Update on Eva

If you don’t know about Eva you should read the post on this blog of January 2007 titled Can you see it??? I am just writing to update you that things are moving forward with her. She had her heart surgery here in Ukraine and recovered record fast. Already a week later, she was in a stroller enjoying the sunshine outside for the first time in her life. Here is the latest picture. Notice the little cheeks the butterfly princess has gained. Our missionaries from Netherlands still wish to adopt her so we ask you to continue to keep her in your prayers.

Walking Tall

Dear Marina fans,
Just a quick update to let you know that Marina is overcoming the weakness in her legs, and with two weeks of exercises and hard work, she is walking on her new feet with the help of a walker that Shriner's is letting us use until she walks on her own.
We are absolutely amazed at the progress she has made the past two weeks and she is really showing us all that she is not "crippled" as we were told so many times before!
Her therapist says that she will eventually dance, run and do whatever she wants to do on her prosthetic feet, and I have no doubt after seeing what she has accomplished already!
Marina will be going back into surgery on her mouth at the end of May to have the roof of her mouth repaired. This delays our return to Ukraine, but it also gives Marina more time for speech therapy and physical therapy before our return.
Thank you so much for your prayers and your emails. We appreciate you!
Rebecca

God is Generous

When Vova was born, his mom began to count his fingers – 1,2,3,4,… 11! Surely, there was more than enough! Then she counted his little toes – 1,2,3,4,5,… 12!

“God is generous,” comments Vova.

You can see this happy fellow’s baby picture in the beginning of this blog. There he looks just like a tiny elf in Inge’s arms. Now he is couple years old and solid muscle. He trains by spinning on his stomach, with his hands and feet up in the air or in the baby-walker, rolling wildly in circles. When they figure out name for this rolling sport, you will see him in the Olympics.

Vova has a reason to smile. In the beginning of the year he moved up to our ward at the orphanage. Before he lived in a ward where the children are not expected to learn anything. They are doomed to a life of dreariness, laying in their cribs in silence, waiting for their next meal and a clean diaper. There is no one to hold them, to enjoy them, there is no one to sing to them, or to see God in them. But someone saw his potential. Someone looked into those bright eyes and decided to give him a chance. I think he is taking it all in. He learned to crawl in less than two months and now he can already walk leaning against the sides of the crib. And where did he learn to smile like that? I think he has had some secret friends, heavenly warriors, smiling at him all along.

Sylvi

Baby Steps of Progress for Valentine

Let me introduce you to Valentine or Valik for short. He came to the hospital about 3 months ago and captured the hearts of the team. He was so tiny and small that we couldn’t believe that he was really 4 months old because he weighed only 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds). He cried a pitiful soft cry and would wiggle all the time except when he was sleeping which wasn’t often. We suspected that he was very hungry and couldn’t settle down because he was fed very little with a long time between feedings. Whenever we held him he would become agitated unless we were rocking or swinging him. I gave him a new nickname “Squiggly Worm”. Yet he captured our hearts and became a special little guy to several of the team members.

Recently I started to bring some Johnson’s pink baby cream to the hospital to put on the babies who had dry skin. The children enjoy a massage and this cream helps them smell nice. I tried it on Valik and he loved it! He smiles and coos when I am rubbing lotion on his feet or arms. He especially loves it when I rub his face and head, cooing and smiling even more. As soon as I lay him on the changing table and take off his jammies he gets excited because he knows what is coming. Human touch! Comfort! Gentleness! The transformation that takes place during these 20 minutes is amazing. God is teaching me the power of gentleness in the lives of these children who are starving for love. Pray that Valik would continue to grow and get healthier each day.

Marina's new smile

This is it! This is Marina's beautiful new smile!

She is learning to eat solid foods now, and has almost mastered the use of a spoon, despite only having four fingers on her right hand.

She is crawling around like a little speed buggy, and will get her new prosthetic feet in a few weeks! We are going to have to get some new jogging shoes to keep up with this little girl. It is hard to believe that this is the same little girl who could not sit up or even hold her own bottle 9 months ago.

We are happy to announce that Marina is turning four years old the last week of March! Congratulations, Marina! After fighting for your life for three years, you deserve the happiest birthday in the world!

We love you, Marina!

The Mother's Care team

News from Marina

Dear Marina fans,
We are pleased to announce that Marina had her cleft lip and palate surgery on Tuesday at St Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Florida and she is doing great!
I am attaching a picture so that all of you can see how she is doing. She has some swelling and some stitches that will have to stay in for a while, but she is recovering great, eating, playing and adjusting to her new mouth.
Breathing was a real challenge that first night, with the swelling and the new roof to her mouth, but she came through beautifully and is doing great. We even get a little smile now and then.
She is on blood thinners because of her blood clotting disorder and will need to be in the hospital to be monitored for a few days, and she is really wanting to go home, so pray that she will be at peace until she is released from the hospital.
Thank you so much to all of you who have called and written to let us know you are praying and thinking of us.
We appreciate you so much!
After the stitches and tubes come out, I will send a new picture.
Blessings,
Rebecca and Marina

The lost and found

Natasha's mom received an unusual phonecall in December.

"You should come and sign papers concerning your daughter that you left to the hospital a year ago."

She had given birth to a tiny baby girl (only about 1kg or 2lb), who according to the experts was not going to live. So she left, grieving over her lost daughter.

Miss-Gobble-the-Hut has been with us since year ago February. In the beginning we did not see much but cheeks and eyelashes. She has done a lot of growing to catch up with her cheeks and has turned to a charming and surprisingly plump little girl (how she does it with the orphanage food, we don't know). She loves attention and can hardly wait to have her own mommy to love her all the time! For this is as true as rumor can be - mommy went to court and should be coming to pick up her lost baby any day now. Looks like this story might have happy ending.

Update February 27th

I asked today at the hospital. Mommy came to take Natasha home. Fair well!

Mobiles for kids

When we asked for mobiles for the kids we were not exactly talking of the kind that Karina is holding here. Although we do have some use for those within our team.
For kids we were thinking of more like this educational device attached above Oleg's crib. It is both nice for them to watch and for him it offers a great opportunity to excercise. Just to let you know, Oleg did not do much grabbing of any kind until this mobile came along...

Look mommy, no hands!

Can you tell me she has no emotions? The nannies at the orphanage told us that Karina had no emotions. We would see her laying despondent in a ball pit or rocking back and forth with a green piece of foam before her eyes. God’s love has truly reformed a life before our very eyes.

Karina is all smiles and giggles these days – she has learned to walk. We are ecstatic with her, for we know even more what this means for her future. Learning to walk and feed oneself with a spoon before the age of 5 are some of the main goals we work towards in the orphanage. These are the requirements for special school here in Kyiv. Karina will be five in December of 2007. She has now all summer to steady her steps and get ready for school. We have hope that people will be investing in her life instead of her living in remote, poor, far away storage for handicapped. She can learn to read maybe, maybe learn some simple crafts or other way of making herself useful and help her find her place in a hopefully more accepting world 15 years from now.

Or maybe someone will adopt this beautiful, brown eyed little girl and she will get to live through all the colors of life with a family that enjoys her and accepts her and gives her emotions room to grow. She might be scared of the Santa Clause, cry when her pet hamster dies, be nervous before her first piano recital, exhausted after a camping trip and maybe fall in love and experience the pain and joy of parenting?

Can you see it???

Can you see it? From Baby Einstein we have learned that infants can sometimes really benefit from multi media. Our butterfly princess Eva took this picture of herself few weeks ago, obviously trying to tell me that she had pushed out her first tooth.

If you did not see it at first look, don't be ashamed. I did not get it at first either, but few days later she bit me to my finger and I understood the meaning behind series of pictures of her mouth. She is just more technically advanced than I thought she was.

This little clown has won the hearts of many. Even her doctor at the hospital is wrapped around her tiny pinky and came to coo at her three times during our last visit. "It is good to have friends in high places", comments Eva. And she is right.

Because of her special interest in Eva, this doctor went out and talked to Eva's mother about getting back her custody and giving it to us, so we could take her home and to another, privately owned hospital, where she could possibly get the heart operation she needs. They could also help to diagnose why she is not growing. The princess is already year and a half old, but barely weighs 10lb. The doctors here have determined that without more advanced medical help she may not live to see her 3rd birthday. Unfortunately the orphanage refused to grant the custody back to Eva's mother. Now we are trying the longer route, a couple from Netherlands, serving with our ministry, will try to adopt Eva.

We are asking for a huge favor from God attempting this, for Ukrainian adoption system will not allowe people to choose a child the future parents already know. This generally prevents orphanages from displaying and selling children (like we hear happens in Russia) and gives all the adoptable orphans the same opportunity to be adopted. Unfortunately it makes harder for us to intervene for a spesific child. We, and especially the couple from Netherlands need special guidancein who to talk to and what to reveal about their relationship with Eva, so that her name would appear on the list they will be given to choose their child.

We ask you to join with us in prayer, that when Eva looses the tooth she is now so happily sporting, she can take a picture of the hole and thank God for being a healthy six or seven year old. Or maybe her proud daddy will take the picture and she can smile at the camera surrounded by family and lots of adventures ahead of her.

- Sylvi -

Teacher

The wrinkled piece of paper above your crib
was all we ever knew of you;
Daniel, 4 months, Down syndrome.

We never saw you smile,
never took your picture,
never learned your story,
not even your last name,
because we thought there was tomorrow.

We never heard you give a speech,
you never said a word,
just burped few times really, really loud ;)

Still you taught us;
the fleeing of time,
the importance of today,
the importance to say "I love you" now,
for tomorrow we may not be.

Thanks Danya!
I'll see you someday by Jesus' side,
I'm sure you'll teach me more.

-Sylvi

Hi,
I am sorry for not keeping you up to date on our babies. First I thought of blaming it on having thumbs in the middle of my hands when it comes to technical things, but now that I look at this picture of Marina writing with her only four fingers my excuse seems not so good...

So this is Marina, when she visited us in December. Her custody was changed so that Sonya could continue her life in Ukraine. The whole process of changing custody took only a little over week and Marina and Rebecca returned to US. Praise the Lord!

This fall we learned that Marina has a very rare blood disorder that was causing her extremities to die. Now that that is under control we can continue to work on getting her prosthetics and fixing her cleft pallet. Some surgery plans were already made for January. We appreciate your prayers for our fighter pilot! - Sylvia -