English Classes

This past week I began teaching English to two little girls who will be adopted in the very near future to an American family. These girls are so sweet and I love having the 1:1 time with them. Their personalities totally change when they realize they have my full attention and are not competing with 10 other children. To make it even more special, they come up to my apartment. I speak in English the whole time, and one of the girls (6 years old) repeats everything that I say – even though she really has no idea what I am saying. Sometimes she will even start making up her own language. We sing, read, play, and do some activities on the computer. It’s also really great for them to have time together as they will be sisters in the near future. We’re going the full immersion route for 45 minutes each day – we’ll see how much they can pick up in this next month before I leave for the States again!

Baby Books

One of the amazing things about For His Children is how so much attention is given to the little details for each child. When a baby enters FHC, photos are taken from that first day until the day that he leaves with his forever family. When the baby gets his first hair cut, locks of hair are kept and safely placed in an envelope. The clothes that the child arrived in are washed and placed in a plastic bag. For every birthday that the child celebrates with us, the candles and any other mementos are kept. The caregivers write two pages of notes on each child each month. These notes include what the child likes, what he doesn’t like, anything new that he learned that month, etc. Any time a child goes out on a fieldtrip a report is written up about where he went, what he did, what he liked about the field trip. The newspaper from the day that the child is born is purchased and put away for safe keeping. Each child receives an embroidered stuffed animal bear with his name on it. When a child reaches school age, art projects and report cards are kept. Finally the child meets his forever family. Pictures are taken and mementos are kept from that day. Part of my job is compiling all the photos and all these keepsakes to place into a LARGE memory book. Volunteers who are here help to create a scrapbook with the photos that have been taken. The ending result is something quite precious. When the families receive this book they are normally blown away. It is an amazing gift for both the child and the parents. As the child gets older, he is able to look back on his early years at For His Children and piece together some of his past. His parents are able to have many picture of him as he grew throughout his years here. This is a fun (and time consuming!) project, but so worthwhile.