Sanyu Babies Home

Yesterday I began working at Sanyu Babies Home, which is an orphanage for Ugandan children. Forty-seven children, from newborns through the age of four, live at Sanyu. It is such a great place and I am so excited to be involved there. The director and other workers really care about the children so much and try making each of them feel loved. They are very short staffed and are certainly lacking in resources, but the staff do such a good job of working with what they have to take care of the kids.

Yesterday it was me and three other girls who went to the orphanage. When we first got there, we were shown around the home. There are a couple of big rooms filled with cribs, each with their own mosquito net. There's a big dining room lined with adorable toddler sized wooden chairs and tables. The home has a kindergarten for the oldest children; we didn't see inside of the classroom but it was cool to learn that they have classes. They have a pretty big yard with swing sets and slides. There are lots of bright murals and Bible verses around the home; it's nice they make the place nice and cheery.

As soon as we got there, a crying baby was thrown in my arms. His name is Jeremiah and he's only about three and a half months old. He threw up on me in the first thirty seconds I was holding him and his diaper needed to be changed. So I found him a new outfit and changed his diaper. I kept holding him and he threw up again. This wasn't just spit up; he was really sick. There was a Canadian woman volunteering who was a med student so I asked her about Jeremiah. She said that yesterday he had an IV in his hand but that she didn't know what was wrong with him. When the doctor was looking at him, he spoke in Luganda so she couldn't understand what he said. For my readers who pray, please pray that Jeremiah gets better.

The girls and I spent most of our time changing diapers. With so many babies, there is just a constant stream of babies who need to get changed. They seriously need two full time staff whose only duty is to change babies' diapers. The babies just want to be held so badly. They are so happy just to have someone's attention, so unlike any baby I have ever interacted with before, most of them loved getting their diaper changed.

The older babies and toddlers really crave adult attention and care too. They just flock around the adults, trying to get in our laps or grab our hands. They are so cute. I wish they had more toys available to them. Children just play by nature though, so I saw them playing with jug caps, shoes, and chairs. It was so much fun playing with the older children, playing peek-a-boo and teaching some of them some new words.

It's both sad and hope instilling to work at Sanyu. I wish these children had an attachment figure they consistently felt loved by and who wasn't spread too thin. The children are lacking so much, both emotionally and physically. At the same time though, children are naturally joyful and resilient. Some of us here with Go Ed are going to start a project to collect money to buy some of the resources Sanyu is lacking. For those of you at Calvary Baptist who supported my trip, this is where much of that money is going to go. For everyone else, if you would like to help out Sanyu Babies Home, I will be giving more info on here soon about how to do that.