Don’t Be Afraid, You’ve Got Me!

October 22, 2021

Handsome Prince abandoned in one of the gardens at the hospital, was brought to Neema Village a few months ago. He had been well cared for and left with a note telling us his name and medical records. It is so sad that this poor mother felt she had no choice but to leave her sweet little boy. A Tanzanian woman who had been wanting a baby for a long time adopted him.

We have been wondering when God would send a forever family for little abandoned baby, Hope. Her mother, who had wanted a boy, left the hospital to get some food and never returned. A member of parliament came this month to adopt this baby. It is always our hope and prayer that these babies find a loving and stable home and that they find Jesus there as well. Go with God Little Hopie, remember we loved you first.

When you have little resources in your life you can feel very alone and afraid. That is how Esther felt talking to Kim and our Women’s Rights attorney, Winnie last week. Esther speaks Maasai and leads the Birthers around campus below. She gets them to class, activities and meals.

She is one of the young girls living in an orphanage down the street for Maasai girls who have run away from their villages usually to keep from marrying an old man. Esther was caught in a pre arranged marriage with a huge bride price already paid. She ran away and we were visiting the little Swahili church down the road a couple of years ago when her mother walked seven hours in from the village to see if her daughter was ok. It was a tearful reunion and a bit hush-hush because money and cows were involved and the husband was looking for his run-a-way bride. (Esther below reading her Maasai Bible)

Esther told Kim how angry the jilted husband was and how he was harassing her family in the village and now her father is beating her mother to get the money from Esther. Kim set up a counseling meeting with Winnie, the Women’s Rights attorney. When the meeting in the office was over and Esther was crying and saying how alone she has felt with this problem Winnie, the attorney, got up, went around the desk, put her arms around her and said, “Don’t be afraid, you’ve got me!” Kim says that has become the new mantra around Neema when volunteers, moms and staff express a problem they are facing, “Don’t be afraid, you’ve got me!”

Sweet new baby Judith (above) came to Neema Village this week, another little one who will never know her mother. It is so sad to lose important, well known, big people in the world but who will know and who will cry for these little ones? Bless you for following their stories and supporting them.

Updates from the last blog; the mom with the baby with the horrible skin condition (above) has been at Neema in quarantine for about 3 weeks and is looking better. We have moved her out of quarantine and into the MAP houses. She looks so happy now and I am sure that baby feels better.

The mom who came to Neema with a horribly burned leg had surgery and is doing well. Her husband was abusive but she is in our MAP program now and is living in the May MAP houses on campus. She will join the Women’s Rights classes and learn that she has the right not to be beaten. Many African women do not know that!

I pray that we all know today that we are not alone. Jesus tells us in Matthew 28:20 “Surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.”