My mind normally comes up with very weird ideas some of them I keep them locked up in my “don’t dare mention” box others I dare and do. This was a dare and do idea which I am glad we did as Vessel Is Me team. This was the voice note conversation I had with Imani. Imani runs a crisis center for pregnant teens called Wakisa ministries it’s located in Namirembe right by the road. I sent her a message saying,“would it be possible for our angel mums to gift the teen mums baby clothes and bless their bundles of joy.” I know y’all wondering why would anyone do that. Well, I already told you how I gifted the “pieces of Keitangaza”https://dkecho.wordpress.com/2019/11/06/bleeding-through-the-blessings/to a friend of mine during her baby shower,it led to closure on certain triggers that as an angel mum I wouldn’t have been able to do i.e. attending baby showers and what to do with my dead baby’s clothes!!! So I extended this offer to our angel mums most of them had a hard time opening the cases and boxes that had the clothes but others dared and gave everything. There were clothes which still had the price tags on, still wrapped in the packaging…I sat in the room sorting through the donations I cried alot, then I awwwwed and ooooooh and cried again. There was this one bag that came with new bottles, breast pump, baby monitor, teething ring I just sat there and thought what this angel mum’s story was. The tuu shoes🙆
Note: people when we are giving, let’s give from the heart and not just give things meant to be thrown away. There was alot of trash given which we had to sort through.
Gift from the heart
Friday morning, we pack up our Vessel car, heading to Namirembe to hand over the donations, to say we weren’t ready would be an understatement. First of all, Imani and I know each other through her husband; so we start by catching up on family, life then we got to the Wakisa ministries, its origin, mission and vision.The founder was a nurse at one of the government hospitals while on duty a young girl comes in for an abortion and this lady is concerned how is such a young girl coming into the health centre for such. She probes but doesn’t get far. Needless to say the young girl passes away and then many years later at a Mother’s Union gathering she talks about the girl child and boy child as well,how we as parents have to foster open communication and honesty between parents and children. Hmmmm. Then a lady in the congregation stands up to share, she’s like “I agree I had a daughter called…. Who died in this hospital during an abortion which I didn’t know about.” Guess what? It was the girl that she had tried to probed some years back. 🙆 Haza when you are called to do something, you try and “Jonah” it all you want but it will catch up. That day Wakisa ministries was founded.
Aunty Ruth(Imani) as the girls call her takes us to meet this lovely ladies. One particular girl called Chantal(namesake)😘😘 who just blow me away. We enter the class room, the teacher asks us to introduce ourselves starting with the first girl. Chantal stood up, introduced herself she is 4months pregnant. Then it passes on to about 18 or more girls at different stages of pregnancy. I had to hold back my tears they seemed so young and here they were being forced to become adults when they should be thinking about what dress to wear, which boy likes me, writing love letters with dedications(I know my age is showing) not this!!! But we thank God that there’s a place like Wakisa now to help these young girls. I ask them what they like about this place, ” I like Bible study, tailoring because I am going to be a fashion designer and infant care class which teaches me how I am going to look after my baby.” That was Chantal.😍 One of our Vessel Team members is a teen mum, she shared her story with the girls and immediately she finished hands shot up with questions, “how did manage to go back to school while you had a baby? How did you manage your emotions and self esteem? What was the relationship between you and the guy?” Right, here is where the gap is. These girls don’t have any success stories in their faces. I realized that they identified more with our team member because she made through, it defined her for awhile but she had to crawl her way out of the pit. The one thing that she mentioned and got me thinking…hmmm was ” I had a strong support system. My mother was there for me and my baby.” These girls need that, they need hope that this isn’t the end of their lives, there’s more way more than being a teen mum. I want to thank Wakisa and their team for supporting these girls, they offer counselling sessions for the girls which I think is very critical for them to express and have an outsider help them organize their thoughts. I can’t stress this enough, counselling and therapy is very important in any human beings life. As a man thinketh…. We concluded the visit with a prayer and spoke life into these girls and Keilah(our chief Hugger) hugged each one of these girls and blessed them.
Wakisa goodies👏
There’s alot they do at Wakisa, candle making, crafts, tailoring. They have a gift shop stocked with nice goodies. I loved the candles, we will definitely be adding them to the Vessel Care packages for the angel mums. Our team loved this experience so much we shall be adding visitation to our monthly activities.
These girls need mentors, just like anyone else in business, farming, investment etc, these girls need mentors who will pour into them and encourage them.
if you feel like this is something you would love to do with us please halaaaa.🤗 Our next visit will be End month of January, so please keep the donations coming in.( For those who weren’t able to bring the gifts in time we shall add them to the next givings.
Chief Hugger & Vessel team outside Wakisa Gift shop
I would like to thank and bless the following people; Jackie A, Barbara A, Michelle S, Claire, Tasha B, Kentaro, Jolly K, Esther B, Collin B, Gladys N,Racheal A, Ram N, Julianna O.Kindness is our human language, thank you for speaking it so eloquently.😍😍
