Guatemala – Day 2

There’s so much we want to share about today, but it’s almost midnight and we’re exhausted, so we’ll do our best to share a few highlights!

Today we joined an organization called Mike’s Angels to visit a couple of orphanages that they partner with. Last year’s TEAM was able to work with children at both orphanages, so we were looking forward to following up with those kids as well as assessing any new children.

Our first stop was God Bless the Children, and we were able to follow up with all of the children from last year as well as two new children -  a 20-day old baby with possible amniotic banding, and a foster child from the community named David who wasn’t able to come last year.

The TEAM was so encouraged to work with David and he benefited from all disciplines. Charity was able to fit him to AFOs and teach him how to pull to stand. She was also able to educate his foster mom on positioning and provide him with knee immobilizers to improve his lower extremity range of motion. Carol worked with him to develop a beginning PECS program, and he excelled right away with the program exchanging the card for a desired item. Kelly gave him a chew tube to prevent him from chewing his fingers.

The orphanage director reported that all the children that were seen last year have shown significant improvement and from our observations we agree!

We then spent the afternoon at San Jeronimo orphanage and were able to follow up with children from last year as well. We only had a couple of hours but were able to get a lot done. One of the girls we saw named Catherine showed lots of potential and we all enjoyed watching her spunky personality come out. She was fitted for AFOs and we are going to bring her a stander when we return on Friday because she is so motivated to stand.

We were also very encouraged by the staff at San Jeronimo. They had a great sense of humor, they were eager to talk to each one of us to learn how to help each child, and they even fabricated a hip positioning wedge out of blankets for one of the little girls until we could bring the proper materials back on Friday.

We’re so thankful for all of your prayers. We can certainly feel them! Several of the kids we saw today need serious medical attention. Please join us in praying that we would know how to best supply these orphanages with the resources and the assistance that they need.

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