What a day .. and it's not over yet

We are ready to hide in our apartment and lock the door. today was another overwhelming day with all the needs.   We have been helping train a team of national students in social work.  They are working with an organization from Taiwan that will be helping with many of the families that we support through Larisa.   Yesterday they were at Dayspring with us getting to know the kids, and making arrangements to come every week to help with  some classes with the kids as well as doing some fun stuff with them .

Jenya prepars a snack for the team ( she loves  to help any way she can )... fresh from the garden 

   Today we were travelling with Larisa .  She has identified about 25 families from her case load that she would like them to help with .  Today we visited with about 8 of those families as well as doing a food drop to the dump.

opening Samaritans purse boxes 

 
Travelling with Larisa is always so overwhelming.  Let me tell you about a few of the families we met today.   One family the Husband has no use of his legs and the wife has no use of her arms.  They are raising their son and two other kids belonging to relatives who have died.  Their home they bought with the help of another disabled man from the bazaar who has since passed away .  We then visited his widow and her kids as well.

  We met another severely disabled man who is trying to build his own home with the hopes of one day having a family.

We met another  man who's wife recently died leaving him to care for his disabled son ( who needed glasses and medication that we arranged for )

We met another family with a 2 1/2 year old with cerebral palsy that needs help getting their son to the city for treatments every week,  We met a family that has a single mother and two kids , the mother has been sick, and they are short of food.

The list just goes on and on ... but the team seemed to be holding it together well, so after a quick wash room break, we brought them to the Dump... That was a little harder on them.

After the dump, we went out to the village where they had a chance to meet some of the families there that we support.  One of the elders began to share with them how the village has changed.

The first store in the village ... 

She told how they had no water, and mostly only disabled people living there. Then Larisa started helping them.. Then the water came, and life came back to the village,..  now they can plant gardens, and they can fix up their homes.. they have learned what it is to work together , and they support each other now.  They have almost 60 new babies in the village .. they have HOPE for their future.

Future sight of the village play ground 

  They then shared the vision that they have .. One of the families has donated a large parcel of land to the village kids to use as a park.  The whole village is ready to do all the work to make it possible... they can do all the welding and building and painting .. they can prepare the land and care for it,  they just asked if we could help with the materials.  I think it would be about $1000 to get them started .. this would give them the material for a slide, swings, benches and some goal posts for the soccer field.. From there they could continue to add on as they were able or as funds came in ... I so wish we had some funds left or we would have been all over that today.. but I am sure that there must be some reason... maybe because if I did have funds at the beginning of the day I would have not had any by the time I got to the village anyway.

   Following the trip to the village we went out to see another family we have worked with for some time .. There are three kids and the mother .. one of the girls is a dwarf, you may have seen her in past posts at Christmas as well as skating and other outings we have sponsored. The son was in a bad accident about three years ago and has had to under go 5 operations so far.  The family has had to sell everything they have to care for him, and now are at the end.   The last operation cost $300 and the family has been able to cover $150 so far.. here is the thing.. they will not let the family have him back until they pay the other  $150, so there he sits... Once again our hands are tied, there is only so much that we can do... but we can pray... and lock ourselves away in our room and hide from the world around us... for at least the next hour hahaaaha