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Dorcas: Mother of Orphans |
 When babies started showing up on Dorcas' doorstep, she wasn't sure what to do. Having lost one breast to cancer, would it be possible to produce enough milk to feed these orphan babies? Dorcas thanks God that she was successful and when I visited her this fall, Dorcas had one baby on each hip...the latest in a series of orphan babies she has nursed and mothered. Dorcas' orphanage, supported by a Congolese community development organization CSCODI, houses 30 children. Over 300 children attend the orphan school in town, most live with their mother (children are called orphans if their father dies), extended family members or other community members but these thirty have only Dorcas, Mama Dorcas. The orphanage is a small house where 17 children sleep wall to wall on rice mats laid on the floor. Three single beds in another small room are the home for Dorcas, the nursing babies and two other caregivers. Another room holds the rest of the children. The kitchen is a collapsing hut in the yard.
As we arrived in the dimming light, the children were lined up, grinning and singing a welcome song. Distended bellies told us a part of their story and Dorcas murmured other details, this one has HIV/AIDS, that one and his brother are pygmies, this one is deaf...and so on. Dorcas is the mother of these orphan kids...a courageous and inspiring leader!
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