January birthdays!!

Our oldest girl, she is 10 years old!

He turned 7

He turned 8

She turned 5

This 12 year boy was in coma when he came to us. He was in a car accident where his father was killed and his brother became a paraplegic. Our volunteer orthopedic surgeon operated on him and reset the breaks in his leg and put on a full body cast. His mom and older sister visit him all the time!


And on Tuesday they took off his cast and he is doing much better. Every day we see new improvements in him. He responds to instructions like “close your eyes”, “lift up your arm” etc. and today he wouldn’t return someone’s cell phone but hid it away! Something is certainly clearing in that head of his, it’s so exciting.

On Thursday he started his occupational therapy and he was not happy with the therapist. We are trying to get neuro physiotheraphy a few time a week for him so that we can rehabilitate him as much as possible before he goes back to his family.

Please pray for his recovery!

School starts!!!

The Grade 1 with their friend

1st day of school

We now have 18 children in school. Two of the girls started Grade 1 this year and they seem to be enjoying themselves.

Updates:

In January last year this 3 ½ year old boy was in a coma because of the build up of fluid on his brain and we nearly lost him. However, thanks to Private Hospitalisation and a new shunt, he recovered but he had lost the ability to sit up or talk. After much occupational therapy and the hard work of the house mothers and Aunty Barbara, he quickly regained his speech and ability to sit up. The next step was scooting around on his bottom. A week ago he started to walk and is gaining in strength every day – it’s a delight to see him waddling along with his arms flapping to help with stability! This year he will start speech therapy and we know he will do well. We thank God for sparing this little life.

Working with the occupational therapist

Walking

One of our staff member had a little baby boy on the 01st of January

Happy New Year!!

Phew, what a year!
2009 was tough year for everybody and we at Lambano are so grateful to the people who gave so generously – without these finances we would not have been able to keep our doors open. Also, a big thank you to all our volunteers and prayer partners, your support is invaluable.

Christmas blessings:

The children were really blessed this Christmas with lots of gifts and parties!

Katlehong:

We also had a Christmas party in Katlehong for the children on the feeding scheme. Thank you to Santa Shoeboxes that provided Christmas gifts for all 27 children.

Have a blessed year and may the Lord bless you!!!

Welcome!

Welcome to the Lambano blog. Our desire is to be able to update you on what is happening here at Lambano on a more frequent basis. Please note that we are restricted from using the children's name on this site. If you would like more information on a specific picture or entry, please feel free to contact us at info@lambano.org.za

Praise the Lord!!!

The children were excited to be back home!

We were finally able to move the children back into the house at 36. It took 3 days to first clean the house and then unpack everything but children were really excited to be back home

For the other news:

We have 2 ladies visiting from Holland; Jannie and Astrid. These ladies have been really helpful; they work in the Hospice most of the time stimulating the children (reading to them, singing with them, teaching them new things). They have also visited the children that are in hospital at the moment – this is wonderful for the children since the hospital staff will not allow us to leave toys or books for them since they will be stolen. We are really grateful to have these ladies with us!!

Update:

Hospice:
We have had 2 admissions this week: a 12 year boy who is semi conscious and a 6 month old girl with Downs Syndrome – she also has a heart defect and is oxygen dependent.

Hospital:
It seems like Friday is a day to admit the children to hospital. Last week we had to admit another child to hospital. At one stage we had 5 children in hospital but thankfully 2 of them have been discharged.

Katlehong:
The 2 girls from Katlehong who lost their grandmother in an accident are starting their counseling on Monday. We were worried about who was going to look after the girls but their aunt from Lesotho is willing to move to South Africa and will be looking after them. Praise God for her!

What a week!!!

The house at 36 was being renovated thanks to a sponsor in Holland – we added a bathroom for the new live-in House Mother and changed a storeroom into a bedroom so we’d have room for the eight children that will be living there. While the building is taking place the children from 36 have been distributed between the other 3 houses and the Hospice. Each house has 9 or more children so we have some children sleeping on mattresses the floor!

The children were supposed to move back to their house on the 16th of November but, the day before the final painting was about to begin, a pipe attached to the geyser burst and on Monday morning we arrived to face a flood! What a mess! Due to the bungling of the assessor, we are in week 4 since the flood and we’re still trying to dry the walls enough so that we can paint. Oh well, at least the children are enjoying the “camping” at the other homes, it’s going to be a struggle to get them back into their home and into a routine though.

Some of the damages !!!

Hospice:

We have had so many requests for beds in the Hospice lately - in the last week we had 4 new admissions, and 2 children were able to go home to their families. At one stage we had 4 children in hospital but one came home on Thursday. One of the children that is in hospital had to have 6 abscesses in his brain drained – he’s not doing very well. Please pray for healing for all these children.

Please pray for Lyn and the staff too!