Baby Ted

Ted and Brenda Whiteman, my neighbors at Open Arms, run a community outreach ministry in the neighborhood around Open Arms. During one of their outreaches, they gave out clothes to some of the poorest in our community. One of the women they gave clothes to later named her firstborn son after Ted! Baby Ted was born with a partial cleft lip and full cleft palate, and when Ted Whiteman heard this, he learned that Operation Smile was coming to Kisumu and made sure that Ted could be considered for surgery! Since Operation Smile was coming while the Whitemans were away in the US, I got to be the one to take Baby Ted to Kisumu!

In Kisumu at Operation Smile

Mety rented a car and we drove 2 1/2 hours to Kisumu so Baby Ted could be evaluated during the Operation Smile mission. It was a long drive on a very rough road, but we finally made it and Baby Ted was then seen by nurses, surgeons, photographers, speech therapists, a feeding specialist, a dentist, and an anesthesiologist! The screening process took about 8 hours and by the end, all of us were exhausted. But Baby Ted was assigned Priority 1 for surgery and was scheduled for his smile repair the following week!


Accompanied by his mom and her neighbor, Ted went back to Kisumu and was successfully operated. His mom, Nancy, texted me when he was out of surgery and said he was awake in the recovery room and "very active!" She was so excited at how well he did and how quickly he recovered. He came home to Mlango the next day!!

Two days after surgery - just perfect!

Ted on Nov 3rd!

Ted still needs an operation to repair his cleft palate, so he will go back to Operation Smile again in May, this time in Nakuru (which is a much nicer road!). Please keep praying for him as he grows big enough for his final surgery!