Miraculous Healing...Manuel 2!

Just look at the transition!

Manuel 2's head when he came in...end of June!

  

This is middle of July when he got out of the hospital!

Then comes the middle of August when he was looking like this...no more showing skull!!!  Praise God!

 And last comes TODAY!  He's all healed up with no more bandage and happy as a little clam!

 

Praise God for the miracles He has done for little Manuel 2!  What an amazing blessing he is to us all now!

Boys on the move!

The Bercario (Nursery) boys have started walking!  Both Alberto and Manuel 2 have learned to walk. There is still a lot of falling on their bums involved but they are so excited for themselves, and I have to say it is adorable!  Alberto was a happy chubby baby when he came to live with us in February.  Now he's a toddling 1 year old!
 He is still quite the chubster and hilarious to say the least.  We are still struggling through getting his asthma/reflux/allergies under control.  Please be praying for God's complete healing in this area for him!

 And as for Manuel 2 he is now a walking miracle!  He came to us the end of June a severely malnourished, close to death little one.  Here's a photo if you can't remember what he looked like at 16 months old and 5.71kg (about 12.5 pounds).  We worked daily to get him just a drink a bit of fortified milk and keep his temperature regulated.  Not to mention the fact that he couldn't sit or do much on his own.

 After we determined his hemoglobin was dangerously low and he had an overwhelming infection he spent 2 weeks in the hospital on the malnutrition ward.  Here he is after returning to us from the hospital, much stronger and able to crawl!


By August Manuel 2 had developed quite the personality and was becoming chubby finally!  He loved singing and dancing and never failed to get his point across!  Even when he was too weak to move he still knew what he wanted...after gaining strength he was just able to express it much more loudly!




Now Manuel 2 is WALKING!  He's singing and dancing all the time.  He still loves to whine but is too cute and lovable for his own good.  He has the best facial expressions and still never fails to be heard by everyone!  What a miracle his little life is.  Every time I see his grandfather (the person who brought in that first day), he thanks me, the tias, and God profusely for the life of his precious grandson!  Stay tuned for a post showing you the miraculous healing of his head wound...you won't believe your eyes!  For now praise our God for the miraculous work of healing He's done for Manuel 2!  May he one day be able to stand as a testimony to all of our God's healing power!

Tchau Nemias!

 Nemias went home yesterday!  He is the son of one of our pastors here, who is now remarried to one of the tias in the girls area.  Nemias was living with us because he was close to death when we took him in several years ago and every time we tried to reunite him with his father his health seemed to take a turn for the worse.  After this new marriage we agreed to keep Nemias for awhile so they could adjust and get their marriage stable before adding Nemias to the mix.  But now finally the time has come for him to be at home!
I am very happy for him to be back in a family setting and excited to see the adjustment he goes through over the next few months.  He really is a sweet and very intelligent boy who loves one on one attention.  He is very helpful and with a little encouragement will do anything he is asked.  I can just see him running around in the community helping out with all the little children around.  I also am going to miss his many hugs a day and constant presence in the Baby House.  I have grown to have a special place for him in my heart over the last few months as we watched him become a bit emotionally unstable because he so desperately wanted to be a home but couldn't express that any other way.
Please join us in prayer that he is able to cope with this transition well and comes to know and love his parents dearly.  Pray his health stays stable and his parents are able to manage the issues he does have.  And I also pray for a stable family unit.  May God bless this mother and father in their work, relationship, and family.

Biter!

This is Dionisio.  He is still working through extreme attachment issues and really is doing quite well...but still has the ocassional break down.  The other day I was out in the sand with the kids.  I only had a few minutes to play before I needed to run off to do something else.  I knew if I picked Dio up I would be leaving him a few moments later crying in the sand for the tias to deal with.  So he asked to be held and I nicely told him no I have to go Dio.  This was absolutely NOT acceptable.
He started crying, whimpering, gnashing his teeth and so on...  One of the tias asked him what was wrong and he quickly pointed to me and said...it was Mana Meghann.  The tia started laughing but said, why what did she do?  Dio didn't hesitated a beat...his answer was, "She bit me!"
The tias and I were laughing at him at this point...he couldn't understand why this was funny.  He just kept getting more worked up until finally I walked away and he calmed down a bit.  I know I have been exhausted and in not the best of moods recently but biting small children...I think not.  But according to Dionisio I'm a biter!