Lance and Kristen Baker

Recently we received a special gift to update the library at Promise House. The library had outdated books and many old, worn books. We wanted to give the children a library they can learn from and enjoy.

Chau and Kristen spent many afternoons over a period of two months buying all the books. The Promise House library is now the home to encyclopedias, books to learn English, books about science, comic books, picture books, fairy tales, novels… you name it, it’s there.

A few of the categories.

Chau and Kristen put a lot of work into the library.

Going through the old books.

Checking out the new books.

After all the books were purchased, Chau, Kristen, and some of the older girls cleaned out the old books, wiped shelves, and organized the new books by category and with a call number.

The long process of putting call numbers on all the books.

Just a few more books to categorize and the library will be complete. Once it’s complete, we will go over rules about how to take care of books, how to check them out, and how the library is organized. After that, the library is open! In the meantime, we can’t keep the kids out of there, they are so curious and eager to look at all the books!

Tam and Nghia found these masks in an old storage box. Too funny!

Sorry we haven’t posted in a really long time! Life has kept us busy here.

Our good friends, Bridge and Hilary, visited us for 10 days, and we had so much fun exploring, driving, eating, and living together.

One of the things we did while they visited was host a party for the kids in honor of International Children’s Day, an important holiday here.

After much planning and preparation, we were able to have games, crafts, and prizes for all of the children. We arrived to Promise House around 1:30pm to prepare for the 2pm party, but the children were still sleeping at 2pm, so we had to wait for them to slowly wake up. In the meantime, Lance and Bridge we out to buy Nuoc Mia (sugar cane juice) to give to the kids when they woke up.

The party was a lot of fun, and we got to play a lot of games the children have never played before. The water balloon toss was especially fun, we had 3-4 rounds of it. Two boys, Vu and Long, won two times in a row, so for the third time I added soap to their balloon! They laughed at it, then continued to roll their balloon in dirt to make it easier to grip. Very smart.

Another game was a bean bag toss (well, bean bags filled with rice!). We collected boxes a few weeks before the party. Bridge and Hilary prepared the boxes for the game by cutting holes in the tops for the bags to fall into.

The final game was a drawing contest. We put the kids in pairs, gave them 3 colored pieces of chalk, and asked them to draw a pictures. The winner of the drawing got candy. The pictures were all so beautiful!

We had raffles for the kids, just like we had a Christmas. It was fun for them around Christmas time, and they seemed to really enjoy it again.

We ended the day with a beads project. When we started the project, the beads were in their bowls so nicely and the kids were so diligent. By the end of the time, beads were all over the table and floor! A few of the kids made necklaces for Hilary and Kristen.

It was a beautiful day, we’re so glad that Bridge and Hilary could spend it with us!

(Lance writing)
While hanging out at Promise House during the International Firework Competition, 4 of the girls were passing the time between shows by playing a clapping and singing game. Their smiles and laughter are so uplifting.  While putting this video up, I was reminded of something some of the children said when they went back to the countryside to visit their relatives a few months ago.  They said that it was nice to see their Aunt, Uncle or cousins but they said it was a little sad because they missed everyone back at Promise House.  While it is sad that the children do not have parents to care for them, they do have each other.

Kristen and I see how often they bring joy and companionship to one another.  If you ask any of the children at Promise House how many people are in their family, they will immediately say “26″ in reference to the other children and caretakers who live there.  They are friends, play-mates and brothers and sisters to each other and I think that is really special. (video below)

(Lance Writing)

I know that we’ve been getting a bit lax on keeping up with our blog posts and we are sorry about that.  There is plenty happening, we just haven’t made time to write about it and keep you up-to-date. This is a brief overview of what’s been happening the last week.

The Dentist

We’ve started the big task of getting all 22 children to the dentist.  We can only take about 3 children each visit (because of time restraints) so we try to do two appointments per week.  It is the same dentist that Kristen and I have gone to in the past so we know that the standard and quality is very good.  The dentist and the receptionist speak English very well and have been such a pleasure to work with.  Every time we go, the receptionist sits down with the children and uses a plastic model of teeth to demonstrate and explain to the children how to brush and care for their teeth.  So far we have 7 children done and 15 to go!

It has been a really good opportunity for us to spend more individual time with the children.  It’s also a glimpse of parenthood for us!  The dentist always calls Kristen back to tell her when the children need fillings or a tooth pulled.  Afterward, we have to go to the pharmacy to get any needed medicine and we do our best to comfort them before and after.  For many of the children, it may only be the second time they’ve been to the dentist so it is a very new experience.

Depending on how much work the children need done, the appointments can be up to two hours. We do our best to entertain the other children while we wait in the small lobby.

The dental clinic.

Last Saturday, a medical team came to give MMR vaccinations (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) to all of the children. The medical team was very professional and sweet toward the children. Some of the children were really nervous but they were brave and did just fine.

The children nervously waiting their turn.

The look on his face says it all.

A couple weeks ago we noticed that one of the boys at Promise House was drawing pictures in black crayon and then giving them to the other children to color. So this week we decided to print off a bunch of pictures that we knew they would like and had a big coloring session. Our friend/translator had the idea of making a fun contest out of it. It wasn’t anything official, we just held up all the colorings at the end and had the children cheer and clap for their favorites. All the pictures got hung on the wall either way.

Hard at work coloring.

Nam displaying his pictures on the wall.

So that’s an overview of the last week.  We’ll try to post more often in the near future!  Thank for reading.

(Kristen Writing)

Every month we plan a fun activity with the kids. Usually we take them out in a large group of 22 (plus volunteers), but this month we wanted to spend more quality time with a smaller number of them. We decided to take out 5-6 kids each Saturday for a month.
 
We’ve already taken out three groups, and have one more left. Here are some pictures from the first two groups.

The plan is to go to the river and walk along, taking pictures. Along the boardwalk where we went, there are a bunch of marble statues. The kids had a lot of fun climbing the statues and having their picture taken.

After we walked for a while, we went to a nearby bookstore (which sells toys, books, notebooks, picture frames, bags, etc). The kids each got a small amount of money to purchase whatever they wanted. They were so excited and browsed the isles for a long time!

Finally, when all purchases were made, the children, Lance, Chau (our translator and friend), and I (Kristen) went to a small mall to eat lunch. This was such a treat! They never get to eat out, especially at a nice place like this, and all the way up on the 4th floor. We ate our food, many of the kids got boxes to take their leftovers home.

The last two Saturdays were so much fun and the kids were all smiles. They described their time as something new and exciting that they’ve never got to do. They never thought that they could do something fun that like. Beautiful.

Tomorrow we have another group and they’re so excited! They’ve been talking about it all week!