One of the ministries of River of Life is to regularly visit an orphanage about a mile up the road from us called Nazareth Children's Home. We've been doing this for about 6 months - taking a team of the White Eagles to help wash, cook, clean and generally help out. Yesterday we visited with 5 of the younger White Eagles - Kisakye, Kevin, Juuko Ivan, Ivan Mukissa, and Teddy.
Nazareth is run by an elderly lady called Josephine, with two helpers - Carolyn and Pross. Between them they're looking after what must be more than 25 kids, half of them under 3, on very limited resources. Babies are often abandoned there - in fact the latest arrival of a healthy looking 4/5 month boy was just yesterday morning.
I was last there in September, and 2 very malnourished babies, Babiriye and Josephine, were really struggling - you can read about it in the November Newsletter. Through some generous supporters we were able to get them on to a feeding program at the local Mission Hospital and we have been providing good milk for them since they've been discharged.
They're hardly recognizable from the babies we met 4 months ago - alert and healthy, it was awesome to sit and play with them. Hopefully they are none the worse for their ordeal and won't have suffered any lasting damage from being so malnourished.
But whist we were there, one of the oldest lads, who has been there for years, suffered an epileptic fit. All I could do was sit with him, pray for him, and hold his head to stop him from bashing it against the wall, and make sure he didn't put his fingers anywhere hear his mouth. Of course there is no money for medication to manage the fits - when you're struggling to feed 25+ kids you're forced to make difficult decisions on priorities.
We're praying about whether we can step up our commitment to Nazareth and provide more ongoing support. It's such a wonderful place - and the kids are so so friendly - it's a real blessing to be there and in the face of such challenges experience real joy.
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