The Fruits Of Our Labor

The children at the Haven impress me more and more every day! Whoever said, “What can you do with speech-language pathology in Zambia?!” well let me just tell you. =)

Today at the Haven the children were singing along with the songs we sing, making the hand motions, and participating when called on (ex: handing a piece of plastic fruit and asking for it back). It’s fun to watch the little ones try to sing along and be able to do some of the motions. Today during the song: God made the big round sun; God made the tall, tall trees; God made the birds that fly; and God made me, I saw Choolwe, Ashley, and Georgie make a sun with their little arms and place their hands on their chests to say “me”. This is was the first time I noticed Choolwe and Ashley trying to participate and do the motions at the correct time. I just hugged them after the lessons. I’m so proud of what they are accomplishing and I’m blessed to be a part of this.

The older kids (3-4): Jason, George, Kathy, Nawina, Weston, Carol, Bright; and some of the younger kids (2): David, Georgie, Choolwe love to sing along with Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes and do a great job of following along. Kathy (4) often will place her hands on her head to show that she wants to sing the song. It’s exciting to see what we have accomplished in the short time we have been here. Children that didn’t say anything at the beginning of our trip are now saying words and singing along. Catherine (2) came running up to me on Tuesday with a little toy in her hand shouting “apple”. The toy was clearly not an ‘apple’, but she has learned a new word; the only word I’ve heard her say, in fact, since we’ve been here. With limited resources and the setting these children are in, they are blossoming every day and it’s so encouraging and rewarding to witness!

Another example of what these children are learning happened this afternoon at the baby house. As Candice was starting the lesson ‘animals’ with the babies, she quickly had a little helper. Every time she would ask a rhetoric question, “What is this?” a little voice would call out.. Bird!, Pink!, and some random noise.. definitely not ‘tweet, tweet’.. haha. Jason, a four year old, was standing next to where Candice was sitting answering every question. It was so cute! We have decided; however, that the next time we sing: God made birds to sound like this… that we are all going to call out with a different bird sound because the birds here clearly do not say ‘tweet, tweet’. Just ask Brittany and Meredith to demonstrate how the birds here sound.. they’ve really got it down!! =)

So many things are happening to show the importance of what we are doing and why we are here. God has blessed us with this unique opportunity and we will have lots of stories to share when we get home!!

-Jessica Mayes