family, too..

Saving babies one at a time at Neema Village

Dorris and Michael Fortson

www.neemavillage.org

March 3rd, 2023

With lots of volunteers this month and the grand opening of the new Mothering Center we have neglected to tell you about new babies at Neema Village. We usually average two new babies a month. December was our largest month ever with nine new babies. This month we had four new babies all precious and beautiful. Currently there are 65 babies at Neema with one pending adoption. (Remember Neema Village does not do adoptions, Social Welfare handles all legal adoptions in Tanzania.)

Baby Jackson’s very young father realized after one month that he was not able to care for his baby after the death of his wife due to malaria.

The father works in Dar and lives very far away, so they traveled a long way to bring the baby to Neema Village. We will be looking for a family member who can care for little Jackson in a family home. It has always been our belief that no baby belongs in an orphanage.

Jackson weighed 3.5 kg at one month old. He is sweet and precious and we love him already. It is so sad that people still die of a disease that is so treatable like malaria.

We have been waiting a few months to post about this baby. Sometimes their stories are so convoluted it is hard to tell you what actually happened. to them. Neighbors had reported to Social Welfare that an old woman had been caring for a newborn and was not taking good care of the baby.

The woman said a couple had paid her to keep their newborn baby. But when the couple was contacted in a town about 12 hours away, the mother said it was not her baby but that she had used a surrogate. Hmmm… Not sure how that works here in Africa. I think it is called a mistress. A police investigation is going on and DNA testing has been done. Didn’t know they could do that here either?

Triplets are very common here in Africa. We have had 17 sets and one set of quads! The latest are three sweet little Maasai girls. Their Maasai mom did not have enough milk for all three babies. Due to lack of rain this year there has been very little food out in the villages. The mom brought her three little bundles in and we have kept her for two months trying to build her up with good food so she would have enough milk. But Mom needs to return home now so she has taken the biggest baby and has promised to come in every month to see the other two babies.

The girls are cuddly, round faced Maasai babies and we love them to pieces. They look like our first set of triplets, Frankie and his sisters from eleven years ago.

Naleku and Nembris, the triplet girls, are growing fat and happy and will be big, healthy Maasai girls someday. Hopefully they can return home to their triplet sister at around nine months.

New MAP Mom Neema, (yes just like our name Neema Village) is heading home after two months learning to care for her special needs baby at our Rehabilitative Daycare. We will set her up in a small duka (shop) selling rice, beans, oil and ugali flour. Her husband is mentally challenged and is not able to work. Neema is the sole support for the family. She will do very well in her new business. If you want to help her with her business check out her page on our website under See MAP Moms.

We love the joy on these MAP mom’s faces as they head out to start a new life of hope and promise and in this case new shiny shoes!

God bless each of you who share with these babies and moms at Neema Village. You are what keeps it all going.

Love, Love,

Dorris and Michael Fortson

www.neemavillage.org

February 23rd, 2023

We had all been working hard to get it finished in time, painting, buying the furnishings, planning the meal, planting flowers, inviting guests and yesterday the Siku Kuu (Big Day) opening of the new Preslar Mothering Center on the campus of Neema Village in Tanzania, East Africa took place.

We love it! The building is beautiful but we are praying that what will happen in that wonderful place will be even more beautiful. Women who have been abandoned and abused will come to know that there is a man named Jesus and he has never once taken his eyes off them or abandoned them.

Ken and Joan Preslar came to help us open the building. We prayed that God would bless everything that will happen in this building and that it will all be to His Glory.

Marquisette and Kim led Ken and Joan over, eyes closed, until they came through the gate. Joan was crying, Kim and I were crying and Ken was standing in disbelief.

The building will house the MAP (Mothers Against Poverty) program, and The Save The Mothers programs at Neema Village. A sewing room, literacy room, computer room, kitchen, bathrooms with showers, offices for Anna and Mercy along with a large conference room all furnished with tables, chairs, kitchen and office equipment, screen and video projector, mics, sound equipment and so much more. Thank You Butterfield Foundation!

They had so much fun practicing the walk for the style show wearing the new dresses they had all made. A lot of hooting and hollering was going on!

We had invited the Regional Commissioner, who is directly under the President, to come help us open the center. Thank you to our good friend, Pastor Israel, from the little church down the street that rescues young girls from early marriage and FGM, this busy man actually came!

Of course we took him through the baby home first so he could see our precious babies.

Michael led the Commissioner over from the baby home to the new women’s center. He was very kind and gracious. We have found the higher up in government they are the nicer they are!

Some of our past birthers from the Save the Mothers programs came in for the day. There was a large crowd to welcome the commissioner with drums and singing.

Some of our co-op sewing groups from the Maasai village came in for the day. Queenie came as well with her young girls who sew school uniforms and raise bees for honey as their MAP businesses.

The best MAP businesses of the year received a certificate and bonus. There have been 109 women finish the MAP courses and set up businesses through Neema Village. Eight women who have finished the sewing course received sewing machines. Dora the teacher also received her own machine.

It was a fun day with lots of food and laughter. Michael spoke and our two directors Anna and Mercy had time to say a few words.

One of our hair dressers from Dar es Salaam came in for the big day. In her former life she had worked the street but knew she could not survive out there. We sent her to beauty school and now she works in a large salon in Dar.

God is still in the business of changing lives!

We cannot possibly say thank you enough to Ken and Joan Preslar for building this new Mothering Center. We pray that all the good that will take place in this buiilding will go on for generations to come as young African women come in and find hope and courage in their lives.

“When you lift a woman in Africa you not only change her world you change ours!”

Joan you can stop crying now sweetheart!

February 18th, 2023

Don’t you just love Good News! We do and we love sending you good news. There are Good things happening at Neema Village right now.

We are excited and happy… I think. Our little abandoned baby James’s mom came back and Social Welfare said he could return home with her. Gulp!

We had fallen in love with this sad little guy who had been found in a ditch a few weeks ago and we had been calling him James.

As I held him in my arms, he was hesitant at first, then I felt him lean toward her and I knew she was his mom. She said his name was Joseph and told us she had learned she has the sickness and was scared she would not be able to take care of him. We told her this baby is your gift from God please call us first if you think you cannot take care of him again.

We took her to the Preslar Mothering Center to meet Anna and get her enrolled in MAP. She will learn to read and write and hopefully she will learn how much God loves her and wants a better life for her.

She will be with other women just like herself and later she will be able to start a MAP business that will support her family.

Today we had earring making in the center and there was lots of singing and laughing.

It is good for us to see how these two Neema programs work together; an abandoned baby, mom returns, mom gets help, mom gets baby back and family is reunited!

We do pray for that. We know these babies need their moms.

Sweet baby Gillian got a new mom yesterday. She came to Neema Village only a few hours old after her mom just walked out of the hospital and abandoned her.

You have to live in Tanzania 3 years before you can adopt. Tanzania’s Social Welfare handles all adoptions. Neema Village does not do adoptions.

But we do love them!

Last week we had our first Save The Mothers program of the year. Sixteen Maasai traditional birthers spent a week with us at Neema Village. They had morning devotionals, classes all day and singing at night. It is always fun when we take volunteers to sing and dance with them. These old ladies can dance!! They each went home with a lot of gifts to help them in their work and they went home with a bible in Maasai. Most of them cannot read but maybe their grandkids can.

Maasai land missed the short rains this year and we were getting reports of children dying out in the villages. A mom with twins in Maria’s village was starving, she didn’t have enough milk for two babies and one of the twins died. They brought the poor mom and her little twin in to the hospital but then the mom died. One little twin is still in the hospital and hopefully will make it.

We knew we had to help so Michael left early this morning to make another food delivery. He said he was driving in dust powder a foot thick and the wind was so high he thought he was in a dust bowl.

There were easy 500 people waiting for them and it became pandemonium when they saw the food. He had taken $400 dollars worth of food this trip (Thank you Kathy Sherrill Strong and your Facebook friends) and Michael knew Jesus was going to have to multiply that food because there was no way it was going around to everyone!

Please don’t feel guilty if you had a good breakfast this morning. I did too. Just share when you can.

We have had some awesome volunteers this month and I cannot possibly name them all or I would leave one out. You know who you are and you know we luv ya!

Psalms 27:13. “I am confident I will still see the Goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.”

Michael and Dorris

www.neemavillage.org

January 18th, 2023

After our Christmas break in Texas we arrived back in Africa on Thursday night and the Aggies For Christ from Texas A & M University arrived Friday Morning. That began a grand, rather breathless two weeks.

With Amy Miller and her two girls here as well, we had a full breakfast table again at Neema Village.

The breakfast Quiche always has spinach from our garden, eggs from Neema chickens and milk from Neema cows. God is good!

There is never a dull moment with the Aggies! I thought you might like to see what volunteering at Neema Village looks like through the eyes of these young people.
Aggies are always ready to jump in whether its painting tables and playground equipment, walking babies, moving chairs or holding babies in church.

Although Texas A & M University is no longer just an Agricultural and Mechanical University, there were some Ag and Pre-vet majors in the group this time. We love showing off our beautiful gardens and farm.  We use a drip system to water the gardens to conserve water.

GodListen is our farmer and with an agriculture degree from a local university he has made a huge difference in our vegetable production. We should have a bumper crop of coffee this year after GodListen bought blight resistant coffee plants.

For our squash, pumpkins, egg plants and carrots, he created a cold storage room, with walls made of coal and chicken wire and a water drip system to keep vegetables fresh longer. It’s pretty cool!

We water our gardens with a huge aerobic water system which cleans our sewer water just like we have at our house in Belton, Texas. I would imagine it is the only aerobic sewer system in Tanzania!

A few years ago we had a wedding at Neema Village. Rhiannon and Austin met as volunteers at Neema, fell in love here and later decided to come back to Neema to get married. It was one of the most fun days we have ever had in Africa! And instead of wedding gifts their guests bought a bio gas system for Neema.

Two of our houses on campus now cook with methane gas from cow pooh! Our vet, Dr. Ben described how that bio-gas system worked to some of the A & M students.

Dr. Ben takes care of our big Holstein milk cows and Missy our little Jersey cow who gives us butter. Did you know that cows do not have top teeth? Only bottom teeth and if you grind their food they live longer! Interesting huh!

Ben also showed the students our Rhode Island Reds who feed us about 80 to 100 eggs a day. And with 150 baby chicks raised every six weeks for meat we can supply the campus with fresh chicken at a much-reduced price from buying chicken in the stores.

The seven Aggie guys taught a men’s bible class at lunch, the students met with the MAP moms to encourage them, they sang with the nannies at night after the babies were all asleep and they played soccer with the local village boys. They had some time for fun at the local Maasai markets and toured a Maasai village and danced with the Maasai.

You can’t come to Africa and not see the animals so they took a day and toured the closest game park, Tarangire. The elephants will occasionally come right up to your car in that game park.

The Aggies come to serve and sometimes it is just plain hard work, right girls?

It’s a village and we raise a lot more than just babies around here, but babies are at the top of the food chain for us. They are what Neema Village is about and every program we do centers around the babies.

It is always hard to let the Aggies go.
We have lost count of how many students the Campus Ministers, Brian and Leslie Miller, have sent to Neema Village over the last few years but it’s a lot.

Hayden Liebl always leads the groups, getting them up for breakfast, directing traffic, doctoring the sick, making sure they get the jobs done, have some fun and always make it back in one piece.
They love well, work hard and are the hands and heart of Jesus whether in Arusha town or at Neema Village with the babies.
With young people like these our future is in good hands!
Neema means Grace and any good done is done by the Abundant Grace of God,
Michael and Dorris
www.neemavillage.org

December 15, 2022

Who will they grow up to be, these five little Christmas babies who came to Neema Village this month.  As we care for them, we think about who they will become some day now that their lives have been given back.

These little ones who have been thrown out, forgotten, abused, unloved, we wonder who they will become someday. How far can they go now? Whose lives will they change now that their lives have been changed? So much hope and possibility in their lives now.

When we look in the faces of these babies with such tragic stories, we have to wonder what this saving will mean. Could they grow up to be healers and helpers, will they work with the blind, the lame, the sick. Maybe they will become great leaders and help heal nations of hatred and greed. Maybe they will find cures for what ails us all. Maybe they will grow up to be teachers or preachers and help people seek goodness and most of all to seek Jesus?  Maybe they will just be good moms and dads who will love their own children.  As if that is not enough!

This time of year, as I think about all the babies at Neema Village, 62 of them in-house today, and all the possibilities of their futures, it reminds me of that beautiful song,

Did you know that this baby boy could someday help the blind? Maybe.

November 27th, 2023

And suddenly it’s Christmas! But before we go can I just say how thankful Michael and I are for you. If you are reading my blogs, I’m Thankful! When the spirit of inspiration hits it is usually 3:30 in the morning so bless your sweet heart for sticking with me.

Year number ten for us at Neema, can you believe that! God is so Faithful. He has taken this little gift of an idea from two old retired people who landed ten years ago in Africa with little more than suitcases and He made this huge, living, beautiful, sometimes loud and chaotic place called Neema Village.

Thirty-One babies came to Neema this year and twenty-four babies were able to return home, were adopted or entered our Foster Care/boarding school program. Today there are 57 babies living in the baby home at Neema Village. 

Babies must be special to God; he sent his Son as one!

Twenty six moms, like Prissila above who wants to start a rice and beans business, entered the MAP (Mothers Against Poverty) program and 21 moms started new businesses this year through Neema’s program for abandoned and abused women.

To help stem the tide of babies left without mothers in Maasai land thirteen “Save The Mothers” sessions were held this year. That is 143 Grandmothers better trained to save lives of women in childbirth.

In all the work that goes on at Neema, one thing stands out as we look at this year. Our beautiful, dedicated, amazing nannies!

They are just people like us, they make mistakes, they fuss and yell at each other but overall they are giants and they deeply love these babies. They stay late, they come early, they spend nights on end in the hospital with little sick ones and they work on Christmas! 

At Christmas we try to remember them. Every year for ten years we have tried to give each employee a $100 dollar gift. It’s not much but it means everything to them, it means Christmas for their own kids, it means a trip home to the village to see the family, it means paying school fees, it means food on the table for their family. In a country where the average monthly income for a family is one hundred dollars it means a lot.

It’s amazing to write, and a bit scary, but today we have 87 full time employees!

As you have followed along this year, seeing the work (like harvesting the beans above), I hope you have seen standing behind all that happens here at Neema are those 87 incredible people changing diapers, fixing endless bottles, cooking, cleaning up spills, getting little fussy ones to sleep, walking the halls late at night with sick ones, racing breathless to the hospitals, sleeping in chairs in hospital rooms for weeks on end…I could go on and on

We really do try not to ask for money, we have always felt that is not our job. Our job is to tell the story and we let God handle the money, but at Christmas, for our nannies… I’m just sayin’.

At this time of year may you remember that sweet gift in the manger and may He gift you with those three priceless treasures that only He can give, Hope, Joy and Peace. Merry Christmas from our big school kids to you!

You can help make Christmas for the nannies on the official website:

November 1, 2022

We love these beautiful people of the Maasai. Sparkling, under the weight of beads and bangles around their necks, they twinkle and flash in the light while their reds, yellows and purples paint color onto the drab, dusty plains of East Africa.

They love to sing as they come to greet us into their village.

Some of you have asked if we do follow up and keep records of the moms and babies saved by the midwives who have gone through our safe birthing training. Well, Yes, we do! Six weeks after their training we go out to count the number of deliveries and moms and babies.

But it is always fun to see them dance before we get down to work.

October 13. 2022

We don’t often get photos like these so I wanted to share them with you immediately.

Angel, our social worker got a call this morning that there were two babies at the hospital and we should come pick them up. She took three of our volunteers, Kelle Samsill from Fort worth, Texas, Heidi Hanson from Fort Collins, Colorado and Janiece Watts from Abilene, Texas to hold the babies in the car. One baby was abandoned and the other has a mentally ill mom who cannot take care of the baby.

It is quite an experience to pick up a baby that has lost his or her mother for whatever reason. It does something mushy to your heart, right Kelle!

Neither of the babies has a name so the hunt is on for names. I will have to tell you later since at this point I am not sure what their names will be! They are both girls.

They both look pretty healthy and are home safe and sleepy at Neema Village tonight.

I will keep you updated on the two babies in the Nairobi Hospital. For now, no news is good news.

October 11, 2022

“Seated on the plane and asked to get off”

Kim says it was the worst day ever at Neema Village baby home. Ashley had brought baby girl Neema home from the hospital in Arusha, for the fifth time but her nose was still bleeding and she was vomiting blood.

“That is enough,” Kim said, “let’s get this baby to the big Aga Kahn hospital in Nairobi.” So, airline tickets were bought for Mama Musa and Betty to fly baby Neema to Kenya. Ashley would have gone but it takes three days to get a visa into Kenya and we couldn’t wait.

When Neema was home with us we had her in complete isolation and was feeding her with a syringe because her adenoids are so large she could not suck a bottle and breath at the same time. We have all been desperate and knew this baby needed help. After five admissions to the hospital, she has almost spent more time in the hospital than at Neema Village!

It’s always a mad scramble to get ready to take a baby to the hospital; formula and clean water has to be packed and clothes and diapers for who knows how long and finding a nanny who can go and stay and….  Finally, with the baby, they were seated on the plane ready to take off when unbelievably they were asked to get off the plane! Mama Musa and Betty were begging and pleading to be allowed back on.

Kim doesn’t give up easy so she hired an ambulance to drive them to Kenya.

None of this is easy since you have to cross the Tanzanian border into Kenya and permits and documents and visas and car titles and driver have to be gathered and everything signed and stamped and paid, and a nanny hired to leave her family and go to Nairobi and stay with the baby. Thank you sweet Nanny Betty!

But they made it and baby Neema is in a bed in Kenya where finally we hope to get some answers. I am pretty sure after all this, little Neema feels like sticking her tongue out at most everyone!