Introducing JULE

A sweet little boy has wormed his way into our hearts once again. 

This one is Jule.  I need to find an accent mark on my keyboard to place over the e.  His name is pronounced: soft j, ooo, lay.

He is such a sweetie, but again, when he arrived at the hospital, you never would have noticed how very CUTE and ADORABLE he is!
 Jule is six years old, but is the size of a 2 year old.  Maybe 3.  He was dirty and sad and hungry and never ever smiled when he arrived.  He just laid listlessly on his cot and stared at the wall.  

He had a fever, but was mainly admitted for malnutrition. He was in the hospital for 15 days with NO caregiver present.  He was just left there.  Alone.  At 6.  We didn't meet him until his 10th day, because he was admitted while we were still in the USA.

Turns out, he has no parents.  His mom became pregnant with him as a teen, and her boyfriend dumped her when he discovered her condition.

The girl kept him until just about one month ago, when she left him with her ex-boyfriend's father.  The grandfather doesn't even know for sure that he is "his", and doesn't really want to care for him.




Sounds just like a story from the usa, doesn't it?

I guess things stay the same wherever you live.

This little guy, once he was fed, loved on, and given some fun things such as toy cars, a new blanket, some Beanie Babies and a ball......well, he just transformed.  Now he is a bundle of energy and smiles and love and hugs!

We adore him, and once again, we are wishing we could take him home with us.  We still don't know if we can adopt little Deste from the Congo.  Now we want to take this one home, too.

The one problem with living here in Rwanda and working in this hospital is our hearts are broken every day.  As much joy as working here brings, sorrow comes too.  We bond with these kids, and then we have to say good-bye.

How could anyone NOT fall in love with this little pumpkin?