Prayer for walking February 20, 2008

Today was Therapy with Poutchino, we go to Healing Hands every Wednesday and Friday. If I haven’t mentioned before Healing hands is run by Canadian missionaries and they do surgeries, physical therapy and things of that sort. It is really a great place. They have a ton of educated and trained Haitian therapists. Canadians and people from all over come and train, do surgeries, therapy and all kinds of things. They make the prosthetics there too. There is a program for Hydrocephalus children and their therapy comes free with the program. Poutchino had his surgery almost 2 years ago and he is there miracle kid. Everyone knows him and is so proud to see him learning to walk on his own. However, Dorothy didn’t really have the resources or more or less capabilities to do the therapy before I came. Between her arthritis and the car not working it just didn’t get started right after his surgery. But Praise God the car works now and as of right now I don’t have arthritis so I can work with him the other days he doesn’t go and he is making so much progress. We work for 30min at a time, 1-3 times a day minus Healing Hands days. I am so fond of this little boy. He may have some holes in his brain literally and not walk too well or talk too well either, but he has character and a smile that really makes my heart joyful. I think we are really bonding. He will grab my shirt and lean his head on mine, and also lean forward and give me a sort of kiss. It truly melts my heart.

This Wednesday was hard on both of us! He is getting a lot stronger and his therapist is always adding a new exercise each time. This week Poutchino was so tired before we even started and then they strapped him in this thing making him stand up real straight, stretching all those muscles, its kind of hard to explain and I didn’t take a pic or neither do I know the actual term for the equipment he was using. Chino cried the whole time…and I had to hold my tears back watching. All this to say I am so grateful to be here helping make this possible. When I leave doing therapy everyday won’t be possible anymore and I am having a hard time with this concept. So my prayer is that he is walking by himself before I leave. If he has at least accomplished this he can maybe accomplish more. I fear if he doesn’t accomplish this he could get set back to where he was before I came. Please pray for his walking and his progress.

Thanks. You truly are a blessing.