MINISTRY UPDATE

Ministry UPDATE from June 15 The past few weeks have been busy as always but lots of EXCITING things happening. 1. For Jonathan Sake-Outreach- I just love my families in this program and the fact that I have been able to train them do therapy with their children and I can already see a deeper bond forming between them and their child. It warms my heart so much to watch these parents fall more and more in love with their children. We are on week 3 of working our way through our therapy handouts, taking supplies home to use during the week, and having homework to do at home. It is going GREAT so far and the parents love it and the kids are already showing the results. Week 1 we learned stretching and therapy brushing, week 2 we learned oral motor and facial massage, and This Week we are learning full body massage. The toy lending/therapy supply lending system is going great. The parents love having supplies to work with at home. Today I had a parent tell me that her child who has very low tone and doesn’t do much of anything put her hands in her food and was playing with it for the first time this week. I was so EXCITED and told the mother how AWSOME this was. I went and got her a child’s spoon and gave it to her and told her to start doing hand over hand to have her child scoop food to her mouth and have her work on holding the spoon. My heart had so much joy today as I was able to teach that mother to do massage with her daughter and to see how focused the mother was to make sure she learned it was able to carry it on at home. :-) Staring tomorrow I am going to be working with Presidue to train him on therapy techniques to train the parents on after I leave and to help him feel comfortable taking over for me when the summer is over and he takes back over. He is EXCITED to learn and I am EXCITED to teach. 2. Severe and Profound Preschool- The past week I have been more going in and doing music with the mothers (workers) and the kids. Playing guitar a few days that guitar man did not show up and when he was their I danced with the kids. I have also been doing 1:1 therapy with the kids just working a lot on getting the kids who can sit to practice sitting and showing the mother’s that they can. Today was my first day of starting to train the mothers on the same handouts that I have been training the outreach parents on. Yesterday I worked on making their binders and boxes of supplies so that each mother had their own for their 5 kids. Each box had a bag of oral motor supplies, a bag of massage supplies, toys, vibrating brushes, bubbles, lotion, etc. Today we learned stretching of the upper body. My goal is to everyday teach a little piece till we get through all the handouts in the next week to week and a half. Then my goal is to break them down into their groups with their kids and go around to teach them the best techniques to use on each of their kids. Then after music time everyday the rest of the preschool time will be 10-15 minutes of 1:1 time with each of their children working with them to make them stronger based on what is best for each. I am really EXCITED about this! 3. Feeding and Nutrition- Well, we are still fighting this battle but it has started to become overwhelming for all involved and concerns of sustainability have come up. We have simplified the menu for now to make things easier for the cooks. The kids eat the same meals Monday-Friday breakfast lunch and dinner. Every morning they are getting scrambled eggs, peanut butter sandwhich, bannana. Lunch is Hatian stew or rice/beans, and dinner is spaghetti and hot dogs. Originally we were grinding the same food the older kids were eating for the little kids but since power is not reliable and the hand grinder does not do peanut butter sandwhiches well the little children are back to getting la boue. We are trying to make it healthier by adding peanut butter and bannana’s to it. Today was the first day that we requested that the cooks start grinding the food again as food preperation was taking 2 hours each meal (total of 6 hours). We have definitely made a dent in the nutrition but have a long way to go. The supplies that John Harvey helped us fly in on Mission Aviation Flights cleared customs and we are just waiting to get them transported from PAP. I am hoping they will come on the top of the bus of missionaries coming tomorrow. I am very grateful that Kimmy’s House brought tons of Gatorade meal replacement powder that is going to be very helpful for adding calories and protein to some of the kids meals. The depot is set up for the first month and Justin is doing an AWSOME job running it. He is working to help us get some other needed supplies in their that we will use on a regular basis like La Boue mix and peanut butter. We also made a feeding board that will be helpful for the workers to keep track of what kids get feed what food and using what utensils should be used. It will also double as a way to mark off when that child has eaten so children don’t eat twice and miss getting feed. Thank you to all those who helped take pictures, print them, laminate them and put the board together. 4. Kimmy’s House- Kimmy’s House was here for a few days last week and it was wonderful to sit down and discuss ministry needs and talk through how to meet them. So many great things came out of Kimmy’s House’s time here but feel the need to wait to write about them until we start implementing them :-) Which some will be happening sooner than later. Well, one I can tell you about is the Water. Kimmy’s house has purchased a clean water system so our children will have access to clean purified water on a daily basis now which will be AWSOME for their compromised immune systems. 5. Prayer Requests a. There is A LOT of sickness going around the mission right now and a lot of the staff our down with one thing or another. Just praying for healing for all so we can get back to fully serving God where He called us. b. For the parents and children of my outreach c. For the workers of the Miriam Center d. For the Children of the Miriam Center e. For Wisdom and Guidance on the details of moving to Haiti full-time f. For the ability to find time everyday to be with God and allow Him to fill me up so I can pour out. g. For our partnership with Kimmy’s House and all the projects that they are helping us with. For Wisdom and Guidance and God’s provision and blessing. I know I missed A LOT but need to head to do some other stuff. I hope this update finds you all well!