Day 1

Well the trip started out a little rough, seeing as how I got all of 30 minutes of sleep the night before I left, but everything was well packed and organized. I left at 4:00 am from Rochester flying to Washington DC where I met the rest of the team for Mothers Without Borders. After a long layover in DC, we left for Johannesburg, only to sit through another long layover before our flight to Lusaka. In Johanna (Johannesburg) we got a motel where we slept, showered and ate. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity we left for Lusaka and arrived at 8pm Wednesday night. After traveling for 32 hours, we had finally arrived!!! My first view of Lusaka was flying into the city, watching the most beautiful sunset that covered the entire sky. The colors were amazing-bold and bright!
We stayed in a backpackers lodge called Kumboka, which was right in the city. It wasn’t home, but it was a place to stay. There was a random employee who slept on our front porch and awoke at 5 am every morning to sweep the porch. The showers were freezing so it was an ice cold version of the hokey pokey in the shower; and the toilets, well, we were lucky that there was light to see all the filth. But it was home for three weeks and a bed with 8 other women to sleep with at night. Breakfast was cereal or “interesting” egg sandwiches with sweet ketchup and toast if we were lucky!
The first day we were thrown right into things, starting at the beginning-birth and newborns. We went to a shelter for abandoned babies aged 0 to 18 months called House of Moses. It was founded by two women from Arizona and run by wonderful, dedicated local women, most of whom are volunteers working and helping all day with a meal at the end of the day for their payment. They get babies from the hospital, individuals and local authorities. It has a special spirit there and the babies are well taken care of. We played with them, cuddled them and heard their stories! They were so amazing! These children had nothing in the world but were open to you and loved you right away!
There was a little 3 month old boy who had been found in the street. He was placed in a plastic bag and left to die on the side of the road in the gutter. He fought his way out all by himself and was found by a police officer. He was named Daniel, just like from the Bible! He was so strong and powerful.
Another little girl, Gloria, was so beautiful!! Her mother died in child birth and her father was unknown. Her grandmother was already taking care of other grandchildren and was forced to leave her at the hospital. Despite all of that, she was so full of life and love. She just held you with her huge black eyes, cooed and giggled!
These were just two of 30 babies that were currently being taken care of there. The House of Moses operates three other houses throughout the city, and that is not nearly enough for all the babies being abandoned!
I will go into more details later but there was a couple traveling with us who were planning to adopt, and they were able to work with the House of Moses to provide a better home for some of those abandoned babies! While we were there, we were able to bring many items, three duffel bags full of blankets and diapers and clothes, all of which were greatly needed.

That afternoon we drove to the best hospital in Lusaka, the University Hospital of Zambia. It was shockingly different from anything we expect out of a hospital. There are no laundries, house cleaning or food services there. Family members of the patients have to travel everyday to the hospital to bring food, clean clothes and bathe the patients everyday, because there is no one at the hospital to take care of those tasks. There are no flowers, no grass, and no paint on the cement wall to brighten the patients stay. The floors were warped and fragmented, but the worst was the infestation of rats, cockroaches and ants. The water, if there was any, was brown and dirty. And this was the best that they had!
We were able to walk through the NICU where the babies under 5 lbs were staying. There were three rooms with one to two incubators a room. While all the babies needed them, only a few were given that luxury. They had simple benches for the mothers to visit and feed their babies. There was no sanitation to speak of, we were not asked to wash our hands or place gloves on or wear any kind of sanitary clothing while holding and helping with the babies. The only thing we were given were orange, ripped smocks to wear which were even dirtier than we were. As we walked around the ward we saw young mothers as young as 16 and talked with them about their babies. Some were optimistic and inviting. Others looked scared and frightened. One mother asked us to pray for her and her baby because he would most likely not make it through the night.
Next we walked to the second room to find a baby boy no more than 2 lbs. He was purple and blue with thin transparent skin. He had no blanket, no diaper, no hat. He had no one. He just lay there exposed and naked, gasping for breath. He gasped slowly and then would lie very still. His eyes were still and he never blinked or moved a muscle besides the short breaths. He was too weak to do anything but breathe every few seconds. He died soon there after. He had no mother there to hold him, sing to him or rock him until he returned to his Heavenly Father. He was alone. He was beautiful!
The next room revealed more babies in similar circumstances. One little boy was foaming at the mouth. His head was misshapen and half bald. He was wrapped in a simple blanket and had a blank stare on his face. Most of those babies were abandoned and would eventually go to the House of Moses if they lived. Because of lack of funding at the hospital, we saw few nurses or other staff. The hardest part was how quiet the wings were in the NICU. The babies never cried or screamed. I almost wanted to hear their cries just to be reassured that they were really alive.
There is health insurance if you have a job but just to rent a house and pay for food keeps people so strapped that they are unable to pay for medical expenses; especially when doctors are ill-equipped to diagnose a problem, let alone treat any ailments. It is made even more difficult by a lack of proper equipment and medicine.
This was a very difficult day! I wanted to scream at someone to do something. I wanted to hold those babies, wash them and feed them. I felt so overwhelmingly helpless. They had no medicine and there was so little food, especially for those babies that had no mothers.

Alma 26:37 “Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in.” This was the beginning of many days and nights trying to understand how this principle could be true.