ACTION Zambia Holds The Rope

Auntie Agnes Shares About Emmanuel's Condition

Tracy and I traveled with the C.R.O.S.S. team to Sinazongwe, a five-hour drive from Lusaka to southern Zambia. At the rural mission Longezia, directed by Theuns and Karin Engelbrecht, we and the team visited the baby milk and feeding program; our teammates also devoted three days to instructing students at the Komena Bible College about HIV/AIDS.

Emmanuel

Leaving in the wee hours of the morning enabled us to arrive just in time to observe the nutrition program. AZ provides 50% of the program's funding through our "Children in Crisis" monies. Mothers walk as far as 11 miles to have their babies' and toddlers' health evaluated. The director of this program, Auntie Agnes, shared with us the guidelines they use for determining a child's physical well-being. To aid mothers with milk, the program provides six cans of formula each month for babies. Undernourished toddlers are given a special dry porridge mixture, consisting of formula, mealie meal (finely-ground corn), and sugar. Quite obvious to the entire team was Auntie Agnes' love and concern for the children and mothers.

A Success Story

The first child evaluated was Emmanuel, a baby in danger. Born to a school-age teen who doesn't have enough breastmilk, Emmanuel, weighed about 8.8 lbs., as much as newborns in the States. Emmanuel is four, maybe five months old, a sobering thought to me. Tracy prayed over little Emmanuel while my heart was saying, "Live, Emmanuel! Live!"

However, in the midst of this heartrending story was one of success. A baby girl whose mother had passed away, was brought by her auntie to the clinic. Robust and plump, this toddler was flourishing after months on the program. Because Longezia (meaning "increase") cares about these children in the bush, there are happy endings such as this one. Please pray for Emmanuel and his mother, whose story we have no details about, but one which wasn't hard to imagine.