Baby M, now thriving(Photo: © Jenny Green/CMS)Families are being torn apart as they flee the fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Born in the conflict zone, Baby M lost her family to disease and was on the brink of death. Yet there’s a chance of a happy ending. Jenny Green tells of an incredible rescue.
Baby M’s early life – as recounted by Jenny Green
Born in the war-torn area of the Democratic Republic of Congo that’s in the news right now, I spent my first three months of life there.
My family was caught up in an earlier phase of the present war. My brothers and sisters and grandparents fled with me. We became refugees in Kisoro, Uganda.
A refugee camp isn’t a good place to live and, like many others, my parents and grandfather caught dysentery. They were admitted to Kisoro Hospital. I had to go too because my mum was breastfeeding me.
Dysentery is a serious illness if you are weak, and my family were very weak because they had been running from the war for a long time. Despite the fine hospital care they received, my family were not able to overcome this final challenge.
First, my grandfather died. Then my Mum died. My Dad was so seriously ill that there was little hope for his survival.
So there I was with nobody to care for me or feed me.
A woman visiting the ward offered to take me home and the nursing staff agreed. What they didn’t know was that this woman was ill herself and in no fit state of health to meet my needs.
Baby M, when very ill
(Photo: © Jenny Green/CMS)
I then experienced 10 days of suffering: I was not fed or washed, I caught head lice and got terrible nappy rash, and became very, very sick and dehydrated. In the end I lost consciousness.
God sent me a rescuer. Another woman, the neighbour of the one with whom I was living, had heard about me. She also knew about the Potter’s Village, in Kisoro, where babies who are likely to die unless they receive help can be taken.
More than that, she realised that unless someone intervened in my situation, I was going to be the next member of my family to die. She managed to persuade her neighbour that I needed more help than she could offer. She took me to the ‘Muzungu wa’bana’ (‘white person of children’): Jenny Green.
Jenny takes up the narrative
It is rare to get a visitor after dark; one is usually safe from intrusion after 7 pm, so a knock on the door at 8 pm usually means a problem of some kind.
On opening the door, I found two middle-aged women, with not a word of English between them, on my doorstep.
One was clutching a very still and silent bundle of blankets. From the depths of the bundle a pair of unblinking and unseeing eyes glinted in the light from the open door. Then I knew I had a problem!
On closer examination I detected shallow movements, which accompanied a wheezing, rattling sound – at least the child was breathing, but how much longer could this ravaged infant survive?
Her lips and mouth were cracked from dehydration, her tongue coated with fungus, her chest rattling with every laboured breath. There was no time for questions though; the priority was to get her to hospital as soon as possible.
As soon as she had an IV attached and her feeding tube was down, I baptised her. There seemed little hope of her survival. Could such a bundle of frailty find the energy to rally from the brink?
There followed 10 days of anxious prayer and care. There was no Christmas last year in our house; the only gift for which we prayed was the life of this little child.
In Kisoro, the hospitals are virtually devoid of staff during major public holidays. Baby M needed intensive care, and that would not happen in hospital, so my spare room was converted into a hospital room. I hired a nurse to live in and provide constant care. Baby M, adorned in all her tubes and bottles, arrived.
However, before I took her into my home, her father died, and because I’d taken responsibility for the care of his child, it was assumed that I’d provide the means of transport to get his body back to the Congo.
I called a local driver to come with his pick-up to take the body to the Congolese border and gave him money to arrange for the journey onwards to the family home.
Just before the vehicle left, I remembered to ask the driver to send a message, with the body, to the village, informing any other family members that I was caring for a very young relative of theirs who was critically sick but had a chance of survival.
A reunion
Three months passed. Baby M was transferred to the Potter’s Village, where she started to gain weight and behave like a healthier child. My home reverted to being a home and not a hospital.
Another day and another knock at my door! This time it didn’t come at night and didn’t presage a disaster but a miracle!
Baby M with her grandmother, who is seated to her right.
(Photo: © Jenny Green/CMS)
There on my veranda was Baby M’s rescuer with her neighbour, who had first taken in Baby M, and two other women. One of them, dressed in yellow, was Baby M’s grandmother.
That vague verbal message, sent by a disinterested driver across a border into a war-ravaged area of Congo, actually reached the only other surviving member of Baby M’s family!
Baby M’s grandmother visits as often as she can – but will she survive the present war? Will they eventually be together?
God had his hand on Baby M. He who rescued her from death will also provide for her future.
Visit the Potter’s Village website.
CMS mission partner the Rev Jenny Green is based at Kisoro in Muhabura Diocese, Uganda, where she works as Diocesan Co-ordinator of the Youth and Children’s Ministry. She has also set up a child crisis centre at the Potter’s Village, a community-based organisation for vulnerable children.