The almost son

Yesterday, I almost brought a son home! His name is Hammadou. He was born premature weighing about 2 lbs. Yesterday, Aleta and I met him and his mother. He is now 1 month old and still weighs around 2 lbs.- just skin and bone. The mother has limited milk supply which means she has to supplement with formula. This is an extremely difficult task. First, she has to buy it. A can is about $5. While that seems like nothing to us- that is 2 1/2 days wage (that is if you have a good paying job). The mother will have to find a store that sells it which might be difficult since they are nomadic and away from their village now. When she wants to make it, she has to build a fire and then boil water- yes, even in the middle of the night. Then she has to mix the formula to feed and afterwards wash the only bottle she has. Perhaps it is the difficulty of the process that has led to her only feeding the baby once a day, or maybe it was lack of knowledge since she speaks Fufulde and the nursing staff does not or maybe the lack of feedings is due to the fact that the Fulani are resigned to fate- whatever God wills will be done so there is no point worrying about it, after all she has already lost 2 babies.
Aleta and I went into full nurse educator mode! We stressed how important it was for her to feed him every 2 hours and to try to nurse as well. We got discouraged when we thought she had gone to prepare a bottle only to find her washing clothes instead. I was determined to help this baby- even if that meant taking him home with me, and in fact the baby's great aunt asked us to take him and care for him. At one point I was alone with him, trying to warm him under lamps. I sang "He has the whole world in His hands" to him. And He does- the little bitty babies as well. We prayed over him and his mother and then we gave more education and more support to his mother. Aleta went and checked on them last night and the mom was nursing Hammadou and she had also fed him 3 other times!
This morning we went to see mom and baby and to bring some warm clothes for him. One of my concerns was if he was urinating enough- if he was then he was getting enough food. To my delight, he was soaking wet when we arrived and his mom was making a bottle for him! While he has a lot of weight to put on still, I believe he and his mom are moving in the right direction. Please keep baby Hammadou and his mother in your prayers!

A Charlie update!

Here is a Charlie update!

• Oh she has been soooo much fun lately! She is talking up a storm- both in English and Sango. Her new word yesterday was "funny." Everything was funny! She is making sentences- which are usually commands- "Mommy, come." "Mommy sit." But the phrase she says 500 times a day is, "aye yigh yigh!"  

• She likes to play pretend, especially with her babies. She sings to them and puts them "night night."
•  She is obsessed with coloring and we just painted a dresser for her with chalk board paint and she colors on it all of the time. She "draws," "flowers," "bugs," and "1,2,3."

•  She is really into counting. She always gets 1, 2, and sometimes she gets 3 in the right place. When she wants some more of something, she says, "2, 2!" even after she has already had 2. or she says, "oko" which is one in Sango. She knows her vowels also- we have alphabet stickers on the wall and she says, "a, e, i, o, u"- but she says them the French way.
  
• She does things to make herself and us laugh, like the other night we were looking at a book with animals and I asked her where the elephant was. She totally knows "elephant," but she pointed to every other animal on the page and laughed and laughed when she did. She thought she was so funny. 

•  She is also so sensitive. If she thinks we have a boo-boo, she pats us and says, "k,k,k" as in "are you ok?" Then she kisses our boo boos, and then the best is when she takes both hands, puts them on our cheeks, and strokes them softly while she "shushes us." It is amazing.
  
• She is also really into cars lately. Yesterday, Josh borrowed a jeep and Charlie pretended she was driving it. She was so excited. Then a Fulani group of kids came and she wanted the baby to sit with her- her first date. Not so happy that they went parking though! 

• She loves to play with the local kids. Today, all of the kids her age and younger cried and cried when she came near them. Poor Charlie- hope she doesn't get a complex. But thankfully all of the older kids love to play with her. They pick her up and play with her like she is a doll.
  
• She is doing really well with potty training!
  
• In the last couple of weeks, toddler temper tantrums seem to have been decreasing! Praise the Lord!

• She is becoming less shy again- now she shakes the hands of Africans again. 
• She loves to pray and several times during the day she will say, "pray" and put her hands together. I then ask her what we should pray for and sometimes she will name a person or she will look around a say a thing like flowers, door, cookies, or whatever else is on her mind. 

Sitting on a death- Ash Wednesday

Today, Ash Wednesday, I "sat on a death." I went to the home of a Fulani woman whose husband had died. He was in his 30's and unexpectedly left behind 3 small children.

There is much to learn from a culture by the way they live but also by how they respond to death. While the other tribes around us wail loudly, flailing their arms about in dramatic theatrics when someone they know dies, the Fulani are reserved. They strive to be dignified. They are also hopeless and fatalistic: "What can we do? It is Allah's will."

As we sat with the women on the dirt floor of the house, my mind and heart lingered on the phrase "ash to ash and dust to dust" for today is Ash Wednesday. For my non-liturgical friends, this means it is the first day of Lent- the season of preparation before Easter.

Many of us are uncomfortable with Lent. For a long time, I looked down on it as the kind of works based practice from which Jesus has freed me. But the true emphasis of Lent is not what I can do (give up bathing, chocolate, Youtube, etc). Instead, it is preparing for the celebration of what He did. Before I celebrated Lent, Easter would often sneak up on me. I spent more time thinking of marshmallow birdies and a new dress than the awe of Easter. But before we can celebrate the resurrection, we need to remember the cross and the reason Jesus was crucified. Lent is a chance to remember the dark before the dawn. To sit with our sins. To appreciate the need for a Savior. To remember that there are still people in need of the Savior.

Really until this year, until I "sat on a death," Lent has always been about me, me, me. But as I sat with the family of a man that returned to the dust, my heart was heavy for them and our other Fulani friends that only know darkness. Oh how I pray they will come to know the joy of the Easter resurrection.

This Lent, as you reflect on Easter, please join me in praying for our Fulani friends.