malnutrition

this evening i am just going to lift up to you two babies and two mammas.
Ella and baby Charl and
baby Anicette and her mamma.
both babies are severly malnonourished, both on the edge, one on the ship, one not.

baby annicette was with us for almost all of the benin outreach. i remember her and her mamma as she was getting better after her cleft lip surgery....having taken months and months (virtually the whole 10 month outreach) to gain enough weight to be operated on safely. she went home a fat, healthy, well loved by her mamma happy baby with a stitched up lip.
two days ago she came back to the ship....ani and her mamma travelled to another country to find us, the only people she think could help. baby ani was a shadow of her former self and at 14 months old she was now off the growth charts. she skin is hanging off her and her cheeks caving in - why i ask? not enough food, or just food that shes not able to absorb with her fragile tummy. something has gone badly wrong in only a few months since she left the ship last time.

all we could do was bundle her into her cloth blankets and pray for her. pray for her mamma. pray for wisdom and knowledge. pray that it doenst happen all over again when we leave. please pray too.

Ella and Charl I met this morning, sitting in church, in a fishing village, sand underfoot and a corrugated iron roof above my head. ella was sitting in the seat infront of mine, with charl weakly flopped over her knees or resting his large head on his mammas shoulders and his body flopped in her arms. i knew something was badly wrong again. out of all the babies suckling at their mammas breast during the meeting, he suckled the least frequently and for the shortest. completely warn out after a few short sucks.
so into the back of the landrovers they came back to the ship after the meeting.  I was wrong in thinking that they could come onboard into our feeding programme - that was only for babies who were too small for awaiting surgery. so at the gangway and in reception we put together all that we could...a bit of education, a tin of formula, a box of baby rice, and some pediasure (high calorie milky drink)...just gathering what we could. mamma needed to take charl to the local hospital - where unicef were partnered with a local feeding programme - but she had no pennies for treatment - not even enough to get herself there. so we gathered a collection amongst the 4 of us there. we taught mamma how to make formula, how to frequently to feed her baby and how to encourage her own milk production, then bundled them back into the vehicle and drove back to the fishing village.

there was hope in her heart, a smile on her face, she hugged us goodbye and thank thank thanked us. we invited her to church again next week - so see her and see how charl was doing. only simple actions on our part. just some simple formula and simple words to teach, just an hour of my time and a few notes out of my purse.
but and a big BUT...our action was another persons miracle, little things for us can mean huge things for others and give them hope and a touch of faith.
please pray for this mamma and baby as well.
- for fat babies, healthy babies, for the right food, and for correct absorption. for their hope, for their courage and for God to have his way, his perfect way.