March 6th, 9:30 am

After a journey back into the capitol of Maseru, we were met by Ray Haakenson of Beautiful Gate orphanage. Wow!!! What a refreshing sight! We went down winding dirt roads (no, we were not in the country, we were right in town), till we came to a beautiful group of peachy pink, cheery buildings which housed the ministry of Beautiful Gate. This was one of the few orphanages that I found when I googled ‘Lesotho orphanage’. Ray and his wife Sue had previously been directors with YWAM in their Maseru base when after a political coup in 1998 when most of the buildings downtown were burned, Sue began to notice more small children running around with no one to care for them. When on a visit to the maternity ward of the local hospital, Ray and Sue encountered 3 abandoned babies who were living at the hospital, they noticed that the staff was not even feeding them or caring for them because they had been born to HIV positive mothers. It was presumed that the babies were HIV positive and that they would die. Sue and Ray and their daughter came in several times each day to feed and change the babies in the hospital, when they asked if they could take the babies home so they could take care of them more easily. That was the beginning of Beautiful Gate.

Since that time, Beautiful Gate has housed and cared for 185 babies 80 of whom have been adopted into families from Lesotho, America, Canada, Sweden and Holland. At this current time, they have 36 babies between the ages of 2 months and one little boy, 5 years old who has been waiting to be adopted for 2 or 3 years, but was delayed because of a one and a half year moratorium by the government on adoptions in Lesotho.

These precious babies and toddlers have some of the most appalling beginnings to their short lives. One baby was found in a pit latrine when a women saw a little hand moving in the darkness. One baby was found in a toilet. One baby was found wrapped in a plastic sack. One baby was found in a ditch. One baby was left on the doorstep outside of Beautiful Gate and the list goes on and on…….

Ray and Sue are truly like our sweet friend Danita Estrella with a heart to help hurting chlldren, but a mind to organize and provide an excellent environment, the communication skills to share their vision with others, and the faith to do it without any guaranteed means of support. They pay local Basotho women and train them to provide the best, nurturing quality mothering for the babies. This is a quality organization which is making a difference in these children’s lives who were discarded by those who should have been protecting them.

We saw the shelves and shelves of baby towels, clothes, washcloths, and cloth diapers along with the yards and yards of laundry hanging to dry in the bright Lesotho sun. We saw the caretakers giving the babies bottles. We saw the pre-schoolers eating their HUGE bowls of rice and beans with their spoons at the small tables! (I had no idea little kids could eat so much), and we were so privileged to give the gift and letters in the small plastic pink school box from the Waitman girls. For those of you who don’t know, the young daughters, ages 3, 5 and 7, of Mike and Bambi Waitman collected $538 by selling homemade brownies that they made to help feed hungry children in Africa. Ray and Sue were so touched by the gift, and they were so grateful for children from America helping to feed these babies whose own families were unable to feed them.

What a great connection! I encourage you to visit their websites at beautifulgatelesotho.org and beautifulafrica.org where you can see great videos of their ministry.

May God bless you Ray and Sue!!!