New Canaanites

This is kind of an exciting week for me because it’s my last in a while. Next Wednesday I’m heading for the North – I guess it still exists? Sometimes you wonder here – it tends to feel kind of isolated, and narrow focused. The other night we went to Club Indigo for internet, and their’s was down too, so we sat and watched TV for a bit. It felt so strange! Guess it’s not a bad vice to not have here.
Canaan news:
We have 5 new children here. They’re siblings. The dad died a little over a year ago in a gravel pit accident. Years ago he worked at Canaan, and S. Gladys really felt called to take the children. The mom died more or less in January. The oldest two are boys, and then 3 girls. So Canaan finally has a baby. That child will have problems learning to walk. Everybody wants to hold her. Actually, they’re doing very well; she even gets to crawl sometimes.

Rolancia (11 months)

Mackenson (13) Diuner (10)

Jolette (8) Lina (4)

An interesting challenge for me this week has been Louinel. He is 4 months old and weighs 2.5 kg (about 5 pounds). I’ve had him come for about 2 weeks, giving the mom milk to take. His little feet are all swollen from malnutrition and he was barely peeing all day. Well, he just wasn’t gaining. So Tuesday, when I saw he would gag every time he drank something, I decided something else had to be done. I put an NG tube into his stomach and now we’re feeding him by tube. The mom comes and spends all day. WE NEED A HOSPITAL! He actually gained weight today. One of the girls on the nutrition team is a huge help with that. The mom isn’t feeling comfortable doing it, so I think this is going to be a working weekend! When clinic is closed, we bring her up to Canaan. Please pray he’ll do OK. Little ones like that you have to be careful of not overfeeding him, and I’m not too sure where the balance is (Stephanie???). At least now he’s peeing ok finally. Amazing how much better that makes me feel!