Ukraine – Orphanage Visit, Day 1

We are feeling so thankful for the blessings on this trip so far!  We had smooth travels and were welcomed at the orphanage today.  We feel that our first day was very slow in pace, but productive. We were able to visit five different rooms, assess the children, make some basic recommendations and plan for more work with these children tomorrow. There are more rooms we want to visit, and we are praying that we will get into these rooms tomorrow.

We were able to provide education about proper positioning for the children that are confined to their beds. Several of these kids have severe contractures because they are immobile in their small beds, but when we began gentle range of motion and got them in different positions, they responded with smiles and happy noises.  The caregivers seemed eager to use these positioning and range of motion techniques. We pray and are hopeful that these small changes will make a difference for each child’s quality of life.  One of the most precious little girls with hydrocephalus really lit up with our attention. Kate and Amy sang “twinkle twinkle little star” and she started singing softly and imitated the words of the song very well!  It melted our hearts.

One little girl was considered non-verbal but quick to imitate expressions, sounds and play. We were able to show the caregivers how to teach her to answer “yes and no” which will be a very basic and useful communication skill!  By the end of playing with her she was nodding “da!” (yes in Russian) when asked if she wanted her toy!

The Sensory system is such a complex treatment technique to explain and when in a different language with translators it adds several more layers on top of that. However when working with a child today, who was in complete overstimulation, I was aw struck by this one caregiver who picked it up immediately. Not only did she write down notes “to remember and to give to other caregivers” but she related our instructions to the girl wanting hugs. She was so thankful and excited that we demonstrated joint compressions on her as well. This simple moment gave me such joy, and I cannot wait to see what things will happen this week.

We are so appreciative of all the prayers and support. We especially would love continued prayers for the ability to see all of the children confined to beds and to have permission from the doctors to work with them and that the caregivers will follow our example of caring for the children in a gentle and loving way.

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