Lomansontfu June 26

Good News!!!! Praise the Lord!!!!! At long last, after 3 or 4 weeks, we finally have all of the documents necessary to send Lomansontfu to for her surgery to have the tumor removed. I saw the letter from the senior medical officer today, and it states that she will go to South Africa on Monday the 30 of June. Abraham came up from Maphiveni today and took the sister and the child to get the travel documents. He said that it was just God, because when he got here, he realized that one of the certificates he was bringing was not correct. So he prayed and asked the Lord to make a way where there is no way, and He did!! He said that they took them into an office and corrected the document and they were able to get the travel documents without even waiting in the line! We were rejoicing and praising God right there in the corridor of the children’s ward at the government hospital! Prayer works!

When I visited her earlier in the week, I felt led to just pray and agree with the child, and the sister that this paperwork would be gotten quickly and that the doors would be open to get her to I could hear the other care givers in the room agreeing with me in prayer, and God did hear us, and answer! The tumor is getting bigger every day and causing her more and more pain. One of the care givers in the room told me today that it causes her much pain and she cries at night.

Now we must get her older sister to Mbabane to travel with her on Monday.Please help us pray that this goes smoothly, they travel safely, and that the surgery goes well.God is a good God!!

Lomansontfu - June 22

This is a little girl named Lomansontfu (name means Sunday), which probably means she was born on a Sunday. She is from our Maphiveni CarePoint. She is about 10 years old, and she is an orphan. She lives with her older brother and sisters. She is not treated very nicely by them, because she is just an extra mouth to feed. She has a large tumor growing on the side of her face. The doctors think that it is a myeloblastoma. She needs a major surgery to remove the tumor and probably plastic surgery because the tumor is eating into her jaw bone. This surgery can’t be done here is Swaziland. She has been in the Mbabane Government Hospital for 3 weeks waiting for the Senior Medical Officer to approve her case and provide the money through a government fund to send her to South Africa to have the surgery done. We are also waiting for her family to get her certificate of birth from the chief so they can get travel documents for her trip to South Africa.

Each time I see her, the tumor is bigger and bigger. Sometimes, she drools because she can’t keep her mouth closed. She is having a lot of pain, especially at night, and her gums are beginning to bleed. In spite of all of this, she manages to still have a beautiful smile that lights up her whole face! I pray that we can get the help that is needed for this little girl. Please pray that the funding, the paperwork and the approval will all come quickly so that she can get the medical care that she needs and deserves!

10 Year Old Caregiver - June 15

There are so many children that are raising themselves. It is very common that the mom and dad die, and the younger ones are raised by the older siblings. Then the older sibling has children of their own and they are being taken care of by the younger siblings. In many cases, the older sibling is working and the younger sibling is raising their children. So, you have an 11 year old taking care of a 5 year old, a 3 year old, and a 1 year old. This 11 year old girl brought these little ones in to see me at one of the clinics. They all had scabies from poor hygiene. They also had infected sores from where they had been scratching. I can’t imagine my 10 ½ year old being capable of taking care of 3 little ones 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I’m sure that this little girl doesn’t get to go to school since she is the care giver for these little ones while their real mother works, or does nothing, whatever the case may be. She doesn’t have much choice in the matter, if she wants to eat; she has to take care of them. I’m sure that she needs to be tested for HIV herself, but she really has no caretaker to be responsible for her. I sent our counselor out to talk to this family about testing. I have not heard how it went yet. This is one of the many difficult situations that we deal with here in Swaziland, only God has the answers to them all!

Nothando - June 8

This little girl’s name is Notando. She has TB, but not in her lungs. Her TB is in her lymph node on her neck. She is also HIV positive and eligible for ARV’s based on the fact that she has TB. She was hospitalized for about 2 weeks to begin her TB treatment. Both her mother and father are mentally challenged. She was discharged on TB meds, which she is supposed to take 3 tablets daily. When we tried to find out from the mother about the meds, she said that there were no meds. When I checked with the nurses at the hospital, they said that the dad had been trained about the meds and the meds were given to him. I had the teacher at the CarePoint investigate and we found the meds. It looks like none of the meds had been given since the child was discharged from the hospital, which had been about a week. So I had the teacher (Lindiwe) keep the meds and start giving them to Notando when she came to the CarePoint each day.

Now this little one needs to be started on ARVs also. This will be a big problem, because they have to be given 2 times daily, exactly 12 hours apart every day, without missing a dose. This will be next to impossible with mentally challenged parents. Lindiwe can give one dose a day, but the 2^nd dose will be difficult to ensure.

Notando has a younger brother. The mom brought him to me at the clinic this week. He was very sick, probably pneumonia. I knew that I could give her an antibiotic to give him, but it has to be given 3 times daily. This mom really does love her children and care about them, but she is just not capable of taking proper care of them. There is no way that she can handle this, so I told her to bring him to the government hospital the next morning, hoping that they would admit him to get him well. I sent them home with Tylenol for fever and nothing else. I didn’t feel good about my decision, but really had no other choice.

Please pray for me for wisdom. Sometimes I just don’t have the answers, but I know that I serve a big God that does have all of the answers!

Update for April MoM Medical Team

I heard from one of our teachers that a lady from the Logoba CarePoint who was helped by the Mission of Mercy medical team wanted to say thank you for giving her the money to go to the hospital. This lady is pregnant, and was having problems with her pregnancy. The medical team collected money and gave it to her to go to the hospital to have proper tests and medical treatment. She was able to do that and had some left over for food. She has not had the baby yet, but everything seems to be OK with her pregnancy now. She just wanted to let the team know how much she appreciates their kindness!

Belated Mother's Day Update

Again, when the medical team visited Maphiveni, they saw a baby who was dying from malnutrition. The mother is HIV positive and had no more breast milk, and the baby was starving to death. The team gathered money and sent for formula and bottles for this baby. We were able to work with the mom and baby, teaching her how to mix the formula and feed the baby with formula to save her life. We also counseled the mom about getting on ARV’s herself. Pastor LaSalette and her staff also counseled and prayed with her and she accepted the Lord and is now coming to the church regularly! I saw the baby on Mother’s day. She and mom both look good! Mom says that she is now laughing, and she was not doing that before. The baby is about 11 months old, still can’t sit up, but is making progress. Praise the Lord! What a great Mother’s Day Blessing!

MoM Clinic Outcomes

George is a 16 year old boy who lives in Maphiveni. When the doctors visited in April, he had just gotten out of the hospital. He had recently been diagnosed with diabetes. He had collapsed the week before at school and been rushed to the hospital, unconscious. He was living with his old grandma (gogo), who has difficulty caring for him. Some of the members of the medical team from the States gave Pastor LaSalette some money to take him back to the hospital to get his blood sugar under control. When we checked it at the clinic, it was still very high, even though he was on insulin.

I went back to Maphiveni and checked on George a couple of weeks after the medical clinics. He is now living in a room at Pastor LaSalette’s church. He is being taken care of by Abraham, who also lives and works there at the church. He is trying to cook healthy meals for George and make sure he checks his blood sugar twice a day and takes his insulin. Pastor bought a blood glucose machine for him to check his blood sugar. George looks and feels so much better these days.

HIV Testing Results

	Positive		Negative
Age	Females	Males	Females	Males
^14	2	2	5	4
15-19	1	0	2	0
20-29	7	1	1	3
30-39	7	0	0	0
40-49	4	0	4	2
50-59	0	0	1	1
^60	1	0	4	1
Total	22	3	17	11

These are additional results from the clinics held in April with Dr. Beyda's MoM medical team.

Pepe Update

PePe finally went home from the hospital on the 8^th of May! Praise the Lord! She no longer has an NG tube for feeding. She is now drinking the nutritional formula by mouth. She has to have four 500ml bottles of the formula daily and then she can have other food. She celebrated her 12^th birthday on the 10^th of May! She is doing well at the home that her and her brother, Banele are in. Banele is also doing well! He is going to school this term! Hopefully, soon, PePe will also be strong enough to go to school!