As of Friday we officially have our flight booked to travel to Ukraine to work with special needs children. Our group which is made up of mainly therapists (physical, occupational and speech therapists) will be traveling April 10-18th. We have LOTS of preparations to complete before we travel, and I couldn't be more excited! Please check back for more details and information about how you can help us, help these children. Please go here to Carmen's blog or here to Karen's blog to read about their trip to Ukraine from last year and the exciting progress that is being made. There are multiple entries on each, along with pictures.
The mission of our trip is to provide training and supplies to help special needs children. We will be working with orphans with special needs at orphanages, visiting a hospital with a NICU, helping families who have chosen to raise their children with special needs, and building customized equipment such as standers and corner chairs that can help children with physical impairments (I personally won't be building these...haha...but will definitely be assisting as much as possible). The hopes of our training and supply donations will be to keep as many children as possible out of institutions. At the age of four, special needs children are typically transferred to institutions...where the conditions are BEYOND bleak and the mortality rate is very high. The stories of these children have definitely touched me, and I can't wait to go and share my knowledge with caregivers and parents there (as well as love on as many kiddos as possible) in the hopes that we help give them a future.
For those of you who do not know, I am a Speech-Language Pathologist. Myself and the other half of the Ukraine Speech TEAM is my dear friend Carmen. We will be providing training and help in the areas of education in language development, facilitating language development, feeding and swallowing, and hopefully setting up some kind of communication system for any child who needs a way of communicating other than speech. I feel that we will in no way be prepared for every child we meet. But I know our actions will definitely be guided, because we will be in HIS hands......and that we will be able to roll with the punches...so to speak. :)
Please keep our group in your prayers while we prepare for this trip, specifically that our travels go smoothly and safely, that our information is well received, that our training and suggestions are carried over after we leave, and last but not least that we show God's love to everyone we meet as we work with these children.
I will post more information, detailed supply list that we will be collecting and background information about our trip later. But wanted to announce that I will be going and to please check back for updates on our preparations for the trip! Thank you! Amy
"No man stands as tall as when he stoops to help a child." -Abraham Lincoln
