Hard at work! Painting the baby dining area at Kasensa

Molly and Timmy love to dig in! They are 3 year olds. No one has to tell them to work! anytime of the day you will see them sweeping, mopping. Sometimes....they get annoyed when I tell them to put the broom away!

Femmy at work!

Femmy is in her second year of electrical engineering and comes every holiday to volunteer her time as appreciation of ZMF-C sponsorship. She brings her great attitude and her willing hands to help out with the work at Kasensa.
Today, we have 20 people at work at Kasensa: 5 paid staff -4 caring for our 9 babies, and the rest are sponsored college and secondary students. They are working on the newly constructed house, de-cockroaching the kitchen in the house, cleaning the verandah and dining areas, gardening and painting. These are great jobs to be done at this time as we usually have only our 5 paid staff and therefore regular cleaning is either done by Richard and me and our Saturday Sponsored kids! Everyone does a great job and b/c so many are now used to the routine, there is much less delegation and supervision that needs to be done.

baby Lumamba

Matron's 17 year old mother and granny

Matron goes home with family!

Matron goes home with her family

December 26, Matron went home with her family. The mother, Buumba is 17 years old and granny (younger than me by at least 10 years!) is the one really in charge. Buumba had surgery for a very large breast ulcer - and Matron has survived well on Cowbell formula and eats everything she sees - as her weight testifies. She is 11.4 kg at 9 months old! I fished a cockroach out of her mouth one day - she was not impressed with my rationing!

Family initially thought we'd keep Matron for 2 years - she was with us for 7weeks! Perhaps slowly the idea of temporary emergency care will catch on within Zambia. We are attempting to intevene at all system levels i.e. individual, family, community and government. Our job includes assessing family and community capacity to ensure that babies emotional, physical and spiritual needs are being met. We do our best to assess through visits to the family home, with other relatives, and the government system. This means weekly visits to the SW office and to the hospitals and clinics in the area.

Matron's "uncle"- is dentist, Ian who works at Namwianga Clinic and he will ensure that family continues to cope well. Matron and family are due back here January 15 for a follow-up assessment.

We were grateful to be part of Matron's life and....she made many friends here at Kasensa.

The family expressed much gratitude for being able to support them in their time of need. Thanks to the many donors who support Kasensa. Your work is good and is making a huge difference for these kids and their families!

Mangos, mangos!

I'll try to better capture the idea of mangoes, mangoes......but this is a first try!

mango season

Its mango time again in Zambia. Timmy eats about 10 a day - and we see his little mango hand marks swiped across cupboard doors! We pick them off the ground many times a day and share them with many! i.e. at the hospital, with visitors and sponsored kids! Yummy!

Lumamba - our newest addition

Lumamba means warrior in Tonga. He arrived on December 16 and is from Belile area - about 65 km. out of Kalomo. I'd met his parents shortly after his birth in September. His mom has TB that has progressed to the point where she was extremely weak and thin and just not able to care for Lumamba. You can see from the photo that his "gills" are swollen. I've taken him to the clinic now a few times - given him 5 days of Penicillin I/M and now he's started on TB treatment a few days ago as the swelling of his glands are a sign of TB. As well he is wheezing all the time and his chest xray that was locally done showed some shadows in his lungs - although the quality of x-ray was poor.

He is 3 1/2 months old and weighs in at 4.1 kg - smaller than he should be. But....good things - he has appetite and can still smile sweetly!

New every morning - Lamentations 3

His mercies are new EVERY morning and every morning at 7:30 all Kasensa staff, babies and who ever is around stops to give thanks to God and to look to God for guidance for this new day that we've been blessed with! Up to 35 have been attending recently due to sponsored kids being on the farm to do their volunteer work. Even last night one of our college boys, Phineas arrived. By 05:50 some of the boys had already walked from their homes and were at work in the field. We gathered them at 07:15 to join us in the devotion time.

Molly, Timmy, Abraham, Potius, Rozina, Matron and Abigail all love to sing the fish song and building up the temple and ....others.

Molly very much models the adults and will open a Tonga hymnal and sing out at the top of her lungs - sometimes with legs crossed like the adults she sees. This morning she was rocking Oscar the grouch (the green furry Sesame Street character) in the baby rocker with her feet while she was singing - this time her hymnal was a small Bible - bending the pages back - just like the adults!

Christmas eve at Simakakata

Taylor's family provided funding to purchase cabbages, oil, sugar, rice and a few other goodies for 8 families with disabilities at Simakakata. Kasensa provided mangos - as we have PLENTY! Molly and Timmy joined in sharing the goodies with our Simakakata brothers and sisters in Christ.

The congregation at Simakakata was truly greatful for Taylor's family and thanked God for their generosity and prayed for continued blessings for that family.

Sharing.....its what its all about, isn't it? This day and every day!

May God continue to move our hearts and hands to sharing as Jesus would.

Big George is done like dinner!

We've been feeding George for several months and now he's feeding others! All workers and families who live on the farm received a portion of George as their Christmas present from ZMF-C. George was HUGE - this picture makes him look small. He was a giant, old boar with tough bristly almost porcupine quill fur? hair?

The compound smelled sweetly of pork roasting on Christmas eve!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas day at Kasensa

Christmas day started early! At 04:30 there was a loud crack of thunder! The day before I'd removed 3/4 of the curtains/drapes from around the house. Because Zesco had been off for about 1/3 of the daylight hours on the 24th and because the sky was clear at bedtime they were still hanging on the lines. So I leaped out of bed at the first sound of the pounding rain to help Theresa finish gathering them off the line..

Right after devo time all the babies and the aunties and everyone else staying at Kasensa (Brivery, Timmy, Taylor, Richard, Sue, Femmy) gathered at the Christmas tree to see what Santa had brought! Each of the babies received a beanie baby and Molly - a new dolly (we made a bed later in the day out of an ice cream container and potholder for blankets) and Timmy - a remote controlled truck. Thanks to Tiffany - Brivery, Timmy and Febby received new soccer jerseys and shorts and thanks to Walmart all the guys received new Christmas ties. For our gift, Richard and I settled for 3 weeks of precious family time with Krista and Tim who are now back at home with the rest of our family.

The church here had a Christmas eve service and then after morning service had a feast of rice, chicken and goat - and chocolate cake with sprinkles! For morning treats at Kasensa - we had cinnamon biscuits, watermelon and tea. We got in a few Christmas visits with Mbumwaes and the Bandas and finished off the day watching the Princess Bride - a classic true love movie!

Molly and Timmy's first visit with Santa

Santa arrived on the 24th to Kalomo and Molly and Timmy were excited (??) to see him. Actually, they did very well in sitting on his lap - Timmy is quite shy most of the time. But, like all kids - a little bit of candy can go a long way in starting a friendship! They gobbled up one candy and then I had them store the other candy in their pocket because we were on our way to share gifts with Simakakata and Kalomo Hospital. How many 3 year olds do you know that can actually keep a candy in their pocket without eating it for 3 hours! They did not forget it was in their pocket. They brought the candy out several times, looked at it and looked at me and then put it back in their pocket. Finally, after arriving home they could eat their candy!

Merry Christmas from us at the farm - Kasensa.

Each holiday month the college students volunteer their time to ZMF-C in support of the orphan care and to show appreciation for the sponsorship they've received. This past week they've been weeding (all by hand and hoe) our 1.5 hectare maize field. The harvested maize will be given to vulnerable people such as widows, orphans and those at Simakakata (a community with mostly disabled people).

After working hard each day - (0600 - 13 hours) they cook over open fire their lunch and in the evening join us for games and devo time! It is so great to see and be part of their spiritual maturity! These are special times.

All of these special sweet ones - both big and small are Zambia's future! Let us continue to pray for them all!

What they are studying: Education, Development studies, Social work, Economics and two of them are vying for openings in the school of medicine at UNZA. All Godly, mature, intelligent and hard working young folks!

Cornolius easier to see in this one!

Babies Christmas Photo

It's not so easy to get 10 babies posing for their Christmas photo!

Rozina, Matron, Molly (twin girl - 3 1/2 years old), Abigail, Lumamba (our newest baby as of last week - Tim calls him the Blue Mamba) - being held by Timmy (Molly's twin brother), Potius, Mikey,Maakes, Abraham. Oh - and Molly is holding Cornolius - you can only see the tip of his head!

Maakes is one of our new milk baby clients who has been staying with us for a few days as he was almost a dead boy a few days ago and now - truly by the grace of God - is sitting and smiling. He no longer has diarrhea, vomiting. He is 4 kg and is 16 months old!!!! But today he is holding his own! and he's able to hold his head up on his own. He will return to the village with his 41 year old granny today (so she can plant their maize)and they'll return on January 2 so we can monitor further and put more weight on him. His is a classic and all too common case of severe, malnutrition which unfortunately the local health care system is inadequate in their response to him - and family are not doing their part either. So...we educate, support and pray!

Family Nap Time

Tim, Cornoleus, Krista & Rozina. The two babies they want to try to sneak home in their suitcase!

Mikey Turns 1

Mikey, Tim & Mandelina all celebrated their birthdays together on December 17th!

Cornolius' father visits

I think the trick to uploading photos may be connecting at 05:45. We'll see if a pattern arises!

This is Cornolius' father!

Cornolius' father visits

An expectation of families of Kasensa babies is for them to visit their baby as often as possible, usually monthly. Cornolius's dad visited earlier this week. Cornolius has gained almost one whole kilogram in 3 weeks. His cheeks are quite pooched out! He came with sores on most of his body parts - and some fungus growth on his genitals. Dad was quite happy to see how he's come along and says he'll return in a month - with a plan for how and when the family will care for baby.

Tim and Krista Krogsgaard are visiting right now - and Krista has enjoyed cuddling Cornolius ++. Tim enjoys coming up with nicknames for Cornolius - i.e. corndog, cornman, cornpops, cornbread, corn syrup.

Photo will not upload today! Tried 3 x (an hour and a half of attempts)!

World Vision Seminar - December 6, 2011

Taylor and I attended a WV workshop in Kalomo earlier this week. The topic: Strategies for exiting the community and focus on sustainability strategies.

The workshop was attended by WV employees, locally, nationally and internationally as well as local NGO's and government and non government representatives.

At the end of the day:

- NGO's must have defined plans to exit communities

-NGO's must work with exisiting structures - i.e. government, community, household to build capacity and exit strategies.

- World Vision plans for exit strategies around the 15 year mark and does a post exit follow-up a few years later

Dependence is crippling. Who would leave their child in the crib when they are ready to walk? Who would not have their child out of the crib from the time he/she is born so that development can happen normally?

More about this later!

There are many, many resources these days on development and specifically on faith based development. A few are: Tearfund UK and also Food For the Hungry international. If you are serious about helping without hurting - try these!

TIm, Krista and Ndonji

This week has been ACTIVE. Tim, Krista and Taylor have had much opportunity for learning about Zambian culture, customs and daily life.

Tim and Krista were able to see their sponsored student, Ndonji - a grade 1 student at Namwianga Basic School.

They describe Ndonji as shy. Ndonji lives with Jennifer who works for Sherri Sears - one of the College English teachers. Ndonji's story is that he and his sibs were orphaned a few years ago and they were brought to Jennifer - because she was a relative and she had a job.

Jennifer is grateful for sponsorship for Ndonji because a maid's wages are not enough to support the extra 3 children that Jennifer has in her care. Jennifer is a sweet and committed Christian woman who easily brightens up anyone's day with her always cheerful smile!

Krista at work at Kalomo Hospital

Krista and Tim are visiting! And we are very much loving every minute of their stay with us. Krista is a neonatal Intensive care nurse in Regina. On Krista's first visit to Kalomo Hospital we were asked to see two newly born premature babies - both born at 7 months gestation. With no equipment available to pump extra fluids and nutrition into their very tiny bodies (one 900 grams, the other a bit bigger) Krista went to work at teaching the basics on how to get the wee ones to nurse. So n not to tire the wee ones too much the new mom's were taught to supplement with droppers full of breastmilk and with instructions to feed like this every 2 - 3 hours. We went back every day for about 4 days and then skipped a day. After the skipped day the one baby (one in the photo) had died. It was a sad time for Krista. Why do such things happen? Kalomo Hospital does not have enough resources. They have skilled staff - although clearly not enough of them at times....Why does Kalomo Hospital not have enough resources? It doesn't take much research to find that out....I'll leave you to that. In Regina, this baby likely would still be alive.

Mikey the TML fan

Toronto Maple Leaf fans all over!

Does Mikey look like he really believes in the team? Oh well, it seems you can't go far without finding one of these fans.

Thanks
Tim and Krista!

Triplets at Kalomo Hospital

Triplets born last week at Kalomo Hospital. No tubes, no heroics - 3 healthy babies that were discharged 48 hours after birth. They left with their parents to join up with their other 3 sibs! Junior will be on the milk program.