Rosita's Family

The last couple weeks have been busy with working with an adoptive family. Rosa is a 16 year old girl with special needs and she has been at our orphanage since she was 3 years old. Rosa’s adoptive family is from Pennsylvania and they have 11 biological children. I have been working with Rosa daily over the past 9 months to build her vocabulary and help control her behaviors. The family arrived last Monday. They do not speak any Spanish and two of their youngest children have Down ’s syndrome. This adoption has been the most interesting so far because of Rosa’s age and special needs. Before meeting Rosa, they were taken into the office to get a complete review of Rosa. All the while, their youngest child who is 9 years old, kept asking, “Time to see Rosa?” I can’t imagine the anxiety and the excitement when these adoptive parents come down and are waiting to meet their child. This couple has been in the process of adopting for 3 years. They saw pictures of Rosa when she was 9 years old in a newsletter and they knew at that point that Rosa was their child. Over the years that followed they tried to save money and really asked God if adopting Rosa was meant to be for them. Rosa was waiting for her new parents with a bouquet of flowers and the photo album that they sent about a month prior to arriving. Over the next few days they followed a strict schedule of monitored time with Rosa. I was with them the entire time in order to translate and just help out with different activities. After just 3 days of being together, the psychologist told them they were ready to take her back to the apartment they are staying at in Quito. It has been a struggle at times for them over the past week because of the language barrier. Little by little she is adjusting to her new family and the family has been learning her routine and her behaviors. Five of their biological children are with them now, so we have been doing some outings around the city. They are hoping to get all her paperwork within one month and then they will be able to return back to the States. I am so excited for Rosa and the new opportunities she will have. Her parents are completely trusting on God as they embark on this new journey.

Los trabajadores sociales

Today we had a group of social workers come from a nearby hospital for a day of relaxation and just to get to know them and strengthen our ties with them. Just so you all know and can plan accordingly, Social Workers Day is April 8. I was in charge of games which I was told should be played for 1 ½ hrs! I pulled out all old youthgroup games and played them with these social workers who were around 60 years old. I think they rather enjoyed all of the game choices. They spent the entire day at the orphanage, being shown around, eating lunch, etc. But the most entertaining part of the day was our time in the pool. The orphanage has a therapy pool that the kids use every day. Our psychologist decided to lead the group of adults in something called Bio Danza. This is a form of dance in the water. You are not allowed to speak for the duration of the class. You listen to music and then according to the instructions of the teacher you complete certain tasks. It was very difficult to keep it together as we pretended to be fire, stroked the hands of everyone around us, and circled up swaying back and forth. A most interesting experience.

Bio Danza Playing Games: The Human Knot

The hand stroking