Posts Tagged "orphanage"
Jan19

News from Haiti

Posted at 9:54 AM • 4 Comments

Lisa in Haiti

Ed and I have been following Mercy and Sharing in Haiti for about a year now. Last year some of our dolls went to Haiti and afterwards we received this photo of Lisa with her new doll. Her first smile!

No one is smiling at the moment.

Susie Krabacher started this organization 16 years ago and it’s amazing what they have been accomplishing. Up until now. They really need help and the money will go directly to the children and their needs. Here is an email I received yesterday. Please help by going to their website www.Haitichildren.org

Thanks!

UPDATE SUNDAY Jan 17

 

Susie, Jeff, Bill, Jacques and two Haitian police (as security), crossed the border into Haiti and arrived at the Williamson project this afternoon.  Unfortunately, things are not as we had hoped. Typically we have approximately 85 employees working eight hour shifts around-the-clock, there were a handful of employees on site trying to take care of hundreds of children.  Many of the children have not had water or food in two days, the handicapped children have a bed sores, and they are trying to stabilize the situation in Williamson before nightfall. There is no diesel fuel to run the generators, which power the water pumps, electric and Internet communications. The well hand pumps are largely ineffective.  They are getting water and food for the children this evening, and then searching for a place to stay that might have Internet or other communications.

 

We have now reports that the children of the abandoned baby unit have been two days without food and water.  They are reportedly alive, but the morgue is piling up with hundreds of bodies, and the morgue is located right next to the abandoned baby unit.

 

The office building and hospital in Port-au-Prince have been completely demolished, we have lost all of our paperwork and records which are laying in the debris and blowing around the streets.  The project has been completely looted.

 

The team is traveling to Port-au-Prince tomorrow to go to the Cazeau orphanage.  We have reports that Cazeau is not safe because the walls collapsed, there are men with machetes robbing anyone with anything or value, and the people in the neighborhood have stormed the building, over powered the guard, and have taken up occupancy in what is left of the buildings on that property.  We intend to remove all the remaining children from Cazeau and take them to Williamson tomorrow.

 

Madame Chenet is very traumatized, she has been living in her car, and having experience to the devastation, she is likely in shock. Dr. Rodriquez lost 4 family members, Dr. Algenor lost his brother.  Our accountant lost his 2 brothers.  Madame Chenet said it is total devastation around her.

 

We urgently need cash donations. We cannot accept supplies yet. Donate on line at www.haitichildren.org

 

Above all, pray fervently for the US team and the children, as well as the staff, are medical doctors and medical personnel.

 

B. Joseph Krabacher

Mercy & Sharing

201 N. Mill Street, Suite 201

Aspen CO 81611

(970) 925 6300 x 222 Direct

(970) 948 2277 Cell

(970) 925 1181 fax

jkrabacher@krabacher.com

www.haitichildren.org

 

A 501c3 Public Charity

 

 

Jun15

Dolls to Romania

Posted at 4:07 PM • No Comments

romania 045 copy We only had 5 days and we weren’t making any headway getting into one of the large institutional orphanages.  We were in a small town called Prejmer and Tracy saw a sign for a clinic and thought it was worth a try.  Luckily someone spoke English and believe it or not they just happened to know of a small home for orphans a few blocks away.  A young boy guided us there on his bike and inside the gate we were surprised to find Casa Mea owned by Jan, an American.  At the time there were only about 5 children, 4 of which were girls.  Jan had started coming to Romania several years before with a church group and volunteering in some of the state-run orphanages.  It wasn’t long before she decided to sell everything she had at home and move to Romania full-time.  Through some tough times and a lot of hard work she now has a beautiful home for these children and she’s hoping to take in up to 12.  The children are given a family environment in hopes that they can grow and thrive. After sharing experiences for a while with Jan we gave our beautiful rag dolls to the girls and we had some other toys for the one lone boy.  They were all so excited.  We have since heard from Jan that when they venture from the home the girls can’t go out without their dolls.

romania 043 copy

We didn’t bring many rag dolls to Romania to give away, but since Casa Mea was small we still had quite a few left.  With the larger orphanages not an option open to us we decided to try another tack.  Romania has lots of gypsies.  Most are rather poor and are viewed as second class citizens.  While sightseeing earlier in the week we had driven by what looked like a poor gypsy village on the outskirts of Brasov.  We had no idea of how this would work, but we drove up to the edge of town and saw a women pumping water from a well.  She had a little girl with her so Tracy got out and motioned her over to the trunk.  She pulled out one of the dolls and the little girl’s eyes lit up.  In no time other women and children came rushing out.  We had no problem giving away all the dolls and toys.  The first woman we met was so grateful that she led us back to her home.  It was very modest.  Barely more than a one room house and she had four children.  She didn’t have much but she invited us in and offered us a drink.  Not knowing the language we could only smile as she held her hands over her heart in a sign of thanks.

No matter how hard it seems to be somehow it almost always works out.  We usually find some children who are grateful to receive a gift of love from a world away.

Apr26

Used to Sharing

Posted at 3:48 PM • No Comments

cambodia_orphanage1We had been in Siem Reap for nearly a week and were leaving Cambodia in another day. We had gotten a few suggestions of places to deliver the dolls but none of them quite felt right. On our tour around Angkor Wat Ed had noticed a sign for an orphanage, but we didn’t know exactly where it was. So we hired our favorite tuk-tuk driver to take us there. We somehow got the idea across to him of what we were looking for and he acted like he knew what we meant. “Sign language” is a beautiful way to communicate. But, when we got to where we thought it was he kept driving. We started to get anxious but stayed patient and waited. Several minutes later he pulled up in front of a rustic building. We walked up, and sure enough, it was an orphanage for about 50 kids. There was a young Cambodian man who came out to greet us. In perfect English he explained to us that he grew up an orphan himself and now lived here helping to raise these kids. The COSO orphanage had been started a few years earlier to help take care of orphans and other children whose families are just too poor to raise them. The need in Cambodia is great and the government just doesn’t have the resources.

cambodia_orphanage2 cambodia_orphanage3 cambodia_orphanage4
The young man took us on a tour of the two-room building, complete with outdoor kitchen. The ones old enough all go to school and take English and other lessons right there. The kids bathe in the lake across the street. They don’t have much, but it is more than what they had before. We wished we had had enough dolls for all of them to get one of their own, but judging by the room they all slept in, we could tell that they were used to sharing. We had barely given out all the dolls before the girls, and boys, were already taking off the dolls’ clothes and swapping them, redoing their hair and having a ball. We knew we had found the right place. It’s a great feeling when it all comes together.

cambodia_orphanage5 cambodia_orphanage6 cambodia_orphanage7

Apr20

Airplane Rides and Rag Dolls

Posted at 3:35 PM • No Comments

Chiang Mai 069_1Chiang Mai is a crazy place around the Thai New Year, Songkran, and we arrived right in the middle of it. Picture giant water fights, people driving around in pickups with 55 gallon drums of water and buckets, more super soakers than you’ve ever laid eyes on. And it lasts 3 days! When the mayhem settled down, and we had done some sightseeing we knew it was time to find a place to deliver the handmade dolls we had brought with us from the States. It was Ed’s first trip to deliver dolls so he was a bit nervous and not quite sure what to expect. The woman at our hotel wrote down the name and address of an orphanage right in town so we hired a driver to take us there. Some of the kids were out playing in the yard. We were greeted by a nun who worked there and we told her why we had come. She took the dolls and said they would put them in the girls’ rooms for later. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see the reactions of the kids, but our experience in Cambodia a week later more than made up for our disappointment. They did, however, invite us to stay and play with the kids outside. Tracy had told Ed that it might take a while for the kids to warm up to us and she went over to a group of them to try and play. Well, a short while later she turned around and to her surprise she saw Ed giving an “airplane ride” to one of the little ones. And, there were more chasing him to get their turn. Before long it was time for the kids to go inside for a nap and we took our leave. Things don’t always turn out the way we hope, but at least we were able to spend some time with the kids and let them know that someone cares.

chiang mai orphange 5 chiang mai orphanage 4