After having been working here for almost 28 years, I still see and experience things or situations I can hardly believe......

The next story is one of those stories, I struggle with and I am very upset about...

Last week a older lady came to Amecet, asking if she could adopt one of our children.. That happens regularly, so our social workers talked with her and explained the process, we don't give out children, we try to resettle children within their relatives and when we have a child that is abandoned, we try all we can, to find relatives. If we fail to find any relatives, we search for a family who want to foster the child and adopt later. This whole process goes via the Probation Office and the Magistrate from Court. One of the men who was travelling with the lady, asked when we were going to give his aunty her adoption papers, she was waiting for them.  The aunty was an older lady who lived in the village.

The lady "adopted" a boy of around 7 years. There was a man in the village, who said that he was working with Amecet Children's Home. If she wanted to adopt a child, he could help. He brought her even to Soroti and stood at our gate, the lady was told not to talk to us, he was doing all the talking. One of our social workers met them at the gate and asked them if he could help. They answered that they came to see the children who were for adoption. The social worker answered that we are no supermarket for children and if they were serious they could first do the paperwork and a letter from their clan and then we would talk further and meet also the Probation officer. So they left, back to the village. The lady paid the man 400,000 Ush. for the work he had to do, the paperwork etc.. Some time later the man came to the lady with a boy of 7 years old, and she had to pay the last 200,000 Ush. The papers would be brought by Amecet, the man told the lady. Of course the papers didn't come and the nephew of the old lady came to ask in Amecet when the papers would be brought. And this brought everything to the light!!
Our social workers called the old lady and talked with her,  she promised to come to Amecet the next day, together with the boy and we contacted the Police. This boy was sold to this lady in the name of Amecet. This is a crime!! The lady came and talked with the Police, she did the whole story and now she also realised that she had "bought" the child, she was scared. Together with the lady, the police and a reporter they went to the village to arrest the man. The boy was taken in Amecet, till we knew where he came from. The man was arrested and taken to the cells. The mother was found and the story became more open. The man was the biological father of the boy, he  separated years ago with the mother and the mother had raised the boy on her own. Now the father went to them and demanded the boy back, that is how he got the boy and then brought him to this old lady to let her adopt him. He also wrote for her a will  to sign, where she would leave her land in the boys name. 

I can't believe how bad the man is, to sell your own son!!! And he lived in the same village!!! We were also upset about how he used the name of Amecet, working with children is delicate, you always have to be transparent and always work within the law.. We sometimes hear stories about us, you never know where they come from, but people tell us sometimes what they hear,  That when you bring your child to Amecet and you want it back, you have to pay a lot of money or we also heard stories that we sell children... It hurts to hear the stories, because it scares people to bring the children to us for help, and children might die, because of lack of help. So this story will go on the local radio and the news, we want to warn the people to never pay money to any person who says he or she is with Amecet. We never ask for money so do not pay anybody who asks in our name..

There are many "con men" here who ask money for education and after the people pay, they disappear.. A school nearby us, received more than 200 students, they had paid for registration and were promised that they were going to receive free education through an organization in that school, so they all went there, to find out that they were cheated and there was no organization and they lost their "registration money" to a con man.  I think it was a year ago that a family came to Amecet with their daughter. They had heard that Amecet was looking for a nurse, the daughter was a nurse and they had paid 1,500,000 Ush (400 Euro) to a person who would assure that job to their daughter, they even sold their bull for it, to pay that person the money. After paying, the person disappeared  and they came to Amecet to ask for that job... . 

It is not easy to handle all this, it upsets and sometimes makes you really angry, you also do not understand that people believe all those lies, but sometimes people are desperate for school fees or for a job, so they believe when someone can talk well... 

Today the little boy is going back to his mother, our social workers team is bringing him to the village and together with the Probation Officer, he will be given back to his own mother, who is happy to receive him.

The man is still in the cells and it is now to the Police and the Court to decide what will happen with him, he has committed a serious crime. 

We will speak on the local radio about this case and warn the people to be careful who they believe in...

The 3 little girls are almost the same age, the left and the middle one are from Triplets, their third sister is still with the mother, the right child is 2 weeks younger and her mother is only 16 years old. They are all from November 2023, so they are are around 1 year and 3 months old. They should be walking and talking, instead they can hardly sit by themselves. 

Meet Zoya and Zarah, they are part of triplets. Their sister, Zarida, is the middle one of the three. We know the three already for a while. they were born in Soroti hospital on 14 November 2023. That means that they are now 1 year and 2,5 months. We have been asked to see them when they were maybe 3 months old. The mother is single and only 20 years old. That time she lived in the home of a good Samaritan, who felt for her. The 3 little girls were very small and especially two of them were very tiny. They had been born 3 months too early. We could have helped that time by taking 1 or 2 of the girls to Amecet for a while. But the grandmother came and was very hostile to us, she believed that we would sell the girls.... So we just explained what we do in Amecet and offered to bring some clothes, soap and milk formula as supplement, because the mother could not breast feed the three girls. 

We have visit her a couple of times, the grandma was a bit more friendly now, but some months ago the mother came for help to Amecet. And we put the three girls on our outpatient's programme. She came every 2 weeks for soap, sugar and porridge flour to Amecet. A couple of days ago, she came again, but now to ask if we could take her girls in Amecet.. We knew that the babies were malnourished, the mother tried, but it is very hard for a 20 years old girl, to care for 3 small babies. We talked with her and told her to come back with a letter of the local leader from the area where she lives and with the grandmother. The grandmother was changed and also asked us to help her daughter. To take them all three.... But we didn't do that, we weighed them all and the first-born weighs 4.2 kg, the second weighs 6 kg and the third one weighs 4.8 kg. This is very low for a child of almost 15 months, their weight should be around 10 kg. They were all malnourished, but they had been preterm babies, they are tiny... So, we decided to take the first and the third born and to leave the second born with the mother.  We filled the forms and took the two girls to the doctor, the mother and the grandmother went home, we asked her to come and visit them... 

The two girls are sweet, they sleep a lot, one of them had fever, blood tests have been done from both of them. It is a difficult situation, the father of the triplets left the mother without any help, and she is so young...

We pray we can do more for her than only help her with her babies..  Pray with us for wisdom and guidance and that Zoya and Zarah will pick up fast.

In this small coffin lays the little body of Jeremiah. He passed away this morning at 8.15 am. Very peaceful, the little heart just stopped....

He had a good day yesterday, but at around 1 am at  night, he started to have problems again. Dominique was called and she said that he was very peaceful, it almost looked like he was smiling. Our nurse, Immaculate, stayed the rest of the night with him. He was put back on the oxygen, but his heart was going slower and slower and at 8.15 it just stopped. There was no struggle for breath, he went peaceful..

It is always a very sad  situation for us, we tried so hard, we all loved Jeremiah, but we have to let go...

Simon went to get a small coffin, and even this small one, was still too big. We called the relatives that we were coming with the body. I went to the clinic next door for the death certificate. The doctors have been very helpful to us, they came several times to Amecet, to see Jeremiah. They knew Jeremiah so it was easy to get the death certificate.

Simon carried the coffin into the car and we went with 5 staff in total to bring him back to his people. It was a long, hot drive, the road was really bad,  but we made it. They brought the coffin in the house and they were ready to listen to us to hear the report of Jeremiah. I gave a brief story of all what had happened and gave them the medical book with all the test results and writings from the doctor, together with the death certificate.

There were not many people, but they were thankful for our help and also that we were bringing the body back to the village. After some time we all went back in the car for the way back to Soroti.

We also saw his mother, and realised that she would never be able to care for Jeremiah, she had no idea what was going on and was smiling a lot. The grandmother is very old and looks after her daughter. I think Jeremiah is in a much better place!!

Jeremiah was born in the village on 1/12/2024. His mother has a mental sickness, nobody knew the mother was pregnant, nobody knows his father. The mother gave birth at home, she was alone at that time. Jeremiah was a preterm baby, very small and very weak. He was her first born baby. The  baby was brought to the health centre and from there, Jeremiah arrived on the third of December in Amecet. His weight was 1.5 kg. 

We had to give him a NG tube to feed him, he only could drink 5 ml. milk per feeding and then he was too tired to suck more. He could just look at you with his big, beautiful eyes. He started to loose weight, that is not abnormal, most babies loose some weight after being born, but then start to gain again. Jeremiah didn't start to gain weight, he kept on loosing and we were very concerned about that. He was put on antibiotics, because his unsafe way of being born, with his mother alone in the village. Blood tests were done. nothing really came out of them. We fed him every two hours, day and night. After some weeks, we felt he needed some more time in between the feeding to rest and sleep, so we changed in every 3 hours feeding. We gave him special milk formula for low birthweight babies. but his weight went down to 1.3 kg... The doctor came to see him, even the paediatrician saw him in Amecet. When he was 1 month old, I took him for HIV test, that test came also back negative... He started to gain a bit, 10 gram per week.  So slow, and he got malaria, several times.... His HB went down, so we took him for sickle cell test, this test came also back negative. He got a blood transfusion, which helped him a bit again, gave some strength, but yesterday he crashed... His heart rate went down, his saturation went down. The doctor prescribed him some IV medication and he was put on the oxygen machine. The staff was with him all time, to keep an eye on him and to let him not go alone in case he would die. 

In the blog from November 3, 2024 I wrote about the 3 mini baby's we got in one week.  It was quite a challenge, in the beginning we had feed them every 2 hours by NG tube, we had them together in one room, doors and windows closed, so it would be a nice warm room. We were very alert for sickness and how much they drank every day, how much they were gaining etc. 

But what a joy, when they can be given back to their families after only 2,5 months!! Healthy, strong, smiling and drinking very well!!!  Forgotten are all the worries we had about them, the busy nights, where only 2 staff members are working and were still able to do the 2 hours feeding and feed all the other children as well!!

The top picture is James, he came as a small preterm baby of 1.455 kg, and 2 months later he goes home as a baby of 3,5 kg. and is doing so good. It makes us all so happy, that is why we are doing what we are doing!!!

On December 17th Caroline was brought to Amecet. She was brought by an organization, which works in the villages with families and children who are HIV+. Caro was HIV+, she was very malnourished, very weak and very unhappy.  The situation in her family was also not really stable. They were looking for a place where she could get stronger and more stable in her health. In the past we had received more children in Amecet via this organization. Caro came to us after a week in a hospital. Caro was 13 years old and her weight was just over 22 kg. 

To be in this age group and being HIV positive is very difficult. In the past, when we had regularly HIV+ children in our home, we have had several children in the age of 12-15 years old. Often they were already using the ARV medicines, which slow down the growth of the HIV virus. But they stopped taking the medicines, they lost hope and because of lack of encouragement and understanding, they denied their HIV status. Several children were brought to us and all what we tried and did, was in vain, they were too sick, we were too late and they died. And it is very hard and painful to see that happen...

This was for sure a Celebration!!!! Aaron went home with his new Foster mother and will be adopted into a new family in the future!!

It is almost a tradition.... 3 weeks before, we all draw one name and for that person we buy a present. On the day of the party, we all sit in a big circle, the music is on and one by one we give our present to the person whose name we had drawn. People dance and tease people offering it first to the wrong person, sometimes they dance around with 2 or 3 people, everybody is clapping, there is joy, shouting, singing and a lot of laughing...... 

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Many years ago, we started the tradition of remembering the children who died that year, during the World AIDS day. Amecet started 23 years ago with the main target of HIV+ children. In the begin years we had many HIV+ children in our Home. And on December first, we named all the children who had passed on that year, we lighted a candle and shared something about each child, as a last honor to them. This year we had 4 children to remember, and none of them died because of HIV/AIDS!!! We are very thankful about that, seeing children dying from AIDS is so sad, they all got the infection through birth, their mother was HIV+ and gave the virus to their baby.  Because of the good prevention the government of Uganda set up towards the mother to child infection, are there not many babies born with HIV anymore.

In all those years we have had 190 children who were HIV+ in Amecet, 80 of them had also TB. And in all those 23 years we had 110 children who died in Amecet. In 2005, 10 children died in Amecet and in 2007, 11 children died in Amecet, that was very hard and we had many candles burning during our memorial gathering on the first of December. 

This year 4 candles, all for children who died of malnutrition, sickness and maybe of a broken heart.... one child was born alive after an attempt of abortion and the mother ran away and left the baby behind.. Another baby died of starvation, the mother, who had a mental problem and epilepty, was told not to breastfeed her baby, because the " sickness" could than go into the baby. One of those 4 precious childeren lost the mother at birth and the grandmother could not cope with it and fed the baby porridge.. I was thinking of all those many first of December gatherings I have led and I can not get use to them, it always touches me and brings me tears.... The children are in a better place, but still it hurts to see them dying.

We lost a small baby today. You never get used to it... It is always so sad and painful to see a little baby, like Sekundina, fighting for her life, not able to get enough air in... It all started yesterday, everything was normal, she got a bath and was fed in the morning. But  2 hours later, when she was due for her next feeding, she had difficulties with breathing. They checked her saturation (level of oxygen in the blood) and it was low. They put her on the oxygen machine and the doctor form the clinic next  to us was called. he checked, they took some blood. he listened to her lungs and prescribed  IV medication. 
During the day her saturation was going up to normal again, but the difficulty in her breathing remained. Joanne, one of our medical team, stayed the whole night with her. In the morning she was a bit stable, untill she crashed again, without a reason. Her saturation was dropping and even when she got extra IV medication, it dropped untill she slipped away...

Her mother died after the Caesarian operation, she lost a lot of blood and she had high blood poressure and malaria. Sekundina was born preterm, she was small and weak when she came. But we had never thought this would happen, we had fed her at first with a NG tube, but she got strong enough to drink her self now... she  even gained some weight!! We got the family informed, the uncle lives in Soroti, he came to see her this morning and now he travels with the team to the village to bring her small body to her last resting place, next to her mother...

Two days ago, this little girl was brought to Amecet by the Police. There a quite a number of small lodges in Soroti, where you can sleep when you miss your bus or so. They are very simple. And in one of those lodges, the cleaning lady went to clean the rooms which were occupied during the night. In one of the small rooms, she found this little girl... We think she is 1,5 years old abandoned by her mother. The Police is involved, and they found pictures of the mother on the security camera of a neighbouring shop. We call her Esther, for now. She is doing well, eat and drinks and even sleeps without many problems. We just heard today that the police arrested the mother. We might be able to find the relatives now.

In the last 8 days, we received 3 preterm babies, very small, very weak. You see them on this picture, the oldest  is at the left , she is 5 weeks old, than in the middle the baby of 3 weeks old and at the right the baby of 2 weeks old. Two of them are fed by NG tube, because they are too weak to drink themselves. Let me tell a bit more about them....

Sometimes people ask me, "how do you get the chilldren in Amecet"? On very different ways, 3 days ago, I got a phone call from the Hosptial in Soroti. There was a preterm baby born and the mother was very critical sick. The baby was in the Neonatal ward and the family was so busy with caring for the mother, if we could help??? Of course we could, I went to the hospital with our nurse and talked with the family, did the intake and we left with the baby in our arms. The baby is called James and we feed him with a NG tube every two hours. He is too weak to drink himself. But he is doing well. His weight is 1.4 kg.

We celebrated Tom's first birthday!!!  Last year he was brought by the police as an abandoned baby of 1 month old. So we gave him as date of Birth: 10/10/2023..  I wrote about Tom a couple of blogs ago...  Tom was going to be adopted, but then he got the diagnosis "Sickle Cell" , the couple who was going to adopt him, changed their mind.  So now we try to manage him as best we can and we pray and hope for a family who is willing to care for Tom. We decided to celebrate his life, complete with baloons, party heads and a cake!! It was great to see him grabbing in the cake and his face was full with the (very sweet) icing. 

We had placed him sitting on the table and he loved it, later he shared the cake with his friends and with us, the staff!

Baby Simon was born in the village on 22/8/24. His mother was home alone and gave birth on her own. She started to bleed seriously, and she died right there, next to her new born son. There was another complication, Simon's mother was HIV+, so there was a risk for Simon, especially because the birth took place at home instead of the health centre or Hospital . The next day, Simon was brought to Amecet, he was a small baby with a weight of 2 kg. and big, beautiful eyes.. He was weak and we had a lot of struggles with him, he was not doing so well, not gaining much, in the beginning not drinking good and he had several infections, which we had to treat him for.

On June 8th the Police brought a premature baby to Amecet. The baby was born in a health centre in the village. According to the letter, a young girl and her mother came to the health centre saying that she had an abortion after 7 months of pregnancy, She was admitted and examined and her labour started. the baby came out alive, a little baby boy. The mother and the grandmother disappeared and the baby was abandoned..  So the health centre called the Police and the Police brought the little premature born baby to Amecet.

The baby was small, and weak. His weight was 2 kg. We took him in, gave him a nice warm bath and made sure he was warm. We went with him to the clinic, next door. They saw him and prescribed IV medication and feedings every two hours. We try to feed him by bottle, but he was too weak to suckle, so we had to give him a NG tube. We decided to lay him in our medical room instead with the other baby's in the baby room. 

I like to share with you the story of Tom. In the morning van November 10, 2023, we got a phone call from the Police that a small baby was found in a garden. He was abandoned, nobody knew him and nobody saw anything.... We went to pick the baby, he seemed to be around one month old, his weight was 4.6 kg. and he looked like a healthy baby boy.  he was brought to the doctor for check ups  and his blood tests showed a septicemia, so he was started on medication.

On this picture, Tom is the baby at the left, next to him is Moses, a newborn baby, who was also found that same week, abandoned in a garden.  They became "buddies"...

This team is the backbone of Amecet!! This are the people who are working behind the scenes, and when they are not there, everything goes wrong....

From left to right:  Irene, our Laundry lady; Jennifer, our Cook; Christine, our Cleaning lady; then David and Calvin, our compound men.

Today I would like to introduce our medical team. We get very often very sick children, who are in need of medical attention and extra care. I am not talking about a cold, some cough or malaria, but about seriously sick children, whose life is at risk.... That is why our medical team is very important. When a new child is taken into Amecet, the medical person on duty, will take the child to the doctor (next door). Tests will be done and treatment will be prescribed. The medical team works together to fulfil the prescription. It might be just oral medication, but very often it is IV medication. They will give the baby/child a cannula and the schedule for the times to give the medication, is made.  At the moment we have 3 people in our team (l to R) Sharon, Joanna and Immaculate. Immaculate lives in the Amecet compound, so she will give injections at night, if needed. She is also available to be called at night, if anything is needed. 

Many nurses have been helping us the 22 years Amecet is operating, and we realize that we also want to honour them in this blog. Each one of them brought something unique to our care for the children and each one of them have held very sick and even dying children in their arms and sat at their bed...

Meet our 3 Musketeers, our Social Workers. They are the back bone of our Home! We have 2 Social Workers, Pius and Simon) and 1 Counsellor (Andrew) On the picture they sit in the office (L. to R,) Andrew, Pius and Simon. They do a lot of work, often outside the home. When a child is abandoned somewhere, they go there and they talk with the people in the area, they hang up posters with the picture of the child and ask people who know the relatives to call us.

They work often together with the Police and the Probation Officer (child protection) they follow leads, sometimes deep in the village, to find relatives. We get sometimes called by health workers, about children in the village, who are in a serious condition, Our social team will go there to investigate, and if necessary, bring the child to Amecet. They re-settle children back with their relatives after their stay in Amecet. They also go to monitor the child, when the child is back in the village, not every child, but there are some situations, we are not sure that the child will cared for well, so they go to see and talk and advice the relatives.

This is the present leadership of Amecet: (L to R)  Dominique, Andrew, Pius, Simon and Els.  We meet every Monday morning to discuss the present situation and to plan the week. Dominique is responsible for the daily activities in the house, she is like our home manager, Andrew is a Counsellor and he talks with people, the staff, but also people who come at our doorstep for help. He keeps an eye on the maintenance of the house and he goes also out to the villages with the social workers to visit the families. Pius and Simon are our Social Workers, They are going out to the villages a lot. And then me, I am a lot in the office, doing the administration, finances, the P.R.  organize the ALT meetings and the Staff meetings, keeping an eye on the medical team and in between........ cuddle baby's......

We have a great team, there is honesty and openness and I feel privileged to be part of this team.

 For more than 22 years, the caretakers of Amecet cared for all the 1198 children, we had in Amecet. Of course the faces have changed, but the care is still the same!! Without these precious ladies, there would be no Amecet... They bath the children, feed the children, change the diapers, play with them, cuddle them, love them, sometimes do exercises with the children. 

In the last 3 blogs, I have shared how the Amecet Ministry started. Amecet helps children in the Teso region, in North-East Uganda. The Teso region contains 10 different districts and around 2,5 million people live here. The main source of income is agriculture, crops and cows.

Amecet  Children's Home is in Soroti City, and we receive children from the whole region and even beyond. In this blog I want to share how many children and their families we have ministered to from the start in December 2001 until December 2023.

In total we had 1198 children in Amecet. From those children were 874 babies, some where only a few hours old when they were brought, some were several months old, quite a number of them were pre-mature born, very small and very vulnerable.

2003 was a year full of importance events. In Uganda was Joseph Kony active. he had formed an army, which he called " the Lord's army" and his aim was to conquer the North of Uganda under his command. His army had a lot of kind soldiers, children he had kidnapped and changed into killer machines. Kony was dangerous and in 2003, he had come to the Teso region.  One evening I had talked our Amecet staff, and encouraged them to make a bag with important things and have that bag ready, in case that.... Together with Helen, I started that evening to pack important things for Amecet, the files off the children, medication, clothes, sheets etc. for " in case of that..." of course nothing would happen, but you never know... The days before, Simon and me visited several children deep in the village and every time we heard that the next day Kony had been there... It was scary. The people in the villages all gathered together in the centers of the villages, big camps were build and the local militia, the Arrow Boys, defended the camps. Sometimes people tried to sneak out to their gardens, to get some crops, they were killed by Kony's army, who even lived in the homes of the people. 

Back to that evening in June 2003, Helen and I finished packing and  I just drank a soda to rest from it all. Then the shooting started...on our road!! Helen ran into my room: they are shooting.... I had to regain my calmness and then I went out, we put matrasses on the floor in the hall way, where no windows are  and switched out all the lights. We had some foreigners staying with us, they were very scared. I was  a bit, but I had to keep my head cool... we saw big army tanks driving on our road and heard the shootings very near... We called with the YWAM base and early  in the morning we decided to leave and we packed two cars and took all the children and drove to Jinja, where the head office of YWAM is.

As I wrote in the last blog, Sarah was our first child in Amecet, like I had promised her when I had been visiting her in the village and we were still building Amecet Two days after Sarah, Grace was brought to Amecet. A small severely malnourished baby. We have been struggling with Grace a lot, she just didn't want to drink or eat.

When we began Amecet, I knew that we would be a " Doorway to Heaven" for some children. I had no idea how that would feel or if I could handle that, but I knew that there would be pain and tears, but also that God would be in those times, next to me..

Amecet started really in my heart in 1999, when I met Sarah. Sarah was a very small, sick little girl, who lived in the village, where we came with the Mobile Clinic. I was working that time with FACE, a programme of Youth With A Mission Soroti, The programme was reaching out to the people living with HIV/AIDS in the villages. This was long before the ARV's were available. ARV's are medicines which slow down the growth of the HIV virus in the body. FACE had a Mobile clinic which could only help the people with the opportunistic infections they had, because of being HIV+.

Once we visited the home where Sarah lived, she was 2.5 years old, she was very weak and could not stand on her legs. She touched my heart and I knew God wanted me to do something for the Sarah's of Teso. There in that far away village, Amecet was born in my heart....

Angella was brought to Amecet via a mission hospital in the village. Some weeks ago, they contacted us about this little girl, but she was so sick, that she first was admitted in the hospital for 2 weeks. She was still severe malnourished, her weight was 5.2 kg and she is 2,5 years old. Angella was brought by her mother and a nurse from that hospital. She was very weak, I saw directly that there was more going on than malnutrition only. I asked the mother some questions and then I heard that Angella didn't cry after she was born and that they had brought her to a bigger hospital after the birth, where she got oxygen... Angella had probably brain damage because of that.... She could hardly hold her head up and she couldn't speak. We took her to the clinic next to Amecet and the tests we did there, showed a very severe anaemia. Normal for her, the HB should be above 10, but Angella's HB was 1.2..... This is very, very low and she was given blood transfusion as soon as possible.  We were lucky that there was blood available in the clinic.. 

It is amazing what a blood transfusion can do to a child. She did much better after that and wanted to eat and drink . The next day we checked her HB again and it was 10.3, a couple of days later, we checked it again and is was still good. 

There is only  one week between those 2 pictures, we see an amazing change, (okay she is wearing the same dress, but we do have clothes for her than this one dress..) She can sit in the chair without problems, she can hold her head up and she is starting to play and she smiles... We can not do much about her brain damage, other  than exercises and stimulation, but we can help her to be stronger and more happy!!!

There are 2 months between those 2 pictures... and we can see a significance change in the two boys!! They were referred by the neonatal ward in Soroti Hospital. When they came to us their weight was 1 kg and 1.1 kg.  They were in our medical room for long, we fed them by NG tube for a while, because they were too weak to drink by themselves. They were sick a couple of times, inspite of our nets, they got malaria, but after treatment, they are fine again.

They gained, slowly, slowly, sometimes only 200 grams per week, but at least they were growing. Today their weight is 3kg and 2.8 kg!!!  I want to thank the people who have send us some  special milk formula from the Netherlands. We use it for Abraham and Joseph and it helps them so much!!

We hear a lot of sad stories, when they bring children to Amecet and we see a lot of suffering children. Aaron is around 3 years old, he was abused by relatives. There were old scars and new wounds... It looks like burn wounds and our hearts went towards this little boy. You could see the plea for help in his eyes... His hands were the worst, and we had to cover the wounds for the danger of infection. He enjoyed the care we gave, the food he was offered to eat and the hugs and love we gave him. Our social workers went to the village, to see the situation and the family will not place him back to the aunt and uncle he was with before. His mother loves him, but she can't look after him because of the stroke she has suffered from. Still we will try to place him back to his mother and other relatives. For now, he is still with us, he is doing well, playing with the other children, his wounds are healed, his weight id gaining and he laughs a lot!!!

One  month ago, we got very tiny, mini twin boys in Amecet, Abraham and Joseph, their weight was 1.160 kg and 1.050 kg. It is such a challenge to get those little ones.. They were one month old and of course premature born. They were together in our medical room and we feed them by NG tube, because they are too weak to drink themselves from the bottle. They are gaining, very slowly, but steady, Joseph, the smallest one  (on the picture) his weight is now 1.8 kg!!! His brother is almost 2 kg. but Joseph got malaria, and he was treated by IV medicines. It looked that it went well, on Saturday, we did a malaria test again and it showed no malaria parasites.... But he got some fever the night before and our nurse saw that the feet were white, quite suddenly, so we did a blood test again to see how his hemoglobin was, it was very low... The doctor told us that he needed blood transfusion.. And it was Saturday...  That means that it is even more difficult to get blood in the main hospital...  They called me (it was my free day and was planning to go with my daughters to a wedding). But I went to Amecet and got all the papers and went together with Simon to the hospital.. There was some blood in the blood bank, but not the right blood type. The man with the key to the new blood was coming.. I sat there, and I decided I would stay there until I got that blood, I would not go out of there without that saving 23 ml blood A+.... It took almost two hours, and knowing that this little baby was not doing well, made me nervous. We had taken his saturation before I left, it was also going lower. This blood was the only thing that could help him...

When the man with the blood came, they helped me first , I had not moved from my chair, so they were happy to help me. I got also more blood to give to the clinic next to us, so they would have blood in case they (or we) needed more during the weekend. We drove fast back to Amecet and after cross matching the blood with the blood of the baby, Joseph was hooked up and got the precious saving 23 ml. blood.

This month, we invited the Police department which helps when there is a fire, to come to Amecet to train the staff in fire prevention  and what to do in case...... We have several fire extinguishers in our homes, they were due for refill, so we could use them to empty, during the training. 

It is full in Amecet, we have 24 children in our home, 5 toddlers and 19 baby's!!! We are busy and lots of laundry!!! In the month January we received 5 new children, but this month, in February, we already received 9 new children and we are only half way... They all come with sad stories,  Several of them lost their mother at birth.. one mother gave birth at home, on her own and after the baby was born, she bled to death, help came too late. We have one baby, who was part of twins, her twin brother died in the womb at 4 months pregnancy. The mother gave birth to both baby's and died herself. There are a couple of children whose mother has a mental problem and the relatives asked us to keep the baby, because the baby was not safe with the mother.... This is so sad, the person who should  be the most safe person in a child's life, can't give that because of a sickness.! Last week the police brought two toddlers to Amecet, we think they are 2 and 3 years old. They were abandoned in the hospital (and they were not registered there!) They had a bag with them and we found ARV medicines in the bag. We tested them and one of them is HIV+. Our Social workers have been trying to find their relatives, they have a lead, so we think we can find the mother, and the other relatives of the two boys.. Another boy was brought to us and it looked that he has been abused, he has many wounds (0ld and new) on his body, he is very malnourished. And he is so sad....

At the moment, we have 3 sets of twins in Amecet. On the picture you see them laying according their age... Left we have Grace Apio and Faith Adongo. They are 4,5 months old. They have been with us since half November. They were very small when they came, weighing 1.2 kg. and 2.1 kg. As you can see, they do quite well, but we are struggling with them. They have both small holes in their heart and Apio has been mostly on our oxygen machine. We take her off more and more, while monitoring her saturation. Her sister Adongo has a problem with her right arm, the doctor thinks that it was damaged while she was born, We do exercises with her. Their weight is now 2.8 and 3.7 kg.

This picture is taken in our Amecet compound on 19th of January at 7 am.... We are busy dressing the chairs, they already set up the tents and the people who are doing the decoration are also busy. It was an exciting day, we had invited all the government official who are working with children issues, in the 10 districts of the Teso region. We had a nice program and after the program, the invited guests could visit the Amecet home and there was a nice lunch prepared for them. It was a big venue for us to organize, we started with planning in September 2023, but today at last the day had started....

I just share with you some pictures, so you have an idea of how it went.. The Amecet staff looked great, in their new blue T-shirts and they were al over the place... I am so proud of them, they worked hard. We had of course, children in the home, they looked after them, they sang, they danced, they helped serving food, ushered people to their chair.... They were the Best!!!! We had expected some more guests, but I believed that the people who came were key people in working with children, there were Probation Officers, Community workers, Police who work with family and children, Health workers, Health Inspector, L.C. 5 and the Mayor of Soroti west. The Guest of Honor was Doctor Florence, a senior pediatrician, who has been a big help in the health of the children of Amecet. in the past and even still now. She had a speech and she cut our cake, together with 4 young people, who have been among our first children in the past. They all four shared their experiences with Amecet and their dreams for the future. 

With one dance of our Amecet staff, the guests joined in. It was a great picture!!

Of course, she doesn't smile on a picture, but really, she smiled to me... I am writing about Faith Adongo, part of the twins who was brought to Amecet in November. On the picture you can see her sister, Apio Grace, behind her in the little bed, she is still on oxygen and we feed her by NG tube. In the blog of November 23, you can read their story, how they came to us. Since that time we have been struggling with them, especially with Grace, the smallest one. Grace was only 1.2 kg in weight when she came, today her weight is 2.6 kg, so we see improvement there. Faith was 2.1 kg when she came and today her weight is 3,5 kg. Faith is doing quite well, but Grace is not doing so good, she is again on oxygen, now for already 3 weeks. We took them to the doctor, because several times they crashed. Grace even 3 times and Faith once. The doctor referred us for a heart scan, first with Grace and the scan showed 3 holes in her heart, 2 of them might still close, but one of them was a question. We took also Faith for a scan, as the identical twin sister, she had also 2 holes in her heart, but they might close by themselves.  

Yesterday we celebrated the Birthday of Jesus as the Amecet Family. We were all together and it was a happy party. Earlier the day, several staff had been cooking, together with our cook, a nice meal and two weeks before we had all drawn a name from a fellow staff member and we were all ready to bless that person with a nice gift!

We were all sitting in a big circle and one by one we gave our gift to our collogue. It was great fun, there was music and people went dancing to gift their gift to each other. The toddlers were with us and the baby's were in their bed, but on their feeding time they were fed by a staff.. 

Christmas is the season of giving and blessing other people. As Amecet, we were so happy to receive an extra gift which enabled us to give Christmas blessing to 50 needy families in the villages. They are all somehow connected to Amecet, most of them had children staying in Amecet for a short time, many are grandparents or single mothers. It was such a joy to bring them a packet, as you see in the picture above, this grandma is very happy, almost dancing... Our social workers went around in the villages to bring the parcels.

Richard was picked by his grandmother at the end of November, Richard made us so happy, I am calling him our Miracle baby....... If you can read our blog from August 23, you can read his story.. It is again a sad story, but the ending is somehow happy. Look at the two pictures from before and after........

It is like a tradition, every year, on the first of December, we remember the children who died that year in Amecet. We speak out their names and we tell something significant about them, how we felt about them or what they taught us. At times it can be very emotional, because we cared for them and we felt the loss...... This year we had only one child we remembered, little Peter, a premature baby, who was only 25 days old when he passed on. 

We have 7 new children in Amecet, our social workers have been busy. We got several phone calls, some from concerned relatives, some from Police and Probation Officers (children protection). Every district has a Probation officer, most of them know us and have been referring children in the past. On the picture above,m you can see a meeting in one of the Districts near Soroti, where the Probation Officer asked us to come and asses the situation of a child. Other children come to Amecet because there is a problem in the family and the relatives ask us to come and look at the child. We always investigate the situation, ask input from the Local  Counselor, we see if there is a relative where the child is safe. If the child is in such a condition like, sick, malnourished or very weak, we take the child to Amecet. During the time the child is in Amecet, our social workers try to find a safe place for the child.

Today, a mother came to our door in Amecet, carrying 2 small baby's. She asked for help... We looked at the two little girls, they were twins and one of them was very small. I asked how old they were, she told us that they were 9 weeks old, the first born weighs 1.260 kg and the second born weighs 1.9 kg.... and they are 9 weeks old!!! Normal weight of that age would be 4-5 kg. The twins were born premature, but still, this is a very low weight.. We did the intake with the mother and got all her information and also the information about the baby's and her living situation. The father of the twins had ran off after the baby's were born, she got help from her neighbors. We asked her to go home and come back with the medical papers and the letter of the local counsellor of her neighborhood. 30 minutes later she was back and she wanted her children back... We had a long talk and I told her that when she wanted her children back, I would given them, she is the mother and it is her right to get them back, but I also told her that they really were in need of help.. I got the feeling that someone had told her that it would not be safe to leave her children with us. So we agreed that we would go with her to her home and talk with the people there and if she would still want them back after that, we would hand them back to her. Our social workers were all out in the village to check on two children, so Sharon (one of our nurses) and me went with the mother to her home. We found her land lady and soon several of her neighbors joined us. We had a good talk, we explained what we did in Amecet and then they had many questions... Some about if we ask money from them, or if we give the children back without payment, if the children got sick, what do we do then, do we take them to the doctor, do we give them medicines?? Do we take the children anywhere else?? So we had a good conversation with them and at the end they all told the mother to leave the children in Amecet...while they were the people who had told the mother to get her children back, "because you do not leave the children with strangers"...

We also explained that the mother should come to visit them and to hold them and everybody was happy when we left, also the mother.

On Tuesday, the Police brought baby Moses (at the right) to Amecet, we think he was only 3 days old. A beautiful baby boy, the umbilical cord was still there. And on Friday we got a call from the Police if we could come and pick an abandoned baby, he was found the evening before... We think that he is around 1 month old, we gave him the name Tom..

This is a picture of the new Greenhouse in our farm!! I wrote in our blog of August 9 about our first eggs of our chickens and about the plans we had in the future for the farm. Last month we got some men coming from Kampala to build our Greenhouse!!

Faith (5), James (3) and Jeremiah (2) were brought to Amecet around 6 weeks ago. Left, you can see how they came in. The two brothers were malnourished, they had oedema and they were miserable and unhappy. The older sister was not really malnourished, but it was better to take her also into Amecet, otherwise she would be alone in the house. The father was away a lot, trying to get work. At first, the boys lost weight, the oedema disappeared, after that they started to gain. We brought Faith to Harmony Preschool every morning, she liked it a lot. In the meantime our social workers tried to work with the father, together they looked to several options for the children, but it did not really work out well. The children went back to the father . They live in Soroti district, we will keep an eye on them by visiting them regularly at home.

Yesterday we had a long trip to the villages, we went for different issues, first we brought Grace back home. And it was a bumpy ride... You can see on the picture how small the "roads" are at times, not more than a bicycle track. Some of the homes are really deep in the village and we even had to walk at the end to come to the home. The car couldn't  reach.

Mercy is one of our new baby's, she was brought by her family because the mother had died after giving birth... She is a cute little baby, we have started her on the HIV medicines, because her mother was HIV+. When she is one month  old we will take her for testing. But with the good medicines we can give those baby's,  whose mother was HIV+, most of the baby's are negative!!