They've started calling Susan a new name, Mama wa Wengi (the mother of many).  I came across a note Susan had written about three of the little kids who are part of her life at Madisi, and thought I would share it with you all so you can get a glimpse of why ...

Little Abdoni’s angry cry could be heard 10 minutes before he ever showed up at my door.  As the howling approached, we wondered what was yet in store for us that morning!  Abdoni was indeed one angry boy -- which is a good sign for a baby who we learned from his mom had lost almost half of his body weight in the past 2 weeks.  What we've discovered in this war we're in is that babies born to moms with HIV/AIDS and who contracted the disease at birth are very difficult to help.  HIV testing for infants has yet to make it to our little part of the world, and so it has been a kind of a hit or miss approach with the hospital to get these babies on on the ARVs before they die.  Last year, we lost 12 babies but we're already two months into this new year and we haven’t lost one yet.

Little Abdoni’s angry brown eyes dared me to do something.  His mom said he had diarrhea and had been vomiting.  What that meant was that if he could, or would, drink the oral rehydration fluid, he might have a chance.  And so there it was on my porch after a few painful sips that emaciated Abdoni decided that, even he didn’t like me one bit, he sure did like the orange flavored drink!  He finished a half a liter in no time and kept it down.  In the meantime, I sent text messages to Dr. Leena at Ilembula hospital to ask what to give this dying baby, and I prayed.  And wonderfully the Lord provided everything that we needed.  The text messages went through right away from my village to her village, something that only happens on "good days", and each medicine she told me to use we actually had in stock there in my little pharmacy.  Godfrey & Emmanueli had just replenished me with another big supply of medicines on their way back from their trip to Rukwa and Mbeya and I lacked for nothing!  A few days later, I picked Abdoni up at his home and took him to as special baby clinic Dr. Leena was doing in the village of Mdabulo, and as she and the clinical officer looked him over, they agreed that as soon as the next batch of ARVs come in March that little Abdoni gets to get enrolled in the program with or without the lab tests!  How blessed we are.  In the meantime while we're waiting for the ARVs he'll be on co-trimoxozale to sustain him.  Given the very large number of HIV+ people, there is a painful lack of co-trimoxozale -- a drug that wonderfully helps fight off the so-called "opportunistic" infections which are often responsible for our friends’ deaths.  But they've got enough on hand for Abdoni and for that I am very grateful.

Unlike little Abdoni, we have 2-year old Benedict who got on the ARVs at 9 months of age in what I can only a miracle from the Lord.  His beautiful Mom so desperately didn't want to lose her only son.  Unlike Abdoni who was totally emaciated, Benedict when I first saw him was totally swollen with fluid to the point where his skin was all splitting open.  But just like Abdoni, Benedict's eyes said that he wasn't going without a fight.  And as I think of Abdoni, I see again that it was the kindness of Dr. Leena that God used to save a life.  She had been given cans of special, lactose-free milk from Finland, and she had shared with me part of what she had been given so that I had them in my car "in case I ever needed them".  Some kids with Kwashiorkor can’t handle milk or formula once they have become lactose intolerant and to save them we need something special that isn't found any where in this country -- and I remember the joy of knowing that what was simply not available to purchase no matter how much money I would have been willing to pay to get it, there it was in the back of my car -- cans of lactose-free milk from Finland that someone had sent to Dr. Leena.  I see him now and am thankful for how strong little Benedict seems to be getting.  His family sure has been hit hard by AIDS.   Four of the five family members have the virus.  I marvel at the women with such courage and love as Benedict’s mother who refuse to give up in spite of her nearly unbearable circumstances.  I’m not sure what I would do if I were in similar circumstances.

Five year old Amani came into my life last summer.  His grandmother had asked me if she could take our bus and go to Mafinga town to find Amani as he was sick. I learned that Amani’s baby sibling had just died and his mom was sick and his grandmother had purposed in her heart that she just wanted to go get her grandson.   Our bus exists to transport those who are sick and need to get to the hospital, but I had Abeli add her to the list to go into town and then to add her and her grandson to come back.  As soon as Amani got here to the village we sent him to the hospital for HIV testing and sure enough he tested positive.  We tried to find his mom, but I didn't get to talk to her before I left to take Jonathan to America for his surgery in October.  I learned when I got back to Tanzania in mid-January that she wouldn't go get tested.  I found her a skeleton with eyes just too tired to care anymore.  We cared for her the best we could, bringing food, doctors, medicine, blankets and anything else that would give her a boost until she could start the ARV’s.  The last afternoon I saw her alive I brought her a beautiful knitted blue hat that a friend of mine had made in America and I helped her put it on to keep her head warm in the terribly cold night.  As the extended family members gathered around the house I knew that they knew that the end was coming soon.  They could see death in her unfocused eyes and hear it by the rattle in her chest.  When I returned the same time the next afternoon, Amani was wearing that beautiful blue hat, standing beside the bed where his mother had died.  His mother was only 25 years old.  Her young life started to end when she got married to Amani’s father.  He gave her the virus, though neither of them knew that at the time, and she then passed the virus on to Amani, most likely through nursing him.  After Amani's father died, she re-married but the pregnancy and then the birth of a new baby caused this immune-compromised woman to go down hill fast.  In the last year, she lost her new baby, then she lost her second husband, and it was obvious her whole family had been infected.  And it was then that her mother went to town to bring her home to the village, to try to care for her and for little Amani.  Five years old this dear little boy.  Wearing his mother's beautiful blue hat.

Last week we had 26 Finnish missionaries in our home for a special Sunday afternoon worship service and as we shared with them about the work that God has brought us to do in these villages.  We talked of starting schools.  We talked of sharing the Gospel.  We talked of leadership.  But we also talked of the wonderfully good things that their dear Finnish colleague, Dr. Leena, and Susan, and Sarah, and Veronica and so many of our students are out there doing day after day to help the children who without a doubt Jesus would call "the least of these my brothers".  I wish all of these kids would grow up, that somehow Susan and her little team could save them all, that they'd all get to go to school one day, that down the road someone somewhere would find a cure in time for these kids.  I found another one of Susan's notes, a reminder for me of just how painful this life is that she has chosen to lead.

It was 12:45 p.m. and the text message from the Kibao clinic read, “Sorry to inform you that the child called Anet Makombe just passed away.”  Anet was just 14 months old and she and her mother first came to me last week.  Her little body was swollen with fluid and the fluid was bursting through her skin.  She was breathing quickly and she looked near death.  I got her the needed medicine, the right kind of nourishment and we made all of the arrangements for Abeli to take her on the bus to my wonderful friends at Kibao clinic.  She was too far gone that little girl, and four days later, today, she died and the sisters sent me the text message from the clinic.  I called Abeli and asked him to buy a mat and a cloth to wrap baby Anet in for the trip back home to the village to be buried. 

Soon after I talked with Abeli a huge storm passed through our area, leaving those of us who were out on in vehicles to slip and slide off into ditches.  I was far from home making my rounds visiting people and my little vehicle Panzi (Grasshopper) managed some very steep mountains sliding down sideways.  If we were going to slide off I kept telling myself at least I was planning to go off very slowly!  But we made it back to the village safe and sound and that is where I met up with Janerose who let me know that Abeli and the bus was stuck on that same mountain that I had slid down.  And yes, he was stuck there with Anet's mother and little Anet wrapped up in a mat coming home to get buried.  I sent word to her family in the village of Ikaning'ombe to have them send someone on foot to get them because I couldn't bear the thought of that mother spending the night on the bus with her dead child at her side.  Not long after though I heard our car Yatima leaving.  I learned that it was Emmanueli who was at the wheel.  He didn't come home for several hours.  He had made it to where the bus was stuck, he retrieved Anet's mother from the bus and drove her to her to home in the village.  I would have never dreamed on such a stormy night of asking Emmanueli to do that.  I didn't have to.

No none of us would have ever dreamed of asking Emmanueli to take the car out that night on those terribly muddy roads.  The beauty of what is happening here in that no one would ever have to ask him to do it.