Yesterday we headed back to Anini orphanage, which is home to 65 children with special needs. Anini is divided up into six houses that are mainly separated by medical diagnosis and/or gender.
Upon arrival, we learned that a group of Guatemalan students were also there to play with the kids and help the caretakers. We knew we only had one day to work with the kids at Anini, so we had already started brainstorming which kids to focus on since we knew there was a high possibility that we wouldn’t be able to see every child in one day. It quickly became clear that the best way we could help would be to focus on Casa Uno (“House One”) – the kids in Casa Uno have the most severe needs, and they were the only kids who weren’t participating in the fun activities with the volunteers.
It was a long day, but we pushed through and worked as hard as we could to help as many kids as we could in such a short period of time. Paige was able to assess their speech and language development, Abby fitted several kids for hand splints, and Holly also fitted lots of kids for braces. All of the children we saw today were in wheelchairs, so we made adjustments to each of their chairs as well. A lot of the kids we’ve seen this week have the same exact wheelchair, and it’s not exactly the easiest piece of equipment to adjust. But now that we’ve had a crack at it for a few days in a row, we’ve become pros!
The entire day passed by, and we hadn’t even seen all of the children from Casa Uno. Anini could certainly use lots more help! But rather than being discouraged that we didn’t get to help every child at Anini today, we were grateful to build relationships and work with several incredible children who greatly needed our help. We were also able to leave lots of books and toys, and instruction handouts in Spanish for the various things we worked on with the kids today. Anini has a part-time Special Education teacher, so we’re excited that she’ll be able to use a lot of these things to help the children learn and grow and take steps forward towards a better quality of life!
This is just the beginning – and now that we’ve had the opportunity to spend some time at Anini, we can develop a plan for coming back in the future and helping these kids the best we can. Blanca left this morning, and the rest of us will spend our final day visiting more orphanages with Mike’s Angels and fly back early Friday morning.
We drove to Antigua this morning to meet up with the Mike’s Angels team. They flew in from Atlanta and have been here since Saturday as well. It was great to finally meet them.
We visited the main orphanage that they partner with, and worked with several of the children that they felt needed therapy help. The kiddos at God Bless The Children are the most adorable, snuggly, well cared for orphans you’ll ever meet! The founder, Cynthia, intentionally keeps the number of orphans below 15 because she wants it to feel more like a family. Most of the kids are under the age of 3, and they all call her “Tia”, which means “aunt.”
We had lots of big moments today – we taught one baby how to crawl for the first time, taught a 4-year-old little girl how to speak in two-word phrases for the first time, and enabled a toddler to walk independently.
About a week before we left for this trip, we got an email from Mike’s Angels founder, Trish, saying that Cynthia informed her of another orphanage in town called Anini that has 65 children with special needs. We were able to squeeze in a visit to Anini Orphanage this afternoon, but only had time to take a tour of their facility. It became immediately clear that they need lots of help. There wasn’t much we could do in the short hour, so we’ve switched some plans around and we will be heading back there for the entire day tomorrow. It’s a bit overwhelming to know how or where to start because they have so much need, but we are ready to do whatever we can and hopefully develop a plan to come back in the future once we assess their specific needs. We’re so thankful that Cynthia connected us with this orphanage!
At Anini, a lot of the children were removed from their homes by the government, and yet the government doesn’t fund their care at Anini. Anini runs solely on donations. They previously were able to hire a physical therapist and speech therapist, but those funds have long run out, so they are unable to afford therapy services for the kids. They have a great facility, and the director and her staff were all very welcoming. We’re looking forward to going back tomorrow and helping as many children as we can!
We didn’t quite know what to expect for our day at the farm… The plan was to inform families from the farm’s surrounding community that we would be there to provide therapy services for children with special needs. Mama Carmen’s son had put up flyers the week before to let people know that we were coming. But we had no idea how many families would actually come. Would it be 5, or 500?? Would we drive up and find a line of families waiting for us, or would no one come at all?
Well, we got to the farm around 9am and no families were there yet, so we unloaded our things and waited. Over the next couple of hours, only two people came by. So we began talking through Plan B. One of our translators said he knows the pastor of a nearby church who might know of some children in the community who could use our help. So, after lunch we loaded up the van with a few suitcases full of supplies, and took off in our little mobile clinic!
It turned out to be a perfect idea! There were several people that we visited that just couldn’t have made it down to the farm. This little community is up in the mountains, literally in the middle of nowhere. The roads are incredibly treacherous (and even scratched up our bumper), and families can’t afford to get to the city for any sort of medical care. It’s about an hour and a half drive outside of Guatemala City.
Not only were families appreciative that we came to help, but the children seemed to LOVE getting therapy, and were just so happy! One precious girl, Kayla, was smiling the entire time. Paige had trouble doing some of her oral motor exercises because she couldn’t stop smiling! And another sweet boy, Wilder, was just the cutest thing… He was super smiley as well. We were able to give him new shoes and a walker, and Paige showed his parents several exercises to help with his speech. As we were leaving, his mother thanked us and said she’s wanted to get him medical care for so long and just couldn’t afford it, and she knew there was no way anyone would ever come to their house to help them, so she said we were a miracle.
We were somewhat warned that most people aren’t very open to strangers or people outside of their community…so we figured that might be one of the many reasons why no one came to the farm to see us. In fact, we were told of a young man with special needs that we could visit. But when we showed up, he made it clear that he was scared of the “gringos”. Thankfully, he eventually warmed up to us, and all three of us were able to work with him. His face beamed once Holly put new shoes on his feet!
We may not have had a line of 500 people waiting for us at the farm at 9am, but it was still such a productive day. We made several connections that we know will help in the future when we come back to this community – through families that we met, a connection with a radio station, and a TV Cable host who randomly showed up and said he could help get the word out the next time we come.
Yesterday (at the farm) was a perfect example of how things don’t always go the way you planned… And since this is our first trip to Guatemala, it’s becoming quite a learning experience and we’re figuring out details and things that will be helpful to know for future trips to Guatemala.
We don’t have much time to post pics or blog right now, but we’ll try and give an update later today or tonight with how our day at the farm went!
Thank you all for your continued prayers!
We had a great Day 2 at Mama Carmen’s orphanage. It was nice to have the entire day to work with the kids there. Just as we predicted, Paige did TONS of speech evaluations today! Holly and Abby did more work on some of the equipment, and there were several moments when tools went “missing”, only to discover that one of the kids across the room was playing with it. They were quite fascinated by our stash of allen wrenches and velcro!
Since this is our first trip to Guatemala, and our first time meeting all of these kids, we weren’t 100% sure of what they would need in regards to supplies or equipment. Thankfully, we were able to leave a giant bin full of stuff for Mama Carmen and her staff to use with the kids that we saw today. We went over every toy and every tool so that they knew exactly how to use them to help each particular child. At the end of the day, Mama Carmen jokingly asked if she could also put one of us in the therapy bin to keep! But the truth is, she and her staff are all so amazing and so eager to see these children’s development improve. We have no doubt that they will take all that we shared with them and try their hardest to work with these kids between now and our next visit.
Not only did we leave a therapy bin at Mama Carmen’s, but we also were able to leave both standers that we brought! One of the standers worked perfectly for Cesar. We told Mama Carmen’s staff that it would be fine for him to start off easy with the stander, and maybe only stay in it for 5-10 minutes at a time at first. But Cesar impressed us today by standing for 40 minutes straight! We were also able to use our second stander for 4-year-old Merlin, and we adjusted her wheelchair for better support as well. A woman named Cindy who works at the orphanage is the main caretaker for Merlin, so we each talked with her to make sure she knew how to use the stander, how to sit Merlin in the wheelchair properly, and what exercises she can work on to help with Merlin’s speech and language.
Definitely one of the most encouraging things was seeing how dedicated Mama Carmen and her staff are to helping these children as much as they can. They all expressed multiple times how they can’t wait to see how much progress the kids make by the next time that we come. They all seem very committed to keeping up with all the exercises we showed them, and the adjustments we made to the wheelchairs they were using for three of the kids will make such a difference as well!
Tomorrow we go about an hour outside of the city to Mama Carmen’s coffee farm, where we will work with families in that community who have children with special needs. We have no idea how many families will show up, but we are excited to do all that we can to help those that come!
It’s been awesome to watch how various relationships and connections and conversations the past few months have led to this first TEAMworks trip to Guatemala. And on pretty short notice, a team of three therapists – Abby, Paige and Holly – agreed to be the first ones to go to Guatemala, begin building relationships, and assess the children and gather information in order to help develop a long-term plan for the work in Guatemala.
Before I go into a re-cap of Day 1, we want to thank everyone who has helped make this trip possible. A ton of the equipment we brought was donated – everything from standers and walkers, to a room full of braces that were donated from families in NWA whose children grew out of them. Although only 3 therapists are on this trip, about 20 more showed up to help us pack 8 giant suitcases full of equipment and supplies. We’ll even count Continental as a part of our team – the kind lady at check-in decided to waive our oversized/overweight bag fees (about $600) even though her manager said she couldn’t.
Needless to say, we are ever grateful for all the prayers, support, generosity and encouragement we’ve received!!
We arrived in Guatemala later than expected due to our delayed flight out of Houston. We went to Mama Carmen’s orphanage in Guatemala City our first afternoon, and were warmly received. Everyone was so excited and grateful that we are here. Due to limited time, we were only able to work with a few children. We were able to make a LOT of headway setting up equipment and adjusting chairs. Most of the children with special needs at Mama Carmen’s have speech delays, so Paige was able to initial screenings of most of the kids. Meanwhile, Holly and Abby became quite the mechanics working on Cesar’s wheelchair and stander.
Cesar has particularly received a bit more attention, even prior to this trip. A wheelchair was sent to him previously, but it needed some adjustment, which we were able to take care of. He is the sweetest little boy, incredibly smart, and has the most beautiful smile. At the end of the day, he tried to thank us before we left, but he was too emotional to get his words out. It was such a sweet moment… We were so encouraged to see Cesar already looking tons better by the end of the day.
Mama Carmen takes care of close to 100 children on a daily basis, 47 of which live there at the orphanage. Although the kids were told to stay in the TV room while we worked, several managed to sneak back to us and keep an eye on what we were doing. They are all so precious! Jorge, Mama Carmen’s son, gave a tour of the orphanage as well. Although the house seems big, they feel like it’s definitely not enough room for 100 children so they have plans to expand the orphanage.
Over the next 6 days, we will work with special needs kids at 5 different orphanages in and around Guatemala City, as well as work with families of special needs children in a community outside of the city. We go back to Mama Carmen’s for Day 2, and we are looking forward to evaluating the rest of the children with special needs!
Thanks again for your continued prayers!!
