TWO BABIES SAVED BY YOUR LOVE

Each Thurs­day is food give out for the orphans who live near our mis­sion sta­tion. Weigh­ing the babies who receive milk for­mu­la is mandatory.

Baby Ahselmina’s (Ah-sel-meen-ah) is 6 months old, and very mal­nour­ished even though she has been in our pro­gram for 90 days. Her poor weight gain the last 3 weeks, as well as her weight loss this week set off RED FLAGS. Anna, our Children’s Direc­tor, brought it to my atten­tion. This baby’s moth­er is very slow men­tal­ly, and it was obvi­ous she was not prop­er­ly feed­ing the baby.

An imme­di­ate med­ical con­sult was arranged with the Bala­ma doc­tor and Social Ser­vices, who inter­viewed Ahselmina’s mother.

Social Ser­vices con­vinced her to let us raise her baby, and doc­u­ments were writ­ten up that placed her in our care, for there was no oth­er fam­i­ly to help her.

This lit­tle girl’s name is such a mouth­ful, that we quick­ly nick­named her “ADDY”, (ini­tials of her full name). After 1 day in our care, Addy was smil­ing and grab­bing every­thing in her reach. Her hand strength is amaz­ing for such a tiny, mal­nour­ished body!

URGENT CALL REQUESTING A 2ND INFANT RESCUE

We had just got­ten Addy set­tled with her new fam­i­ly, when anoth­er call came through from Social Ser­vices. “Please return to the hos­pi­tal and bring for­mu­la, as a 3 DAY OLD GIRL was just brought in who has had NOTHING to drink since birth.” I put it in high gear, grab­bing baby for­mu­la and a bot­tle before rac­ing off to the hos­pi­tal with Children’s Direc­tor, Anna.

Three day old Vic­to­ria, weigh­ing bare­ly 2 kg (4 lbs.) was dehy­drat­ed, weak, and ready to give up liv­ing. Her veins had col­lapsed, so her only hope was oral feed­ing. Being an X‑NICU nurse, I knew if she was too weak to suck, we would most like­ly lose her.

Say­ing a silent prayer, I squeezed drops of milk into her mouth. Once the taste hit her tongue, she began a weak suck­ing motion. Plac­ing the bottle’s nip­ple in her mouth, she began to suck with lots of coax­ing, slow­ly drink­ing 30 ml (1 oz.) before fatigue won out. That was enough for the moment.  It was obvi­ous hourly feed­ings were nec­es­sary until Vic­to­ria gained some strength.

The team pack­aged her up, tak­ing her to her new home and into the arms of our best fos­ter moth­er. After 48 hours with lots of ten­der lov­ing care, Vic­to­ria is show­ing improved strength and now opens her eyes to look around when fed.

Baby Victoria’s father, elder­ly aunt and uncle told us her sto­ry once she was set­tled at our mis­sion sta­tion. Victoria’s moth­er had died 3 days pri­or while giv­ing birth in their vil­lage. The father is now over­whelmed with 4 oth­er chil­dren at home, the old­est 14 and the youngest, 3. The elder­ly aunt want­ed to care for the infant, but she was unable to com­pre­hend how to mix the baby’s milk for­mu­la. Social Ser­vices and the Father agreed that Vic­to­ria should live with us until she was at least walk­ing. The Father stat­ed that the fam­i­ly would vis­it her often.

As promised, the Father returned the next day to com­plete Victoria’s birth cer­tifi­cate.  It was obvi­ous they tru­ly love lit­tle Vic­to­ria. Thanks to YOUR HELP, our staff can meet the infants needs until she grows into a toddler.

WE ARE GRATEFUL THAT WE COULD HELP, AND EXPLAINED TO THE FAMILY THAT THE ARMS OF JESUS ARE ALWAYS OPEN. I could tell they were tru­ly touched by our compassion.

BUSH BUNNY TIDBIT:

Jesus gave me a heart for orphans at age 14. He knew that to RESCUE ANYONE IN NEED was my pas­sion. As a 4th grad­er, I would walk many groups of lit­tle kids home from pri­ma­ry school so the bul­lies would not tor­ment them.

Call­ing me to the remote chil­dren in north­ern Mozam­bique allows me to use all my “JESUS GIFTS” to the best of my ability.

I couldn’t be happier.

THANKS TO YOUR MONTHLY LOVE GIFTS, OUR TEAM OF CHILD LOVING FOSTER MOTHERS CAN DO WHAT THEY DO BEST: SHOWER ALL THEIR LITTLE ONES WITH LOVE

BLESSINGS FROM MOZAMBIQUE, AFRICA,

BUSH BUNNY BRENDA LANGE 

AND THE BALAMA STAFF