Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Little Hands, Big Hearts

I haven't been writing about what's going here with Little Hands, but this ministry to handicapped children is alive and well! We are still in the process of evaluating and improving some of our programs: the sewing class and the Children's Neighborhood Bible class are two that we are presently revamping. Roxanna has the developmental preschool up and running. Brian and Jeffery just made a trip to LaCiba with Rosa and her son, Samuel and Santana and her son, Rebin. Both boys have multiple problems and need expensive medicine and therapy. They met with a specialist who is helping us develop a long term plan to keep them healthy. Work continues on tying up loose ends of Little Hands becoming a non-profit organization. We are official now, but there are still many things that need to be taken care of including the registration for the vehicles, the land title, and the reimbursement of the deposit we had to give the bank when we first started this process. Each of these things takes days or weeks longer than necessary. It is maddeningly slow and we see very little progress, but rejoice at every baby step that gets us closer to having it all done!
Things are constantly busy. We usually have several people stop in at some point during the day. Some are here for information, others have a child in one of our programs. We spend alot of time trying to teach and help the families we serve understand how to best care for their child with a disability. Sometimes we wonder how we can impress on these parents, mostly single moms, the importance of doing things a certain way instead of what is easy or familiar to them. We have spent a great deal of time this past month trying to find the best meds for Rebin, and getting his mom to make the commitment to follow through with her part to keep him healthy.
Brian is still the most involved with the ministry, but this year I have already seen the kids take a more active role when possible. Jonathan helps daddy on various projects. Rachel and Faith are involved in the preschool on some days when their school work is done. Andrew is more friendly and they are developing friendships with the neighborhood kids. The kids are all doing well with their Spanish and can usually get their point across. I am on call to play nurse when someone show up with infected bug bites or boils. I hope to start sewing lessons soon with Rosa and possibly another girl who can't attend the entire class we have here as she is expecting a baby in a few months.
So in all, we are thankful for the opportunity to work here and excited to see what things God is doing here. Thanks so much for all your support and prayer cover and encouragement.

1 comment:

Jayna said...

Wow! What a wonderful update! It is so good to hear about all the many things that are going on with Little Hands Big Hearts! Thanks for sharing! God bless!