Moving Day

Great news! The therapy department has been moved into a new building, and we have three new therapy rooms! We will temporarily be in Zachary's House with the school until the new school opens. Then, we will temporarily be in the school until our permanent home in the new Vocational Center is built. We have come a long way from a storage room closet and a corner of the preschool room to our new home in the Zachary House. It took our team a whole day to move all of the equipment and toys into the new place and decorate the new rooms. Each of us were so excited that we forgot to be tired!

Summer Interns

We really are having a hot, busy, but very fun summer with addition of five therapy interns visiting at PHF. The beautiful girl in this picture playing games with our kids is Melissa. Melissa is a special education teacher from America who arrived at PHF in May and will be staying here about three months. She will be working with the therapy department, especially the Little Lambs' teachers provide training about how to teach children with special needs. Jodi is a speech therapist from America that is coming for 3 weeks to help provide speech therapy training to Laura. Margie, an occupational therapist from England, is a vocational rehabilitation specialist and will be helping us develop a plan for the new vocational rehab center we are developing for older orphans. Janie is an occupational therapy graduate student with a heart for working with families who have adopted internationally. She will be helping with and learning about our general therapy program and giving some extra one-to-one attention to some of our children with more severe delays. These interns have been such a huge help and so much fun to have

Do you know what I am talking about?

This is one of my favorite pictures as it makes me think, what was he trying to tell us? Did he find a new toy? Or was he wanting a turn to take pictures with my camera? Funny to think about what goes on inside these kids heads! After a little laugh, I looked at this picture again with deep emotion. Cole, a 2 ½ year old boy, who has a nerve palsy of his right arm, has transformed in front of our eyes. For a long time, he would prefer to be by himself and not interact with others. He would actually cry to stay in his room instead of coming out into the playroom! He would ignore his right arm as if it was not his own and he was not able to stand or walk. Crying was his only way of communicating. In only the few months he has been with us in therapy, Cole has flourished. He has learned to walk, use his right arm, and talk in short sentences. Now, we know him as the strong and outgoing child he is! He has taught us the beauty and determination of life.