Meet Lambert! 13 years old and finally getting a palate repair surgery. Lambert'a home is a structure with "cloth" for walls -which from driving around various Baragays (neighborhoods) we figured out is blue plastic tarp. No solid walls. He goes to school at the church for the poorest of the city! He was very unsure of us the first day when he checked in. We gave him a book and pencil and paper... And a small car that we thought he might be to "old" for but, "never too old" he smiled widely! Second day (when we took this picture) we gave him a memory game and taught him how to play! What fun to see a simple gesture on our part- like taking the time to play a game-made in this boy! He was sitting all day waiting for his surgery. During that time younger children getting surgery are crying from IV insertions to surgery recovery... All the time knowing he's next! Our host Flor described his living situation; it's very hard to focus on what we can do on a mission like this with all that needs to be done!
As we were leaving we snapped this picture of lambert playing the game himself and we encouraged some of the other parents to play games with him-and I'm sure they will! His mom could not spend the day; a brother of his was around somewhere but we did not see him!
Lambert had his palate surgery on Saturday and we hope to see him next year for speech therapy!
Above a is 8 month old Jeffers before his cleft lip surgery. His smile ( which I didn't catch on camera) would make you smile or laugh out loud! He was so cute and happy! After surgery (below) mom was the one who kept smiling!! She was very happy with his new smile (although she clearly loved his old one too!). Hopefully they'll return next year to have Jeffers' cleft palate repaired!
