The Smile Train
This morning as I flipped through the newspaper, Ryan happened to see an ad for The Smile Train. This is an organization that provides free cleft lip and cleft palate surgery to children in 63 of the world’s poorest countries.
All thoughts of school work stopped at that point as we had to go to the computer and check out every detail of The Smile Train. The kids crowded around me as we went through some of the amazing before and after pictures of the children lucky enough to have been blessed by this charity. 100% of the money donated to this charity goes to the kids - all overhead is covered privately. For only $250.00 a child can have the surgery needed to correct this defect and have a beautiful smile.
All thoughts of school work stopped at that point as we had to go to the computer and check out every detail of The Smile Train. The kids crowded around me as we went through some of the amazing before and after pictures of the children lucky enough to have been blessed by this charity. 100% of the money donated to this charity goes to the kids - all overhead is covered privately. For only $250.00 a child can have the surgery needed to correct this defect and have a beautiful smile.
As we read the biographies of some of the kids we came to this part..."Being born with a cleft in a developing country is truly a curse. In fact, every baby born in Uganda with a cleft is given the name Ajok which means literally, “cursed by God.”" It went on to tell how many of these children are abandoned by their families, shunned by their villages and live a life filled with shame and loneliness.
Jacob is very tenderhearted and his tears were flowing as he watched the videos of these children. When he read how a man could work all day and earn 50 cents - an amount equivalent to what he would stick in a machine in the Wal Mart entrance if I would let him, he truly couldn't grasp that.
Ryan's empathy showed itself when I was talking about how it was impossible for these children to be able to eat correctly if they had a cleft palate. Eating is near and dear to his heart.
Carly has recently been talking about how she used to go to speech therapy and she was telling how she remembers having to hold her lips a certain way to make sounds -- and these kids can't do that, so they can't talk correctly.
Wes was worried that their parent truly believed they were cursed by God and he wanted to go right now and tell them that the one true God does not work that way. He and Ryan decided that when they grow up, they will go there and tell them about God and then say, "Hey, here's some money."
But that's in the future. For now, it didn't take long for them to all want to do something to help these kids. They decided that we should eat at home more often and use the money that would be spent in restaurants to help a child be able to smile. So that is what we will be doing.
Jacob is very tenderhearted and his tears were flowing as he watched the videos of these children. When he read how a man could work all day and earn 50 cents - an amount equivalent to what he would stick in a machine in the Wal Mart entrance if I would let him, he truly couldn't grasp that.
Ryan's empathy showed itself when I was talking about how it was impossible for these children to be able to eat correctly if they had a cleft palate. Eating is near and dear to his heart.
Carly has recently been talking about how she used to go to speech therapy and she was telling how she remembers having to hold her lips a certain way to make sounds -- and these kids can't do that, so they can't talk correctly.
Wes was worried that their parent truly believed they were cursed by God and he wanted to go right now and tell them that the one true God does not work that way. He and Ryan decided that when they grow up, they will go there and tell them about God and then say, "Hey, here's some money."
But that's in the future. For now, it didn't take long for them to all want to do something to help these kids. They decided that we should eat at home more often and use the money that would be spent in restaurants to help a child be able to smile. So that is what we will be doing.
They got a jar and it already holds a 10 dollar bill in it. Money that would have been spent eating out before skating today will go to a much better purpose -- to help a child smile. 
That made four children I love smile already.
