Divine, the evangelist woke us up this morning with his early morning call. We thought that he was at the gate but he was just calling to let us know that he would be dropping off some of the Church’s paperwork when he came to town later in the morning. Around 9:00 he called and said that he was at the mechanic having a new clutch put in his motor king. We met him at the mechanic shop and picked up the documents he had prepared. He had a goat and a bag of yams loaded in the motor king. He said that he was sending the goat and the yams to help with a funeral that was being performed in his wife Gladys’ home village. A goat and a bag of yams seems like a strange gift to take to a funeral. The goat was alive! They will slaughter the goat and use the meat to feed the strangers that come to the funeral. Gladys was not able to go to the funeral because one of their children has a swollen leg. We loaded the goat, the yams and Divine in the pickup and took him to the bus station so the bus could take the gifts to the village where the funeral is being held. They tie the live animals on top of the buses.
We went to the home of Adamu, the severely malnourished abandoned baby, this morning. Since the Child Center is closed the caregiver is not able to bring the baby to the Center for a checkup. Zorash is a neighbor to the family that is caring for the baby. Zorash saw the baby a couple days ago and the child had diarrhea. She said that she was so disturbed by the way the baby looked that she had to leave the house without saying good-bye. We decided that we needed to give the baby formula in addition to the cereal, weaning mix, protein paste and oil that we were already giving the child. Steve said that if the child still had diarrhea we would take her to the hospital. Fortunately the diarrhea had stopped and the baby ate very well. The child is smart! She saw Zorash mix the formula and she refused to take it because her favorite is the Cerelac (cereal and formula mix) and she knows what type of packet it comes in. We told them to bring a packet of the Cerelac and let the baby see them add it to the formula. As soon as she saw the Cerelac she started smacking her lips. We were able to get her to eat the formula when we mixed it with the cereal. We had the teenage girl set the alarm on her cell phone for 2 hours so she will know when it is time to feed the child again. The grandmother is worried about witches. Most of the people around here believe that witches are responsible for sickness and death. They believe that witches are sacrificing and eating people in the astral world. The grandmother said that she is trying to get the child’s father to call the Juju people and change the child’s name. She believes that if they change the child’s name it will confuse the witches and they will not know that she is the same child. And then there is that!
Red got the propane burners fixed on the corn roaster. It works beautifully; we cooked a sample batch of corn this afternoon. It roasted the corn nice and evenly. It is a bit difficult to get all the corn kernels out of the cooker but we can live with that.
Thank you for all you do!
In HIS Service,
Steve and Kandie
