The week since I last wrote you has been a busy and wonderful one! It feels great to be back with my kids and I feel I am finally catching up to the various changes that were made in my absence. Many, many things are different within the house and programming, as I shared with you last week, and I am happy to be back here, advocating for the kids and to be a voice in decision-making.
So let me tell you about the kids!
I believe we currently have 7 small babies. All but 2 of them are new since I went home, so I’ve been popping in for visits as often as I can to get to know these new little blessings. They are sweet and cuddly and I adore each of them! We have a new supervisor in the program, an American volunteer named Nicole. She is highly trained in sleep training infants, among other things, and I am very excited to have her! We have one sickly baby boy at the moment. I am monitoring him and he is not terribly ill, but he is small, so please be praying for the recovery of baby “S”!
Our big babies are actually quite small at the moment! We are full in this department, with 12 babies, and many of them are on the younger side of the scale. Our oldest will be one in less than a week! He is a busy and mischievous little guy, with a charming smile and laugh. He is on the go and learning how not to bully the smaller kids ;) Bless him... he doesn’t understand why he can sit on top of other babies, but responds well to the word “no”! He needs lots of stimulation, but is really such a good boy. From there, we have just one other crawler at the moment and 2 who are on their way. We then have a few who are busy rolling, and finally some very young ones who are still working on head control! You can see that with that kind of developmental breadth, the Aunties are needing to be quite vigilant!
Our Starfish have grown so much! Just to refresh your memory, our Starfish program is for children with special needs (ie. cerebral palsy, fetal alcohol syndrome, delayed development due to premature birth or other, and children who are HIV+). They are such a testimony to the Lord’s goodness! The transformation in these children, from their admission to today is astounding! In some cases, almost unrecognizably so. I count myself so privileged to have been a witness the the work the Lord has done in each of their lives. In the next couple of weeks, I will be expanding on the story of one child in particular, but this program is full of little miracles!
And finally... our toddlers! We now have 8 toddlers in the house, possibly only 7 by the end of this weekend. We are moving forward with each of their cases and trying to find long-term or final placement where possible. The Lord has come through with some amazing opportunities for these kids and as for me, I am praying that each of these kids finds home in this season of transition. I am praying that the Lord makes a way for us to keep them as long as we need to, in order to see them into the arms of their forever families. The house is very quiet! That is my first impression when I go for a visit. Where it was once a little like wild kingdom, it is now quite mellow. The kids are still playful and wonderful, but we do notice that some of our gang have moved on. I notice it, and I believe the kids notice it too. Please be in prayer for these, especially. That they would remain secure in the midst of a lot of change, that we would see and meet their emotional needs (as they’re not always so easy to understand) as they are presented to us, and that the Lord would make a way for them to not just have different placement, but Forever placement.
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