Who else could I start the end of the year RC post with except Darlens. 🙂  Darlens is doing well.  One of the nannies is working with him weekly to try and get him to stand and walk.  He can get up and down off of a chair or his bed now.  He stands holding onto a bench or chair for long periods of time.  He is making progress slowly.  But that is okay we love him so much that he is worth the wait 🙂

There is so much to tell about the RC for this year but I will only hit the main points.  The RC is the most rewarding, most time consuming, hardest, happiest, place that I work in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We currently employee 47 ladies in the Rescue Center.  They work three different shifts.  6am-1:30pm~12:30pm-9:00pm~9:00pm-6:00am. (they overlap an hour during lunch & bath time).  Each shift has a least 2 ladies that can read and write to do charting and paper work.  They are all from the local village of Cazale.

We started out 2011 with 72 kids in our care.  There were 201 new admits in 2011.  Each week we are admitting new children and those that are well are going home.  So the numbers are always changing as to the head count each day.  Our highest daily count was 103.  Yikes!

Many of the children that are admitted are very ill and severely malnourished.  We had a total of 43 deaths in 2011.  In one 24 hour period we had 3 that died.

Each child was bathed, dressed and buried in the local cemetery here in Cazale.  We have one man that makes all the caskets for us.  We have another man that digs the graves for us and takes the body to the cemetery.  He usually carries the casket on his head or shoulder to get there.  If it is a larger child or perhaps and adult dad will drive them to the cemetery.

We count it a great privilege to be able to love of these sweet children in their last hours of life.  We do everything we can to help them live but many times that is not what happens.

There were 6 babies that were tiny, tiny ones under 5 pounds that were transfered to God’s Littlest Angels for special care.

There was a total of 3 children abandoned this year.  Most left outside our gate.

The ICU tent was  brought to life.  This tent is still open to care for the sickest children that we have.

These are the kids that need special attention throughout the night and day, many of IV’s, oxygen and feeding tubes.

Some of ….

the…

cute…

ones…

An area that is a great need in our area is babies that have lost their mothers.  Many times the mothers live 4,6,8, 10 hours away from a place that can help them during a difficult birth.  There are not many well trained mid-wives in our area and many women lose their lives giving birth.  This leaves a dad to care for the baby.  Most times these dad’s are farmers.  They spend sun-up to sun-down working in the fields or walking long distances to sell their produce.  It becomes very difficult to care for a newborn baby.  It is very difficult to find a someone to help them out with the need.  Most family are trying to find a way to live themselves and cannot take on a new little baby.

These fathers travel to many different places looking for help for their child.  They will find orphanges that will take in the child if they will put it up for adoption.  Many times they will do this just so they child can live.  We thought, maybe we could offer them a different option.  This started us in caring for these babies that have lost their mothers.  We care for them until they are walking and off of infant formula.  The dad can then take them home and they have a much higher chance of survival.  They can usually find a older child, aunt, or grandma that would be willing to help out with a toddler.  These babies make up 1/3 of the children in the Rescue Center. This is one way we can help keep as many families together as we can. (side-note We are not againist adoption at all.  I have an adopted child myself, but we believe in keeping families together whenever possible.  The fathers needs this option)

Our kids needs lots of protien.  We use 38 dozen eggs per week , 152 dozen per month, 1824 dozen per year for the kids in the Rescue Center.  Any way you look at it we use a lot of eggs!

This is a bag of laundry soap.  We use one of these bags per day to wash the clothing, diapers, sheets, blankets etc for the Rescue Center.  We have 6 ladies that wash 6 days a week.  They wash all these clothes by hand.

We use 4 cases of chicken, 3 cases of hotdogs, and 2 cases of fish each month for the kids in the Rescue Center.

We average 10 cans of infant formula each day for the children in the Rescue Center.  We also give infant formula out to HIV+ babies and mothers and several that have TB.

The hours and hours of work are worth it to see these children get healthy and well and return home with their families.

MIRLANDE

PETRISSON

SELON

STANLEY

CLAUTIDE

WILLIONA & WILLONY

We and all the kids that have been in and out of the Rescue Center want to say a BIG THANK YOU!  With your help we have been able to keep the Rescue Center open and have been able to show many, many, many families the love of Christ through the center.  They trust us and believe that God has saved their children.  We give HIM all the Glory for all the great things that HE has done!