Journal 4- Tuesday July 25, 2017
Practice definitely makes perfect, or at least closer to it.
Our community for the day was El Cielito. Our eye team and Thesa got the true FOB mountain experience traveling up “Café Montaña” (as it is loving called by Rev. Linwood Cook) in the bus. The road became smaller and smaller as we traveled higher. The views are always well worth the bumpy ride.
The teacher and community leader had the families already registered and waiting for us when we arrived. This is one of our Early Childhood Education star communities. The community leader, Henry, is faithful in performing developmental screenings on the children in his area. He loved talking with Thesa about what he does and how we could continue to support him in his efforts.
Marco performed 79 eye screenings in 2 hours!! 5 of those children had a “refer” reading, and will be see for follow care. We think Marco has aced the use of the device. He calls it his new “toy”.
Back at the Barnabas House, our therapy team worked with 3 patients from yesterday and had 3 new faces. Lia, Jairo, Felix and David enjoyed some play and parent teaching time. One play/teaching session used tortilla dough to make shapes, practice words and generally get messy. The kids really loved making snakes! Two other new patients for the day, Amanda and Elvin, both came for help with stuttering issues. Since both are older, our therapists really worked to help them learn skills to control some of their stuttering.
Thesa spent lots of one on one time with the parents in El Cielito. She got to assess several children and even found one who needed referring for delays. Thesa shared that she was excited to see that all the parents were very involved in helping their children learn and grow. A real testament to the work that the community leader is doing in the area of Early Childhood Development.
Corrine and Tim have been a great help in thinking through procedures and policies for the use of our new eye screening device. It is always better to have several brains working together to make processes easier and efficient.
The joy of Patti’s day was getting to hug Jairo and Elvin, both graduates of our Little Hearts Program. They have each had successful cardiac surgeries and are growing up healthy! There is no greater joy than to see success stories.
The rain is falling, the temperatures have dropped, and we are all tired. We will rest well knowing that we made a difference today.
Thanks for your continued prayers!
