Probably one of my favorite parts of this trip was working at the baby home. We were able to go and volunteer here almost everyday, sometimes twice a day. The first day we went in the morning. The babies were just getting up so we got them out of their cribs and then into the room where they would have their baths. We stripped them out of their sopping wet clothes and then handed them to one of the "mommas" to bathe. We then took them into another room where we got them dressed. There was just a huge pile of clothes to choose from, girl and boy clothes. I had noticed already that boys wore girls clothes and vice versa. They all had shaved heads so you never really knew (unless you changed a diaper!) what sex they were. I painstakingly stood there with my first baby, trying desperately to find a cute girly outfit for her. One of the mommas finally laughed at me and told me I was taking too long!! Oh yeah, there are about 12 other babies waiting to get dressed!! Sigh....into a t-shirt with a truck on it she went.....
The first of many heart wrenching moments for me....no time to splash and play in the bath, no time to lovingly rub lotion on them, no time to stare into their beautiful eyes and tell them that someone loves them, someone cares for them! The mommas truly did the best they could with so many babies, but how sad that these babies don't have their own special momma to do these things for them! My heart ached.
And then, there was Alinda. I noticed her right away while she waited in her crib for someone to retrieve her. I went over and started playing with her while I waited to get her changed and bathed
Here we were that day.....
I asked one of the mommas what her name was, I thought at first they said "Linda", which happens to have been Bruce's sweet mom's name. It is providential! I thought. She is meant to be our daughter!! Turns out her name was Alinda, but anyway..... Well, Dwight, our team leader had already warned me...."don't fall in love with any of these babies. You will have your heart broken." It was too late though!! This one had my heart in pieces!!
Come to find out a couple of days later, she actually was most likely headed to a foster home with her older brother, hopefully soon. Ok, that made my heart feel better. I was still able to love on her the remainder of our time in Uganda. I kissed those cheeks as many times as I could until the last day!! Isn't she so scrumptious???
Each day that we worked at the baby home had me wrecked. Really, they do the best they can and for the most part the babies are well cared for, but certainly not to our standards! I wish I had a picture of the long high chair that the babies that could sit up to about 18 months ate in. It was just a long wooden high chair that could fit about 8 or so babies. Someone then just went down the line with a spoon feeding them all their porridge!! Yes, they were getting food, but no little airplane noises into their mouths!
In the afternoons the babies would be outside, under a veranda. They had mats out and the babies would be laying around on them playing. We would sit down and inevitably three or more babies would start crawling all over you. Some days I would sing and they loved it! I would sing "Jesus loves you" and they just ate it up!! Dwight would tell us that every baby we touched, think of them as being touched by the very hand of Jesus. We were truly being the hands and feet of Jesus!! This was so incredible! This made all those hard feelings of what these babies DIDN'T have that much easier to handle. I thought about what we WERE giving them, if only for a moment. Every baby I held, I whispered, "I love you", "You are important" , "You are loved by God". Every touch, every word mattered to them, if only for this moment!! Someday, (soon, I hope) many of these sweet babies WILL have a family to love them. Until then, our little team of crazy Americans were able to show them God's love.......
