Amani Baby Cottage

Days roll into each other sometimes here in Uganda, so much sometimes its hard to tell what day it is. It is always busy and always there is something to do. The kids are a joy and a pain all at the same time, but then, so is every kid on the planet. Here at Amani, we try to provide as close to a real home setting as we can possibly achieve. With our limited funds we don't always get what we want or need, but we try so hard to provide as much as possible. In comparison to many Orphanages, we have a great place.

We, again, God be Praised, have a 8 more children who are nearing the tail end of their fostering/adoption process. This includes Danyne, Debbie and Stacie and 3 families stateside. It is difficult for those who have never been here and even those who have, to understand just what we go through to help these parents get their kids home. There is so so so so much footwork, endless phonecalls and endless "do overs" in regards to paperwork, trips to Kampala, headaches, heartaches and explanations to our local goverment. Costs keep rising and we have NO choice but to "charge" for those costs.

Amani suffered greatly last year with costs from the last group simply because there ended up being so much more to pay for than we ever dreamed. As we are a NGO we do not have a bank or money tree to draw from. How I wish we did. I wish it could be done cost free. Each and every schilling we ask the parents for goes into COST. Amani has NEVER pulled a profit from any parent, nor will we ever.

I cannot even begin to imagine what the stateside costs for these parents must be. I have heard that some have paid around 14,000 USD just for the stateside costs. Ours, we have figured, have roughly increased to about $3,000 USD and unfortunately that amount changes all the time. As this includes court costs and lawyer and other goverment fees, we never know when we will have to pay out some more schillings to achieve our ultimate goal. TO GET THESE PRECIOUS GIFTS FROM GOD INTO A LOVING CHRISTIAN HOME.

Today, Danyne is trying to finish her adoption that has been 5 years in the making. She has worked so hard to facillitate adoptions and fostership of all the other parents, she has had little time to try and complete her own adoption of Danyne and Diana whom, she has had for 5 years. Debbie has worked on finalizing hers for the last year and has had Sonia for going on 4 years now. Stacie while trying to facillitate the fostering of this latest american group is working on her own with Annabelle as well.

What a job these ladies have. What a joy it is to see it finally come to fruition. I am so blessed to be a part of it. As the medical director of ABC, I am a part of the greater good and I help wherever I can.

Blessings to these ladies and all we strive to do for these kids. Praise God things are going better so far in Kampala than they were in Jinja.

I pray that these children will one day know what their 'parents' went through, the many trips to Uganda, the money, the joys, the pain, the waiting, the changes, the agonies and all the unknowns. How could anyone love another child more!!!