Babies at Smile

Peter and America

One of the things I loved at Smile was seeing how older brothers and sisters looked out for younger ones. Its amazing how kids will step up and look out for one another. At the same time, this could also be very hard to see, especially when it involved the little little ones. One thing that I don't know I ever got used to seeing.....naked children running around - yes...children pooping and peeing everywhere - yes...this-no........was seeing babies hanging out on the cement at the center of the compound. We're talking babies who can't even walk yet, maybe not even crawl, just chillin on the cement all day long. I mean, really???? Luckily I think probably mostly all of them had an older sister that would check in every once in awhile, if not sit and hold the baby for most of the day, make sure it got food at breakfast and lunch (which again, was porridge out of a cup for breakfast and rice off a plate for lunch, not exactly baby friendly)), and yes...I even witnessed a couple times an older sibling obtain a small roll of toilet paper from a teacher and attempt to clean up a mess their younger sibling had made on the cement. And by the way, when I say "older" sibling.....I could be talking about a child of 6 or 7 years old, maybe younger. This was one of those things that never quite became "normal" for me. This is why Evie's vision is so important. Evie is the almost 70 year old missionary who has been living in Tororo for 8 years (gotta love it!) She has a passion and a vision to see a baby room added on to Smile. I can attest for how important this really is for these babies to have a room separated from the rest of the kids to be cared for. It would also help the organization and setup of Smile in general and in turn benefit the older kids as well to not have all of these tiny ones all over the place. As we were there at Smile each day there were men working on the baby room but I know these things can be very slow coming so we are praying for that baby room to get finished!