Three Little Stars

Three little ones with visual problems have recently come to live in the orphanage. So, this week we piled three babies and two baby-caretakers into the car and made the trip into Ouaga to see an eye doctor.

Arouna is now six months old. He came to us as a premature infant of just 3 days old. Having had a very rough start, Arouna is still very small for his age and is behind developmentally.

Although we were very worried, the good news is that Arouna can see! When a light was shined directly into his eyes, there was a response. Yay!

Our next step is to take Arouna to another specialist to try and determine why he cannot hold up his head on his own, is not yet sitting up, not grasping things with his hands, etc.

Please pray for Arouna and for us as we try to find names for his problems and possible treatments to help him.

Madina is a delightful little 18 month old. She is here with her older sister, Mariam, who is 3 years old.

Madina has several vision problems going on. Her one eye is severely crossed and her good eye shifts slightly horizontally. She also has what is called ‘tiny eyes’ in that her eyes are abnormally small.

The eye doctor said that perhaps she could have surgery for the crossed eye when she was 5 or 6 years old but that he did not think that she could get this help here in Burkina.

Christiane is a little 12 month old baby who also has a crossed eye. Her good eye tracks really well but the crossed one does not and she may already be in danger of losing some her sight in this eye.

The doctor gave the same prognosis for Christiane as Madina in that she may be able to get surgery later but not here in Burkina.

Please pray for us as we care for each of these children. They will all three most likely be available for adoption but we are still in the process of getting all of their paperwork completed before that can happen.