Welcome Babies Moses & Maggie

Honestly. This is becoming a God-crazy kinda thing. EVERY time we lose a baby, God brings another in its place.

Today, Joseph's parents have come and God brought us four day old baby Moses! And this on the tail of sweet baby Maggie, who is nine months old and came to us on Wednesday.

Stay tuned to hear their stories.....

Baby pool at the baby house

Auntie Mel brought a new baby pool so we took advantage of the warm {HOT} weather before the rains come, which we hope is soon! Most of the babies had a wonderful time.

William LOVED it!

Joseph wasn't so sure about it, but was fine as long he was not IN the pool.

Sweet Elizabeth

Crazy-Hair Lizzy

Baby Delis is growing so much! She loved the water.

Little Kennedy, who usually does NOT like anything new or different, did great! So proud of this little guy and the changes taking place in him.

And I had to include this one of my little girl cause she just looks so grown up! 

Welcome TWO new babies

Have I said lately how much I LOVE my job?! THIS is what I get to do....

After looking at land and dreaming about the exciting future of HCO, I am brought back to the reality of what we do here. We provide a home for babies who desperately need a home. We love babies in who are in desperate need of love.

This precious boy came to us from the Provincial Hospital down the road from us. He was abandoned there by his mother just days after he was born. He contracted meningitis at a few days old, and then developed hydrocephalus. Our manager, Angie, had known of him for several months and had personally fund raised to get money for him to have a shunt put in. This poor baby had been left alone in a government (aka: horrible, deplorable, disgusting) hospital for over four months, with no one to hold, love or care for him. In hospitals here, a mother or caretaker must stay with their child to feed, bath and take care of them. Nurses do not do any care taking whatsoever. Sadly, our little guy has spent the entire first four months of his life laying on his back, his head simply being shifted from side to side. He was not held, rocked, cuddled, or loved. Not at all. He was only noticed by the few visitors who passed through occasionally,  which is how I first heard of him. Now, this sweet little boy is healthy enough to be discharged from the hospital and is ready to begin his new life!

We named him Silas Jabali, meaning "strong pillar." We pray that this little boy will grow big and strong, and will one day be the strong pillar who will lead others.

Please pray for his continued healing and that he would quickly learn to love and bond. After missing so much in his formative few months, there are lots of hugs and lots of holding coming his way!!

And this is Elizabeth. Sweet Elizabeth has also been neglected during her few short months of life. Though she did have a mother to feed her and meet her basic needs, it is clear that she was missing so much. Her mother has been committed for neglect, after abandoning her a few weeks ago. Though an absolute beauty of a baby girl, Elizabeth is quite delayed in her development. Her muscles are extremely weak. Her poor little legs just flop about. At nine months old, she makes no effort whatsoever to weight bear on her legs. She is a very mellow baby who has obviously had little to no interaction or stimulation. She is perfectly content in any situation, indicating that there are no expectations as to what she wants or expects. She has obviously learned to self-sooth and be content in any environment. She is absolutely precious!

Please pray that little Elizabeth will gain strength in her body and life into her soul. Pray that she will quickly settle in and feel comfortable in her environment, and that she will progress developmentally. For whatever time we are blessed to have her in our home, may she soak up all the love that God has for her.

And, to add to that prayer list, please pray for our aunties as they not only care for the babies in the home, but also these two new precious souls who are in such great need of love and care. These little ones need lots of physical touch and love. Our aunties are more than capable and willing to do this, but they only have so many hands and hours in a day. May the Lord grant them all that they need as they care and love our little ones.

Enjoying the day

It was a beautiful day outside and a great day at the baby house. These are some precious babies!

 Joseph

 Delis

 William

 Maina

 David

Kennedy

Just thought you might like to see some of our sweeties at play today. :-) 

First Day Faces

I'm home!!! We arrived safely on Friday night and came to Nakuru on Saturday. We are adjusting well, though not sleeping well. Julia and I are both so happy to be back.

Here is a flash of a few faces....

William

David

Lizzy

Winnie

Annabelle

Maina

Joseph 

Charlie 

Christmas at the baby house

I was so sad to not be there!! Those babies are so special, and I wish we could have been there to help them celebrate this special day of Christ's birth. Maybe next year they will all be celebrating Christmas with their very own forever family!

Benita is the lady who is watching over things at the baby house while I am away, since Rebekah left. She assisted Rebekah while she was there and now has really stepped up and taken it all on. Benita is kind of known as the "stickler" for the rules. She is always checking in on the older babies and telling them to lay down during nap time, keeping everyone on schedule (like not being late/early for naps), making sure not too many sweets are given to the babies, etc. But we LOVE Benita for all that! This was her email to me this morning...

Dear Trena,

I know I said I’d wait on emails (everyone deserves a break – especially on Christmas Day) but I think the babies would want you to know about their Christmas.

If the babies could talk (in a way which we could understand) I think this is what they might say…

Oh mum! Oh boy! Did we have a good time yesterday! (Well, we think it was yesterday. We still don’t know how to measure time, you know.)

A little before going down for our morning nap, that funny lady showed up. We think she’s funny because she likes to do “pop pop” with us and tries to teach us new words. Before she told us to lay down (she always does – even though she knows we get back up as soon as she leaves…) she said she had a surprise for us.

After we got up, the new word was “b a l l o o n” and imagine our surprise when we went in the living room and found 40 large, colored balloons. Oh! The fun we had!!!

Sammie & David had the times of their lives – going around and hitting the balloons. Joseph seemed scared to death to even touch them (but calmed down when assisted and comforted by the aunties and her). Lizzy had been thoroughly spoiled by being able to play with them while we were supposed to be sleeping. Maybe because of that, she was fine with the rest of us entering into her fun.

We played until it was time to eat and then got to go OUTSIDE!

We Love going outside but this time the funny lady brought us something we had not seen for a long time. BUBBLES! Although it was a bit overcast, we had such a nice time watching and trying to catch the bubbles. It was hard to get to them because of the wind but we sure had fun trying.  The aunties joined in the fun by making sure there were plenty of them for us to chase and they even let some of us try to blow through the little holes.

Lizzy did pretty good but David was really funny. Instead of blowing he decided to lick the hole instead. Since he did, everyone else who tried after him decided to do the same thing.

Once we went back inside, the funny lady told the aunties that only the little babies had to go down for a nap. The rest of us (the big boys & Lizzy Lu) were to stay up long enough to listen to music and have some sweets.

Auntie Suzzy put on Christmas music and they all began to sing the birthday song… She said it was Jesus’ birthday (not David’s… not Lizzy’s) but we didn’t really care whose it was. We just knew we were in that circle we get in when nice things are coming and we were ready.

And guess what she’d brought us??

There was strawberry yogurt (bariti), banana muffins (only a little frosting because she doesn’t really like babies to have sugar) and… marshmallows! (But only 1! Oh man!!)  We ate them quickly (especially Josef who eats everything & Maina – who doesn’t) hoping for more but it was clear to us that she was not going to budge.

So, after much fun (and only a few complaints) we went off to sleep…

When we woke up, she was still there so we had our snack (something she told the aunties we should not have again because they were too big, dry and we were trying to stuff them in our mouths whole) with some juice. She stayed for a little longer and played balloons with us and then she left.

We really did have a nice time!

Thank you for letting her help you…

Thank you for sending Rebekah (who we would have loved to be there to play with us – please tell her we miss her… when we remember…) and thank you for letting God use you to help us find our very own mommies and daddies.

And if you should see the one called  Jesus?

Please tell Him we while we don’t yet know who He is, we were sure glad it was His birthday and thank Him for the balloons, bubbles and sweets.

We really did have fun and hope you, Juju, Rebekah, auntie Chris and everyone there had a much fun as we did.

Love,

©

your babies of haven of hope baby house

with a little help from the funny lady… :-)

HOH Anniversary

Two years ago today, I brought home our first Haven of Hope babies, rescued from the government run orphanage and brought into our HCO family. Little did I know that day that one of those babies would become my own daughter. Elizabeth, Julia and Jeremiah were our first three babies. They came to us on August 14, 2009.

This year, we had our second annual HOH Anniversary Reunion. I am so sad that I missed the celebration! This being away from home thing is hard! As much as I was ready for a trip to my America home, I am still miss my Kenya family. Here are some of our beautiful babies celebrating the second anniversary of Haven of Hope Baby Center.

Lizzy-Lou, all grown up, playing with Kater-bug

 Sweet Kater-bug

Hopey, with 100% Kenyan look

 Joseph & David enjoyed seeing their friends who came back to visit.

Maggy & her boy, Joseph

Tobias & David

 Angie & Kennedy, out of the hospital and feeling much better

 Sweet Suzy with sweet Annabelle

Sam-Sam

Thanks for a great two years, too all of those who are part of the HCO family and make it possible to make a difference in the lives of these little babies! What a blessing it is to be a part of what God is doing!

Happy Anniversary, Haven of Hope!!

I am so sad to not be there for our second annual Haven of Hope Anniversary & Reunion. God has brought us so far and I am blessed to be a part of what He is doing. I would never have imagined two years ago what all God would have in store for us. It has been an amazing journey.

We have had a total of 17 babies come through Haven of Hope. Today, a few of the babies came back for the reunion and celebration. The staff and Rebekah and Benita did a wonderful job arranging for the anniversary reunion.

Check out REBEKAH'S BLOG for pictures from today's celebration.

Fun play day at Mama na Juju's house

We had a super-fun Saturday with the Haven of Hope babies! The babies and aunties all came over to my house for the day, and we had a lovely time!

The babies did great! They enjoyed being outside for the day....

Kennedy

Sam

Julia ~ David ~ Collins

Joseph ~ Auntie Tracy

Eating lunch....

Angie ~ Kennedy

Auntie Suzy ~ Julia ~ William

Hair time for Lizzy...

Napping...

Winnie ~ Annabelle

Kennedy ~ William

Well, most babies napped anyway...

These are the things I will greatly miss. What a blessed life I lead.

You can see more pictures of our fun day on Elizabeth's blog at.... "A Bigger Plan"