Meeting the Dayspring Five and Remembering

FINALLY, I had the opportunity to meet all the precious five little girls now living at Dayspring.  David and I went over on Thursday evening for a pizza party. Last spring, David had the privilege to meet them and now I know them. 

 David joins four of the girls and standing in the back is also David, the nine year old son of LAMb child advocate, Madlin.

 These two love pizza! There wasn't much left!

 David and Jenia - she makes all A's at school.

Olga is a great mom to these girls. We are so impressed with what we see - Costa, her husband is a fun-loving dad we can tell.

We gathered around the big table for pizza and my mind went to the day that Lynn and Ruby went furniture shopping for that table - envisioning just what we were experiencing that night.  FAMILY.  A little later a couple of them ran and got their school work for us to look at and their grades are amazing.  Again, they experienced FAMILY for that is what families do. 

The evening would not have been complete without a guided tour to their rooms upstairs to the FAMILY room and bedrooms.  I looked at the little decorated school desks and saw the couch and chairs and remembered the day that Lynn did a "sitting" test in a furniture story in Tokmok. As I looked in I saw the beds covered with beautiful quilts made by a friend in Lebanon and remember the day our team came to clean Daypring getting it ready for children to experience FAMILY.

This is a short video we showed probably 18 months ago....the LAMb team getting the house ready and now it is reality.  It has taken persistence and commitment as Lynn and Ruby and the LAMb team have, through God's empowerment, built this wonderful home called Dayspring.

Watch for some news regarding a new project - the Jeremiah House. The vision is for a home for those children who age out of the orphanages at 16.

It Was More Than Training....

Heading off to a new place always brings some uncertainty and this past week presented one of those opportunities.  David and I spent from Sunday evening to Wednesday afternoon in the town of Karkol, a six hour drive from our home base.  Our assignment- conduct three days of training on trauma informed care.

We pulled up to the orphanage on Monday morning and met the most wonderful group of orphanage staff.  This orphanage, which has been in existence for 10 years, is home to 40 young people, ranging in age from 5 to 16. The needs of this place are overwhelming. Over the three days, we shared with them on the how's and why's of trauma informed care.  It was exciting to watch them take in this shifting paradigm regarding how to care for wounded children. It became more than just a training as we observed and heard new ideas come from the group not only in their professional work, but personal as well.

A very meaningful memory for us is the connection we had with this group of people who have dedicated themselves to care for children. Judging by the comments we heard both publically and privately, this was a transformational experience for them...and for us as well. We will remember Tanya and Tanya and Nadia and Askot and  Gulnarda and Sergae and Maxabot and Yrmet and Natasha.

Here are just some sights from these last few days:

                                                 David opens class on Monday.

                                   Natasha talks about the essential skills of trauma informed care.

     Our translator, Alexy, the orphanage director, Andrei and little Aziz, one of the children, with       his kitten whose name we cannot pronounce.

 Yrmet, Tanya and Maxabot are  making a plan to incorporate what they learned into practice in the children's home.

                        Several of the young girls from the orphanage with their caregiver, Tanya.

Naida,  Tanya, Gulnarda and Yrmet discuss plans to integrate new ideas into practice.

 

 

                          
                                                       Our traditional end of training photo....

                        David had the privilege of spending some prayer time with a number of staff.

Today we enjoyed a catch-up day at Lynn and Ruby's apartment and begin another round of training tomorrow in Bishkek....foster mothers at SOS Children's Village.

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog....