Little successes along the way!

Dear Family and Friends,

I know that am going to overwhelm you with my excitement of new technology mastered so you probably need to be seated. With the help of a friend, Mark, I have mastered putting photos in my blog! I was close before. . . but was working in a minimized screen so never got to the 'download' button. Duhhhh!! But, now I hope that my blogs will be a bit more interesting with pictures of our beautiful children.

Just for fun, I want to show you this picture. We have lots of pictures of our babies and children eating but then I love to see fat babies eating! This was a day of celebration because spaghetti is considered holiday food here.

This past week has been pretty hard. There is a virus going around which is attacking the babies and the old people. The symptoms are flu-like with fevers, diahrrea, and vomiting. All of the hospitals are full of babies connected to IV poles, struggling for their lives The orphanage was hit very hard and we hospitalized 2 little newborns, Adama, just 2 weeks old and 3 week-old, Balguissa. Adama was just too tiny to fight off the infection and he died on Sunday. Balguissa recovered though and she was released from the hospital yesterday. Please pray for the children of Burkina. The infant mortality rate is 25%. I am thankful that we have the resources to take our children to the hospital 70 kilometers away. The average family here does not have these resources and more often than I even want to think about, their children end up in this terrible statistic.

I am in Ouaga right now for some meeting with the national office of Social Action. The meetings have been long and tedious but little my little we are moving forward in defining how the orphanages of Burkina work and interact with Social Action (the government branch of social work). In just the 8 years that I have been here the number of orphanages in Burkina has quadroupled. This is a very good thing because the need of the children is so great, but, now we are grappling with policies and procedures of how to make things work smoothly. The orphanages have formed a local association which the government recognizes and through this association we have a voice to ask for change. Please pray for wisdom and courage for the leaders of the local association to clearly define our requests to the government and for favor from the decision makers in the government for the cause of the children.

And, our truck. . . this week, the story is good. I did quite a bit of traveling in taking children back and forth to the hospital, plus the trip to Ouaga, with no breakdowns. I am very thankful for this because a couple of the trips were emergency trips when it was dark and there would be no help available in an emergency. Please continue to pray that the Lord will keep our truck functioning. . . it transports us here and there, it hauls dirt and rock, wood, sand and cement, it serves an an ambulance, it serves as a hurse. Please pray with us concerning the funds to another vehicle.

Well, I must close for now. I appreciate you taking the time to read my blog.

Love and blessings to you!

Ruth. . . Mom. . . Grandma