Another child!

Can you believe it?  We sure can't...

We have another child!  We are up to thirty-FIVE children now.  Some thing tells me that this is a new trend.  Dorothy and I have agree that we will go wherever God leads.  Right now, that is to a larger ministry!  It is a good thing we have a rich heavenly Papa to feed all these kiddos!

Our newest addition is named Mylove.  I'm not sure of her exact age (around 18 months I'm assuming).  She came to us via the HIV clinic.  She tests positive for HIV, however, she does not have the virus...just the antibodies.  THANK YOU, LORD!  Her mother and father love her very much and would like to keep her.  However, her mother is in the hospital right now and cannot care for her.  So, we have agreed to take her on a temporary basis for a few months.  She seems very attached to her family and was very upset when they left.  Please pray that her father will continue to visit her until she can leave.

On the reorganization front, I've been working on plans.  I have a rough plan for how I would like things to be organized/run and Dorothy seems to like it so far.

Right now, the older kids go to school for part of the day. Besides meals/bathing/etc. the younger children have no real structure for the rest of the day. They basically just play in one or two small areas for most of the day. It is by no means ideal and we want to change it as quickly as possible because we want our children to be happy and have lots of opportunity for mental and physical development. So, I'm planning on organizing the house into different types of play areas, almost like "centers" in a classroom. For example: dramatic play, blocks/legos, arts and crafts, gross motor play, music, TV, boardgames, etc. Then, I want to divide the kids up into small groups and have them on a schedule for who is playing in each area of the house at different times of the day.  We are also hoping that with more organization, we will be able to have daily Bible lessons, devotions, prayer, and worship with the children.  We want our focus to always be on God.  That is very difficult right now with the lack of organization in the children's daily activities and routine.

As you already know, we have Haitian nannies on staff to help look after the children. I never imagined how incredibly difficult the cultural differences in childcare would be. It can be very frustrating at times. So, once I get all of these plans into action it is going to be even harder to explain to the nannies why and how we are going to be doing things from now on.  I hope and pray that they are going to be receptive and respect my decisions even though I am "new" here and younger than most of them.  I have been working on building relationships with them (despite the language barrier) for the past two months.  I hope that they can see that I care very much about them and the children.  My Creole language skills are rapidly improving, but I'm not sure if I can thoroughly explain all the changes that will be taking place.

We are making a list of different toys and things that we would like to get for each the different "play stations" in the house.

If any of you blog readers/friends are interested in helping, I will be home on December 16th for the holidays and I plan to return to Haiti in January (not sure of an exact date yet). If you would like, you can send/bring things to my parent's house for me to pack in my luggage. It will save you shipping money and assure that it will not get stolen/lost in Haiti's untrustworthy customs.  Please e-mail me at benner.katie@gmail.com if you would like to help out!

Our current "wish list" is as follows:

--Riding toys (big wheels/tricycle, etc.)
--balls (tennis/soccer/nerf/etc.)
--jump ropes
--Kitchen play set and accompanying play food
--dress up clothes/shoes
--sing along music DVD's and CD's (our children LOVE to sing and dance)
--simple musical instruments (xylophone/drums/tamborine/etc.)
--finger paints
--various sizes of Legos (large ones for our small children and smaller more complex Legos for our two older boys)
--wooden building blocks
--cardboard brick building blocks
--matchbox cars and roads
--wooden train track and trains
--Lincoln logs

**We already have a large supply of children's books and arts and craft supplies.

We are not picky and would love gently used toys as well!

As always, I GREATLY appreciate your prayers, support, and help.  If you are unable to help out with material/monetary things, that is fine!  Your prayers are more important to us than any material thing that you could donate to our children. You are such a blessing to all of our little children, and you help to make this ministry possible!

Dorothy and I feel that exciting things are in the works for Faith Hope Love Infant Rescue!