Philippines Day 5

It's an understatement to say "it's hard" to know what to share about a day, when you're at a hospital that heals debilitating birth defects while filling the spirt with the love and grace of God. The staff gives all glory to God and accept little praise of themselves. Something both humbling and comforting. To be in a constant state of praise and grace makes the world so much softer. We are grateful for that.

Today we saw some of the children we had visited in the home visits yesterday. One of the girls had her castings removed today! She had both legs in casts. She will have surgery in about a week. She smiled big when she saw us and we were just as excited to see her again. There are so many children coming into the waiting room, they are very fast and effective here, so we don't always get to see familiar faces in the waiting room. So this was a nice change.

We did The Loaves and Fishes for our Puppet show today. There is so much joyful energy in this team and even if we are not winning any academy's for our performance, we have so much fun doing the puppets shows for the children and their caregivers. Many don't understand what we are saying, the CURE staff do a brief translation and we do a craft with each story/puppet show.

We were in the playroom today, and it was beautiful chaos. So many kids in one small space, but they didn't notice or care. A new audience for our puppet show, and they loved it. Then they enjoyed coloring. Some of them kids wanted us to have their sheets when they were done, we had them out their names on the sheets so we could remember the artist. This brought smiles.

As we were in the playroom some of the team was able to check out some surgeries in the OR.

We each had a chance to watch castings. We learned they cast the whole leg because it helps ensure the cast will stay on, for a club foot castings anyway. We even saw them cast tiny babies. Its amazing how fast they can do it. They told us some can have as many as 22 castings before surgery. They do the smashing to move the bones as much as possible before the surgery.

We met an older boy in the ward, Patrick. At 22 Patrick is not typically a candidate for CURE. He found CURE while scrolling on Facebook. He has Clef Pallet and very much wanted correction. He reached out to CURE Philippines with such passion and hope he was able achieve his drum of having corrective surgery!!! He plays piano for his church and hopes to sing when he heals. He just graduated YESTERDAY, he is now a butcher. Patrick told us this is a career in high demand and will help him get work in the Philippines, Canada and many other places. He wants to move to Canada.

As we prayed over Patrick and his mother, I once again was struck at the depth of relationship our younger team members have with our God. Its a beautiful thing to witness and learn from.

We had a treat tonight. We were taken to play Pickleball with some of the CURE staff. We have some great players on our team...and some great cheer leaders!!!

We have days filled with stories if hope, miraculous healing and fight. We laugh, play amd comune with amazing mothers, fathers, children Doctors and a long list of amazing people at the hospital. We eat AMAZING food and Sing in praise. Our days are long and filled!!! We are making memories and planting seeds, I pray. God is using us well and showing us much. We hit our beds tired, looking forward to the next day but very much to sleep this night.

- Elizabeth J