More mumps

We thought these week was the last week of the quarantine and the children can go and visit each other :) But when we came back on Monday two of our children popped up with mumps :(. The children are still under quarantine for the next 21 days again!

It seems as if a new baby arrives every week. On Thursday another little boy arrived - he is 5 months old and had been at the Hospital since his birth when his mother abandoned him.

When he arrived he was smiling, but once he was put into a bath, he started screaming. It seems that he had never been bathed before – the hospitals just wash the babies with a face cloth in their beds, and not too well it seems – he was rather grubby. He is also underweight – he only weighs 4.8kg at 5 months.

I’m afraid that the care of the children that are suspected of being HIV+ and are abandoned at the hospital at birth, are not properly looked after. We think the nursing staff reckons that, if they are HIV+, they are going to die anyway so why waste food on them or give them extra care. What frustrates us, is that he was left in the hospital for 5 months before anyone thought to get the Welfare to try and find a home for him.

We are going to test him for HIV and, if he is negative, he will be adopted – the Welfare already have parents lined up for him.



Update on mumps and chicken pox:

The quarantine has been partially lifted – the houses are all mixing again and we take them out for shopping but we’re holding off on sending them back to Sunday School and Bible group for another week because of the close proximity to the other children there.

Some good news!

We got the blood results for this little boy who came to us a month ago and he is HIV negative. He can now be put up for an adoption/foster care.


Quarantine Update

All our homes are still under quarantine – a selection of children from three of the homes have mumps – every few days another one pops out, so our quarantine could go on for some time since the incubation period is 21 days. We therefore have to wait 21 days from the latest incidence before ending the quarantine – this date keeps moving further and further!

Although the children in the baby house have been spared the mumps, we have chicken pox doing the rounds there. This is the fourth round of chicken pox we’ve had in Lambano over the last 2 years so all the older children have had their turn. However, because of their HIV status, our children could get it again, so we’re keeping the older children away from the baby house.

Our little baby is out of the hospital!

Our little baby is out of the hospital and doing much better. She has been diagnosed with Hypothyroidism, which causes many medical problems. This little girl is going to need lots of prayer because life is not going to be easy for her.


We had prepared a special outing for the children for Friday afternoon but, on the morning found out that four of our children from the MacAlpine home have mumps!

In order to protect the “public” we have to put all the children under quarantine. This was really disappointing for the children because they have been talking about this outing all week. If no more children develop mumps we should be able to go out next week. However if another case develops, the quarantine starts all over again!

Two new children

We have 2 new babies from Kwa Mhlanga, a very poor rural area about 80 kilometers to the northeast of Johannesburg. This is village were Lambano’s founder is now working on a large project.

The new boy is 2 years old and he is HIV+, has TB and is badly malnourished. We had to give him a blood transfusion last week to speed up the recovery from the malnutrition. This has certainly helped, but as soon as he started improving he got chickenpox. His mother died last year and his grandmother has been taking care of him.

The other child who is also HIV+, is 7 months old but looks like a new born baby. She is also from Kwa Mhlanga - her mom died 2 weeks ago and her Aunt is looking after her. When she arrived at Lambano she was so ill we had to have her admitted to hospital. While in hospital she will also be tested for dwarfism as her limbs seem to be too short for her length.


Randy, one of the workers from Kwa Mhlanga, told us there are more than a hundred children like these two in that area. We will try to help as many of these children as we can, but we are severely limited in terms of space. This is why we are trying to source funds to build an eight to ten bed hospice in the near future.


Please pray for all these children

New addition to our family!!!

When we get new children they are usually shy, but the new little boy that we got is not shy at all. He is 2 years old, his mother died and his father is in jail. He is cute and just loves playing with the older boys.

Here is our oldest boy, he turned 8 last week!

Another success story!

When this little girl came to us she could not speak a word of English. With the amazing ability children have to adapt, during the 6 months she has been with us, she has learned enough English to interact with the other children and make her needs known to the caregivers.

The little girl with her mom going back home!

She was nearly 8 years old when she came to us and had been unable to start her schooling because of her illness. When she came to us she had pneumonia and we had to put her on full time oxygen. The sad part is that the hospital had discharged her, sending her home without any medication - a regular occurence in South Africa. Once she was over the pneumonia we started her on TB treatment and then anti- retroviral drugs.


We are thrilled that she is doing so well that she went home to her family last week. We are pushing for her into school soon!