Berline Feb Update 2013

Happy Valentines Day from God’s Littlest Angels, Andrew and Christy!

February has flown by here at GLA.  It is already a short month and with so much happening every day we have been amazed to see it come to an end already.  The Toddler House area at Fort Jacques is coming along very well.  All six houses now have walls and are painted!  We have a large group of volunteers right now and teams have been in and out all month.   We have also been facing a case of the chicken pox amongst our kids.  Our first case appeared at the Toddler House in the beginning of January.  For many weeks only a couple of kids had symptoms but it did eventually make its way through each child at the Toddler House who had not had it in the past.  Here is a blog post from Molly with a few pictures of some kids covered in calamine lotion to help with itchiness…. http://godslittlestangelsinhaiti.org/kidzkorner/2013/01/everyone-has-spots/.  By the middle of February it seemed as though everybody who was going to get the Chicken Pox had gotten them and the Toddler House was in the clear.  About the time we saw an end to it at the Toddler House we suspected a case at the Main House but only one child has presented with any type of symptoms in the last 3 weeks and so we are not sure if that was even a case of chicken pox, as more children would have gotten it by now. As of right now we are saying that we have not yet seen chicken pox at the Main House and we ask that you continue to pray that it stays away, as it could be a very bad thing for our most fragile babies in the NICU to be exposed to. Thanks to the support of many adoptive parents and other donors we were able to raise enough funds to give each child at the main house (older than 1 year) a chicken pox vaccine (Varicix).  The rest of the children will receive the vaccine when they turn 1 year.  Berline is one of the few children who did not come down with a noticeable case of the chicken pox.  Because she did not get it while all of the other children did, we assume that she was exposed to it before she came to us.

Because February is often considered the month of “Love” I decided to theme photo day and this months updates that way.  In thinking about what “love” is, I find it so very important to turn to God’s Word and see what He has to say about it.  We find ourselves here at GLA needing to tap into our “love bank” every single day in our interactions with the kids, the staff, and our visitors.   As full time staff we quickly learn that we cannot have a full “love bank” to draw from unless we understand and draw from the love that our Heavenly Father gives us. 

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” - 1 John 4:7-12

To follow along with the love theme I am going to highlight for you some of the things Berline loves.

I sat down with Berline and asked her to tell me about some of the things she loves.  I asked her specific questions and got some fun answers from her.   She told me that he favorite thing to do when she goes to school is write and that when she is in the yard during play time she enjoys playing basketball the most and spending time with her friends, Julena and Frantzdie.  She told me that she loves the color blue and that her favorite thing to eat is macaroni.  When I asked her if she could have any animal she said she would choose a dog and it would be yellow, but she was not sure what she would call it.  Her favorite movie (like everyone else at the toddler house right now) is High School Musical.

Berline is healthy and growing:
Height: 131 cm
Weight: 58 lb