Praise God we received a new baby boy at the very end of May. His mother passed away a day and a half before he was brought to us and his father is unknown. One of our house moms, Belita, was at his mother’s funeral and overheard the aunt and uncle wondering what they would do with Mapenzi, so Belita suggested they come here to the MOL Community Orphanage. His aunt and uncle brought him unable to provide care for him. Because of his mother’s illness, Mapenzi had been surviving on goat and cow milk for the first two months of his life. Amber and I checked over his body and reflexes and he was surprisingly strong and healthy in spite of the circumstances he has been exposed to. The aunt and uncle already have three children they are caring for and had lost two younger ones to starvation, so caring for Mapenzi was not something they could do properly. Thankfully God has blessed us enough to be able to take him in…that same night we gave me new clothes, a warm blanket, and some formula. Mapenzi is a popular name for children out here and it means “trouble”. We don’t think any child should be named that, so we asked the aunt and uncle to rename him. Mapenzi also had two siblings that passed away with the same name, so they changed it to Nchimunya meaning “normal” in the hopes that he would be normal and live. About a month later, Nchimunya is still doing great and we are awaiting the results of his HIV test. They said his mother was not positive, but the way she passed away, we are almost certain that it was related to HIV.
Nchimunya makes 5 babies total and we know how much time the moms already spend on babies each day, so we prayed about hiring one of the part time moms on as a full time mom in the time being. Belita graciously accepted the offer and what a delight she is to have around all the time. She encourages the other two permanent house moms and really lives a life of faith; a great testimony to the older children. She also loves caring for Nchimunya night and day!!
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