Today the TEAMworks group went room to room with bags of gifts and handouts for the children and caregivers. Along with the gifts of toys and equipment, we also decided to write out individual goals for each of the children with special needs in the laying down rooms. We felt this would be very beneficial to give them a written copy of our therapy ideas since we had given them an abundance of information in such a short time. We had the goals translated into Russian and were able to tape them on the wall above each child’s crib. Along with the goals we were able to add one of our most favorite verses from Psalms 139.
A big highlight of the day was when Amy was asked to give her professional opinion on a little girl who does not talk. The little girl was 4 years old and reportedly understands everything that is said to her but is unable to speak. After observing the little girl and showing the therapist some techniques to elicit speak sounds using visual, verbal, and tactile cues, the little girl imitated movements of her mouth and ended up producing several consonant and vowel sounds for the first time. After we all said goodbye in Russian, she imitated this as well. This was definitely a God sent moment because therapy like this usually takes awhile. The therapist at the orphanage was amazed!
Today we were warmly welcomed back to the orphanage we’ve been working at for several years, and everyone was so excited that we were there. They were anxiously waiting for updates from all the families back home who adopted children from this orphanage. Telling them about all these children who have found such wonderful homes was one of the highlights of our week.
We started our day with a meeting with the director of the orphanage who was very grateful for our help. He gave us permission to work with all children in any rooms. This is a very specific answer to prayers, as we have been praying to work with the children in the laying down rooms. We then went and met with the head neurologist who went to see several of the children with us that we wanted to discuss with her. Our experiences in the past have been that children with seizures are generally not moved or touched and this has been the case this trip. We asked for permission to stretch, position, interact and move several children with seizures who desperately needed our help. At first the neurologist denied our request to interact with these children. We were able to give her information on seizures and discuss our knowledge of children at TEAM who also have seizures and receive therapy regularly. She continued to be hesitant, but finally granted our request. We will ask later this week if our therapy activities can be carried over by the therapists at Green Forest. Please join us in praying they will have permission to work with these children with seizures like we were able.
We have not uploaded pictures yet but wanted to give a quick update from another orphanage we visited today that we have been working with for several years. We had a great day with so many of the sweet kids here. We were able to see and play with several children in the process of being adopted. Seeing these kids was such a blessing to us and to their families praying to bring them home. Our time with the Internet is limited, we will write more as soon as we can. We are about to travel by van back to Kharkiv. By the end of the week we will have logged around 20 hours in the van traveling, but on a happy note it’s a comfy van. We are definitely feeling all the prayers!! Thank you!
The team has limited access to WiFi today, so today’s post will be a bit brief::