Neema (Grace) House Baby Orphanage

On Tuesday (Nov.20) we flew from Dar to Arusha in northern Tanzania to stay and serve (until Saturday) at Neema House, which is a baby orphanage started by a retired pastor and his wife (from Texas) along with a young woman from England who has done past volunteer work at a baby orphanage. Their dreams to start their own lined up and Claire is the director while Michael & Dorris split their time between working there and being back home fund-raising. They have over 20 babies under the age of 2 in their care!  The need is great...

Actually many of the babies living at Neema House will eventually go back to their families. In several instances the mother died in childbirth and the father (or whoever else in the family took over their care) simply can not afford the expenses of formula and medical care so they will receive care at Neema until they're walking and eating solids before going back home. Others are there because they've been abandoned... there are babies we cared for and grew to love that were abandoned in such places as the bus station or on the side of the road, but the worst case was of baby Innocent who was found in what we would refer to as an outhouse and once rescued and brought to a hospital they had to remove maggots from his ear, which is an excruciatingly painful process... we know that what satan meant for evil, God will redeem. Our prayer is that he would be adopted into a loving christian home very soon.

We weren't completely sure what we were supposed to do when we got there so we just hopped in and assisted with holding babies, changing their diapers, feeding them, playing with the toddlers, and praying over them all as often as possible. It's a very busy house and they just opened their doors June of 2012 so they haven't had many volunteers yet, but it's pretty self-explanatory what you can help with :) Below is a photo of me with Frida and Steve is holding his new little friend Zawadi (the nannies were shocked that when he picked her up she just instantly stopped crying, guess she's a bit of a handful - Steve was often found holding her - which was hard because she's up for adoption, but it's very difficult for an outsider to adopt here)

We were quite blessed to find we would have our own private room and bathroom - our accommodations have been wonderful on this trip! We even had a beautiful mosquito net that made our room look quite fancy :) but I will say we hardly even noticed the mosquitoes in Arusha compared to Dar = they were horrible in Dar! I suppose because of the humidity there.

I have to say we were blessedly free of sunburn, mosquito bites, and tummy trouble while in Africa! The heat wasn't even unbearable and although the forecast made it appear that it would be raining all the time during our trip, whenever it did it'd only last a few minutes and dry up just as fast! I think I had 1 night I took something for my stomach and on our way home while in London I didn't have much of an appetite but that's nothing compared to what we were expecting to deal with! :) In Dar we seemed to eat more western food because that's all we knew how to cook unless we ate at a restaurant, but in Arusha we didn't need to do much of our own grocery shopping since there is a cook there that makes a late morning snack of chai tea and chipati (kind of like fried flat pancakes) and then in the afternoon made a more traditional meal. Our first experience of this was very tasty: rice, beans, cucumbers, & ugali!

I really can't say that this venture brought us a ton more clarity as to what God has for our family in Africa in the future, but a few things we did learn (& made it all worthwhile) would be:

1. Prayer & quiet-time with God is a must every day
2. We really need to learn Swahili
3. The people there are very passionate & it can be channeled toward good or evil
4. There are over 3 million orphans in Tanzania alone & orphanages provide for only 3,000 children.
5. Giving money isn't as important as giving food - shelter - clothing - a means to work - & God
6. Always be aware of your surroundings there, theft is quite common with so much poverty
7. We still have a heart for the youth (teens), but I still have a huge heart for the little ones as well...
8. Whatever God will use us for there, we need to train for back home (work with these age groups)
9. We only had 1 vaccination instead of the slew recommended and were perfectly fine - just need to be cautious
10. Our heart for adoption has increased dramatically - God showed me a vision while at church in Dar. It was of our small African daughter holding Sarah's hand and running off together to play... I was a puddle of tears & can't wait to meet her someday... I don't think she has been born yet, but will continue to pray for her & her family :)

To learn more about Neema House or to give a tax-deductible gift visit: www.tanzaniaorphanhelp.com