Update 10--The Babies

No trip to Kisumu would be complete without a visit to New Life Home, a haven for abandoned babies. My first visit there, seven years ago, was overwhelming. Prisca the nurse/director had showed me around the clean, sunny rooms full of gentle caretakers and toys and lots of adorable babies. "They are found beside the road," Prisca had said, "or in latrines, or in the garbage, or along a riverbank. Some are left at the hospital, and the mom gives a false name and address, and then slips out without her baby." I remember the enormity of it hit me and I couldn't stop crying, remembering my fierce love and protectiveness of my own babies, and here were these motherless babies by the dozen, and I couldn't take it in. This time I was better prepared.

Back then, we used to walk over once or twice a week just to hold babies. This time we came with a big box of cloth diapers someone had donated and also $100 worth of supplies, paid for by the ladies from Brownsville Mennonite Sewing Circle. Prisca's sister happens to be our friend Vincent's wife Phyllis, and she had sent me a list of things they need, from Vaseline to cooking oil to porridge meal. So I had shopped at the local Nakumatt the day before and we came loaded down.

The caretakers posed a few babies with all the gifts.

And then, of course, we held babies. Amy's was a feverish little girl, also named Amy.
I fell in love with Peter, who put his head on my chest like he belonged there. Peter had a piece of packing tape in his hand and was furious when someone tried to take it away and replace it with a safe toy. He would fit right in with our family.

Babies and toddlers everywhere--may God have mercy on them all and bring them safely into loving families. Thankfully, New Life Home has an excellent track record of placing these babies in good homes.