Celebrating Hope

 

 

We arrived home early this morning after an incredible trip to Kyrygzstan.  What made it so incredible is that God enabled us to meet and work with orphanage caregivers and social workers who experienced trauma-informed training for the first time. They were so engaged, receptive and appreciative of the information

 

Over these three packed weeks, we were able to introduce the nine essential elements of trauma informed care, combined with the Trust-Based Relational Intervention principles (TBRI) of Dr. Karen Purvis.  Teaching the  "why" of the  essential elements of trauma informed care was only half the equation.  Sharing the principles of TBRI was the "how-to."  It was fun to see the groups process the material and then apply it to their own working situation.

 

 

 We wanted to share this experienced with you...

 

 

We are so appreciate to Lynn and Ruby who set up the training oppportunity for us. We made many new friends and our list of who we care about in Kyrgzstan has grown.

Thank you taking the time to read our blog. It means alots..  

Just and FYI.....David returns to Kyrygzstan in two weeks for a time of meetings at the univerisity.

Connections Continue

David and I started our last four day series of training on trauma informed care today in Bishkek.  This is so exciting for us, as this is new material and new concepts for all of us in child welfare. We have been training this material, which combines the nine essential skills of trauma -informed care with the Trust Based Relational Intervention program (Dr. Karyn Purvis) at home and now we are sharing it here.  Just the other day, one of the foster moms said what I hear so often at home, "I wish I would have known this when I started!"

We continue to make awesome new connections with these most interesting people. Today, we began our final training series with the administration and staff of the SOS Children's Village.  They are so receptive and open to what we are sharing.

However, before the day began, I had a promise to keep. Last Monday, I made a promise to ten very important foster moms.  We wanted to give them a gift - our book, Wounded Children, Healing Homes, translated into Russian.  I asked them to come to the training room at 9:30 this morning...and right on time they came.  What fun and what a blessing it was to give them each a book. They wanted a signed copy.

      Our day started out with making these connections again with these caring foster moms.

                     Talking with Burul. She has been a SOS foster mom for over 10 years.

Here are just a few more pictures from today....

                            Costa, our country director, joined us today as translator. 

                       Veronika, the SOS Children's Village doctor was in our class today.

                                             David closes out the session today.

We all decided that on Friday afternoon, we will have a big celebration with all the SOS folks who attended. They told me that will be close to 45 people.  We will give everyone a certificate and celebrate their hard work over these last three and half weeks! 

Training and Training and Training...We Love It

We have been on a training marathon since we arrived her on September 4th.  We do feel God's hand of strengthening and empowerment for the journey.   Our next stop for Wednesday-Friday is the administration and staff at the SOS Children's Village in Bishkek.

Please visit our LAMb blog for pictures of yesterday's work at Dayspring with local workers...

http://lambinternational.blogspot.com/

We end our time here with another training at Dayspring on Saturday and leave at 2:00 am on Sunday morning.  We feel so blessed to be here. It has been a very rich time of connecting with so many new friends who care about children from difficult and hard places.

Meeting the Dayspring Five and Remembering

FINALLY, I had the opportunity to meet all the precious five little girls now living at Dayspring.  David and I went over on Thursday evening for a pizza party. Last spring, David had the privilege to meet them and now I know them. 

 David joins four of the girls and standing in the back is also David, the nine year old son of LAMb child advocate, Madlin.

 These two love pizza! There wasn't much left!

 David and Jenia - she makes all A's at school.

Olga is a great mom to these girls. We are so impressed with what we see - Costa, her husband is a fun-loving dad we can tell.

We gathered around the big table for pizza and my mind went to the day that Lynn and Ruby went furniture shopping for that table - envisioning just what we were experiencing that night.  FAMILY.  A little later a couple of them ran and got their school work for us to look at and their grades are amazing.  Again, they experienced FAMILY for that is what families do. 

The evening would not have been complete without a guided tour to their rooms upstairs to the FAMILY room and bedrooms.  I looked at the little decorated school desks and saw the couch and chairs and remembered the day that Lynn did a "sitting" test in a furniture story in Tokmok. As I looked in I saw the beds covered with beautiful quilts made by a friend in Lebanon and remember the day our team came to clean Daypring getting it ready for children to experience FAMILY.

This is a short video we showed probably 18 months ago....the LAMb team getting the house ready and now it is reality.  It has taken persistence and commitment as Lynn and Ruby and the LAMb team have, through God's empowerment, built this wonderful home called Dayspring.

Watch for some news regarding a new project - the Jeremiah House. The vision is for a home for those children who age out of the orphanages at 16.

It Was More Than Training....

Heading off to a new place always brings some uncertainty and this past week presented one of those opportunities.  David and I spent from Sunday evening to Wednesday afternoon in the town of Karkol, a six hour drive from our home base.  Our assignment- conduct three days of training on trauma informed care.

We pulled up to the orphanage on Monday morning and met the most wonderful group of orphanage staff.  This orphanage, which has been in existence for 10 years, is home to 40 young people, ranging in age from 5 to 16. The needs of this place are overwhelming. Over the three days, we shared with them on the how's and why's of trauma informed care.  It was exciting to watch them take in this shifting paradigm regarding how to care for wounded children. It became more than just a training as we observed and heard new ideas come from the group not only in their professional work, but personal as well.

A very meaningful memory for us is the connection we had with this group of people who have dedicated themselves to care for children. Judging by the comments we heard both publically and privately, this was a transformational experience for them...and for us as well. We will remember Tanya and Tanya and Nadia and Askot and  Gulnarda and Sergae and Maxabot and Yrmet and Natasha.

Here are just some sights from these last few days:

                                                 David opens class on Monday.

                                   Natasha talks about the essential skills of trauma informed care.

     Our translator, Alexy, the orphanage director, Andrei and little Aziz, one of the children, with       his kitten whose name we cannot pronounce.

 Yrmet, Tanya and Maxabot are  making a plan to incorporate what they learned into practice in the children's home.

                        Several of the young girls from the orphanage with their caregiver, Tanya.

Naida,  Tanya, Gulnarda and Yrmet discuss plans to integrate new ideas into practice.

 

 

                          
                                                       Our traditional end of training photo....

                        David had the privilege of spending some prayer time with a number of staff.

Today we enjoyed a catch-up day at Lynn and Ruby's apartment and begin another round of training tomorrow in Bishkek....foster mothers at SOS Children's Village.

Thanks for taking the time to read our blog....

Leaving for Orphanage Training

It is early Sunday morning here and David and I are waiting on the director of an orphanage to pick us up and head to his orphanage. This is an exciting opportunity for us as we will be sharing on trauma informed care of children with traumatic pasts. The staff at this orphanage has had no training on caring for children from difficult places. We will catch up on the blog when we get back as there is minimal internet access as we understand it.

First Days in Kyrgyzstan

It is amazing to us that we can feel so much at home in a place so far away, with a people whose language we don't understand...but for us, arriving here is like arriving home. We love the people of this country.

With such a short time to be here, we rested a short time after our arrival and then set out.  Our first stop of the trip was to Dayspring.  It was the first time I was able to meet the girls. David met most of them last spring. They were all getting home from school. We walked into a peace-filled, but busy after school household and it wasn't long before they had their homework assignments out and seeking help.

                            Madlin, the child advocate for the children, helps Jenia with homework. 

After meeting all of the girls except Christina, who was still at school, I was again reminded  that God sent these special little ones, out of all the other little girls in orphanages to Dayspring and under the wing of LAMb.  What a responsibility and a privilege for us to be involved in the lives of these precious little girls.   We are planning a special dinner next week with them...we have been told that pizza would be good!

After meeting the girls, we had another mission - to deliver an incredible gift to a young man at IUCA University.   We first met Vitaliy in the fall of 2008. We learned that he had a dream to go to the university, but didn't even have enough for the $100 admission fee.  In David's pocket that Sunday morning was a gift from friends of ours in Lebanon, Linda and Daryll. It was more than he needed to begin. We told him to go get his clothes and took him back to Tokmok and dropped off at the university.

Now, five years later, Vitaliy is graduating as an IT specialist with a BA. The problem is that this soon to be employed computer student didn't even own his own laptop.   Just weeks before we left, we were given another gift - enough to buy him a new computer and to pay this semester's tuition. (Thank you Steve and Cindy)  How very exciting for us as we gave him the gift, but nothing compared to the excitement  he expressed when he received his new computer and awesome backpack computer pack.  He graduates in spring and has a promised job waiting for him in IT.

Vitaliy was so excited, he barely would look up for a picture! (Steve and Cindy, I took a video him thanking you, but something was wrong with the volume)

The last two days, we have been training in Bishkek at the SOS Children's Village. We are working this week.with caregivers who manage the teen residences.

Three of the caregivers are helping with an object lesson - what it is like to look at the world through the lens of a hurting child.

This is a hard working group with a lot of questions.  Our last day with them is Friday and we are hopeful that we have encouraged them and given them some tools and strategies as they care for the teens  in their respective homes.

Saturday is planned as a tourist day to Bishkek and Sunday we leave for a four day trip to an orphanage about six hours from us. We will be working with their staff on the same material we have been teaching this week.  Please pray with us that God will enable us to provide resources and support to these orphanage caregivers so far away from all that they really need.

The Journey Continues.....