As 2011 ends and we consider the past year – its difficulties and its blessings – I hope it is the blessings which rise to the forefront of your mind.  The past year has been particularly challenging for many of us.  But, we have made it through, and the gifts and grace of the past year offer hope for the new year.   As we consider who and what we value, and how we are blessed, I want to ask you to take a moment and consider those in your life who held out hope in your moments of fear and struggle.  I ask you to consider fellowship, to consider our shared humanity, and our shared responsibility to hold out hope to the most vulnerable among us.  I ask you to consider the mothers and babies we care for in Malawi and help us to help them.

Frankly there are times when I feel completely overwhelmed; when I stop to acknowledge the enormity of the challenge we are addressing with our work.  One day this December while I was in the office, an elderly grandmother entered to request our assistance.    While she waited for the nurse she dozed, bent forward, her arms cradling a baby on her lap, and another baby strapped to her back.  Her daughter had been hospitalized and she had come to care for her daughter – cooking, feeding, bathing her daughter who no longer recognized her surroundings or even her infants.  She also came to care for her three month old grandsons – feeding, changing, bathing, and soothing them.  As poor relatives of patients all over Africa, this grandmother would stay beside her daughter’s hospital bed day and night for the duration of the hospitalization.

I became a mother this year to an amazing beautiful boy and now I know experientially about the joys of motherhood, as well as about the sleep deprivation.  I now know what it feels like when someone depends on you to be fed every couple of hours.   I also spent five horrible nights sleeping on a wooden stool next to my baby when he was hospitalized with malaria, and I know the exhaustion of caring for a sick loved one without rest in an African hospital.  I looked at this dozing woman who was twice my age caring for infant twins and a critically ill daughter; it was a burden I could not imagine carrying.  My heart ached for her and I felt overwhelmed.  At an age when her daughter should be helping care for her mother, this grandmother was again the life line for her family.  The baby in her arms woke crying with hunger and shook me into action.  I made some formula as Nitta (one of our nurses) spoke with the grandmother.  As I fed the crying boy and as he became satiated spoonful by spoonful, I realized his grandmother was laying down her life day after day for her daughter and her grandbabies.  She was exhausted but she was not complaining, she was asking for a small assistance.  She was willing to take on the burden of raising two infants in the village, she just needed milk, instruction on how to care for them, and visits by a nurse to monitor their growth.  I watched Nitta carefully assess and weigh each twin and I felt grateful to be a part of such amazing work and to be witness to such deep love.  Please join me this year in offering support and holding out hope to the mothers and babies we care for and the families caring for them.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year.

Joanne Chiwaula

Director of AMHI