This is Richard. Or as I like to call him, Little Richie. Every time I try to call him Richard I imagine an old man and that seems a little ironic for him. He was born about a month ago & he’s called the NICU at the hospital ‘home’ ever since. Once he’s old enough and well enough he’ll be moved to Neema House Orphanage, a home for children 0-3 years of age that’s right around the corner from our house. I haven’t had a chance to visit it yet, but that’s on my list of things to do this week and I can’t wait to tell y’all more about it.

Richard is very premature, and he is an orphan. He was born to a young 14-year-old mother who wasn’t ever planning on having a child. She has epilepsy and her family decided to take her to the priest to try to “cure” her of the disease – instead of helping her at all, he raped her. A few months later Richard was born & given over to the orphanage because his mother didn’t have the means to raise him well.

To be very honest, we don’t know when he’ll be well enough to move to the orphanage or if he’ll even make it to that point. He’s still in the touch-and-go stage to see if he’ll develop well and stay healthy enough to survive. He is still very tiny and thin, and unfortunately some of the students have said the NICU nurses here don’t feed him very regularly. That’s what sparked my post a few days ago & a desperate plea for prayer. He needs all the prayer he can get!

Richard & the other babies in the NICU are some of the easiest patients to visit and immediately see how much their care differs here compared to what we have in the United States. In our advanced society, even the most premature baby has at least a 50% chance of survival thanks to all of the machines and equipment we have available to keep them alive. Here, having a 1.2lb baby born (like we did today) is almost like a death wish. Their chances of living for even another week are so slim, it often seems like it’s not even expected. Instead of having a plethora of tubes and machines to hook up to, these tiny babies lie in laundry baskets with blankets pulled tight over the top and a rubber-like sheet to catch any urine or poop that might escape. Almost all of them don’t have diapers – they are simply wrapped in whatever blanket their mother brings them and changed only when they see their mothers. If a baby is high-risk, they can be placed on the “resuscitation table”, which is basically a surface with a sheet on it where they can lie flat instead of being covered in blankets. The only real machine they have is to give the babies oxygen if they need it. The rest of the babies have no monitoring whatsoever, so if they were ever to stop breathing their chances of survival go from slim to none. They are rarely visited; the only time their mothers can see them is when they come in for scheduled breastfeeding times about twice a day. The nurses only seem to transport them back and forth, and for the rest of the time they are left alone. You can probably see why the NICU is one of our favorite places to visit as students – we are more than happy to cuddle with and care for these tiny ones all morning.

This place is like the opposite of what you would find in the United States, and I can’t blame you for reading this post in disgust as you imagine the conditions that these young babies are left to try to survive in. I had the same feeling of shock and heartbreak when I first walked in there and we began to realize how hard it is for these neonates to make it. Don’t get me wrong, there are a good handful of babies that are born big and healthy and are released to their families after a few days. But there are also so many more premature babies born in one day than you would see that frequently in an American hospital.

My first instinct was a desire to somehow give them a proper environment equipped with everything they would need to increase their chance of survival. But realistically, that is a very difficult dream to fulfill. Transforming that one ward would mean transforming the entire hospital, which would require Arusha to drastically change their healthcare system. It would require an acquirement of resources and finances that they simply don’t have access to. When you widen the problem to a more global perspective, the amount of change necessary to really make a difference is overwhelming.

It brings me back to a question I struggle with so much here. Why was I born into a good home, a stable family, a country that is so advanced and constantly developing to achieve bigger and better things, and these people are born into poor homes, broken families, and a country that is light-years away from meeting the “standards” of the United States? They don’t deserve to face such suffering and I don’t deserve to live in such luxury. My idealistic side so badly desires a world where everyone is on the same playing field and there is no inequality in the hand we’re dealt in life.

Being here has reminded me all too well that our world does not operate that way. Not in this age, anyways. For me, I know that this brokenness is a result of a fallen world laced with sin. Ever since the days of Adam and Eve sin has laid claim to the Earth, and we will never be able to live a day without pain or suffering until we see Jesus’s face again. No matter how much the conditions of the NICU and the hospital and this country break my heart, I know that I can hold onto that hope. I don’t have a good explanation for why Richard was born into the situation that he was and why the hospital doesn’t have the resources to be able to improve their wards enough to adequately care for their patients. But amidst the uncertainty, the one thing I do know is that God is good. Even in the pain, unfairness, and suffering He is good. Even in the best days, He is still so good. He has bigger plans than I will ever be able to see or comprehend, and I can trust that He is in control. When my heart has been threatened with overwhelming grief and frustration, this Truth is all I have.

I hope you are not discouraged or angered by Richard’s story. I was at first, but I want to encourage you to see the bright side that God has given him. As of today, he is alive. No matter how little he is or how long he lives, he is precious in the sight of the Lord and his life has impacted others, and me, in ways he may never know. Please continue to pray for him, his health and the days he has left here – whether that’s just one or a whole lifetime. And maybe take a minute or two to thank God for the blessing of today that He has given you, because that’s all we’re promised. His mercies are new every morning.

– Allie