Lindsay "Mother of 4" Bewick

Introducing the new Lindsay, house mother extraordinaire!!! Let me explain myself a bit more! One of the reliever house mother’s baby daughter became the latest victim of the horrendous bug going around the village and community. She had to be rushed to hospital on Monday evening with more than 10% dehydration. The little baby was struggling to breathe and kept drifting in and out of consciousness. Finally both mother and baby were admitted to hospital. Mother’s bed was a hard wooden bench next to her baby so she can still breast feed her. I quickly popped into the hospital to visit on Tuesday and the mum was so tired- she got very little sleep at all. But by the grace of God her baby has perked up a lot. She is responding to the fluids being pumped into her nicely. So, how does this make me a good “house mother”. When the reliever and her baby went into hospital it was up to us the volunteers to look after the 4 kids in that house. So on Monday night I slept over and played mother. The kids got me up at 5.30am (eek!!!!!!!!!!) but were so good. The two older kids didn’t need my help at all except to make them breakfast and put up their school lunches. The younger two were just as good though, we ate breakfast, had a nice bath and got dressed. Each child took their medicine willingly without fuss. These kids are so well behaved, I really actually had to do very little. The next night, Robbie stayed over and played the house father, while Sophie our newest volunteer stayed over on Wednesday night. Between us we kept that little family together and running! What an achievement!
While all of this was going on unfortunately one of the management team and a very special friend of mine was taken into hospital for an operation to remove her Gall Bladder after an infection. A routine operation which should have gone smoothly quickly turned into a nightmare with my amazing friend ending up in ICU for the night. When we heard the news our first instinct was just to pray. Pray that God would keep her safe. Pray that God would influence all those involved in trying to fix the problem in theatre. It was an intense time waiting to hear whether she would be OK. Praise God she is now out of the woods. Praise God for keeping her safe. It’s been a long few days now. I miss her terribly. I miss having her around the office to chat to and laugh with. I miss our “pity parties” which only we can have together. I miss seeing how wonderful she is with her children and most of all I miss how good and appreciated she makes me feel every single day. I praise God for my amazing friend and pray that she would be healed quickly.
Excellent news on our newest little girl. I’ve spent a lot of time one on one with her this week and she is now responding very well. She is smiling with her whole face now. Her eyes have life in them, she is now ready to fight to live! She has a cleft lip but has started speaking. She even managed to nearly say “Auntie Lindsay” yesterday. Most of the children do struggle with my name. At first they call me “Lindy” or “ Linz” but eventually they get it! I’m going to miss being called Auntie Lindsay when I leave (just 3 more weeks to go- ahhhhh!).

We had a new arrival in the form of a tiny (only 2.5kg- about 5.5 pounds!) 3 month old baby girl on Friday. Clearly she was born prematurely so we need to keep a close eye on her. Her mother is in the final stage of AIDS and has TB so it was impossible for her to care for the baby and all her relatives refused to help her. She is now being cared for by a wonderful house mother and is a happy, smiley and most importantly healthy baby! Praise God.

I'll leave you with a few new pictures taken in the last few weeks of the kids on their bikes and visiting the stables.....