Baby George

Born with a severe cleft lip and palate, Baby George finds hope and healing on board a Mercy Ship...

Just after New Year’s Day, Naomi gave birth to her first child. Unfortunately “Baby George,” named after his father, was born with a cleft lip and palate — a common but frightening birth defect.

“I was scared, and I felt bad,” Naomi said. Superstitious neighbours gave her reasons why they thought George was born this way: that Naomi bathed at night, that she was a witch. But Naomi sought a better answer, and when her son was five days old, she brought him to the Mercy Ship.

The doctors scheduled him for surgery and told Naomi to take her baby home and help him gain weight so he would be big enough to undergo the surgery. Months later they returned to the Mercy Ship for the operation to correct George’s cleft lip.

After a four-day stay on the ship’s ward, Naomi took her baby home, planning to come back in a year when another Mercy Ship would visit Liberia and George could have his cleft palate corrected as well. “I’m very happy,” a beaming and hopeful Naomi stated as she held her sleeping son.