We washed 6 loads of laundry today and did not even make a dent in the mountain that still has to be done. Thankfully there is lots of water in the reservoir. We are shorthanded this week. I am especially shorthanded. Amama took the week off to help with a funeral. Whenever there is a funeral there are lots of visitors. Not only do you have to feed the visitors but you also have to haul their bath water. Job # 55 that I don’t want! Amama is the lady that helps in the house. Can you imagine the cramp that it is putting on my style to have to wash all the dishes and iron clothes? Not my idea of fun. I would rather pay Amama her 12 dollars a week to do the ironing for me; not to mention all the other odd jobs she does around the house.
This morning a severely malnourished baby was brought to the Child Center by his mother. He was 3 months old and only weighed 5 ½ pounds. His mother said that he always had diarrhea and that she had been to the clinic in her village several times but they were not kind to her there because she delivered the baby at home instead of in the clinic. She was so worried about the baby and kept wiping tears from her eyes. We sent him to the hospital to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong with him. They gave him antibiotics and vitamins and sent him back to us with a letter asking us to help feed the child. After some investigating we figured out that he was tongue tied and it was interfering with his ability to breastfeed. We were not sure if the clinic near the mission house would clip his tongue or not so we sent Zorash over to ask. Steve paid for his tongue to be clipped. We gave them a can of formula just to help get him a boost. Hopefully when they come back the baby will have started gaining weight and the mother can go back to exclusively breastfeeding. She came from Jimile which is a village quite a long way away from Yendi. We showed her how to mix the formula and fed the baby before she left. She was so happy.
This afternoon we got a visit from a young man who used to live in Yendi and who knew my parents. He was just a young teenager when he lived here. He now lives in Tamale. He said that he and his sister had come to Yendi to perform their mother’s funeral and they had spent all their money on the funeral. They were begging for transport money to get back to Tamale. Of course Steve gave them their transport money plus a little sympathy money for losing their mother.
We finally started bringing the furniture back into the main house. We now have a dining room table and a couch to sit on.
Take care and keep the work in your prayers.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
