A new family arrives....

Two weeks ago we received a request for help from a farway town. From three hours away, there was a family of five children who after being removed from their home were suffering neglect and lack of good care in the institution that they were placed. A visit to us from the cities social workers gave us an impression that our work was desperately needed to help children even in faraway towns. They said that our homes were 1st world, a huge compliment from Brazilian authorities. The five little ones arrived, three would be in the baby house and the set of twin sisters would stay in the little girls house, ages 1, 3, 5 and 8. The little baby girl had her first birthday on the date that they arrived. She is a little content smiling sweet girl. The two middle boys had difficult names that even the Brazilians had trouble pronouncing. I repeated their names 5 times quietly to myself, a practice that I do to help me remember all of the names of the childtren who come through. The five year old boy saw all of the toys and kept playing all day long, riding bikes, playing with cars. He seemed happy, and he was not a difficult boy to lead. The other little boy who is three presented a problem that we all noticed immediantely. When we talked to him, he had absolutley no response. When asked a question, he didn´t answer with gestures or words. He also had tiny wounds on the inside of one of his ears. We wondered if is was an emotional problem or physical and one of our workers made him an appointment with a specialist that she knew and took him there during her free time. We later discovered that he had had a sort of infection leaving one ear deaf. The second or third day that I came in to work, he raised his arms for me to lift him up and when I did he gave me a huge smile. As he is growing accustomed to the babyhouse, makes more sounds, car noises when playing with the little cars and cries when he is upset. I was even very surprised to hear from my workers that he even said my name when I arrived! The five year old is always by my side wanting to color and participate in any of the artistic activities that we do at the babyhouse. He is always smiling now and asks me to pray extra for him. He is very eager to start school. We discovered of the twin daughters, one has a weak heart which can also be dangerous. They are very happy to pass by the babyhouse as well to see the rest of the family. It is situations like these that help me to keep going even when faced with challenges and opposition at times. It is for the children that Lar Feliz exists, “because God loves the children”, as our motto says.