Hi Folks,

I know it's been way too long since I've blogged.  I just can't seem to view this the same as journaling.  Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I still like my pens/pencils and notebooks for journaling.  I know...move into the 21st century, Emily!!    I actually had a great big long weblog entry with pictures and all written the other day and somehow....I lost the whole thing!  UGH!  Anyway, this is my second try. 

Kids are doing great...Nathan is pushing toward the end of his semester.  He is studying hard and working on papers to turn in at the end.  He did really well on his midterms...Yeah!!  We are very proud of him.  Allison is graduating No. 1 in her class and is headed for Texas Tech in the fall.  She was in the spring semester play at International Gateway Academy here in Ist.  She played Aunt Polly of Tom Sawyer.  Her character was not a big stretch really...if you had put "Austin" in place of "Tom" in most of her lines, it would've sounded the same as when she is mad at her little brother.    Austin's character was a huge stretch for him, but he pulled it off beautifully.  He was "Dudley" who was a prim and proper kid who always dressed up and was a bit wimpy.  Not at all like Austin.  Catherine worked the concession stand at the play and seemed to enjoy herself.  Of course, anything that puts her with a big group of people is fun.  I'll have her write her own blog for you.  I forgot to put a pic in of her too, so I'll have to do that next time. 





Allison took some senior pics in the park with the Tulips.

We just had a wonderful visit from our friends from Tennessee, Sonny and Chris Moss.  I got to take them around Istanbul and be the tour guide for a few days before we went to Pakistan together.  The Father gave us great weather on the one day that we had planned as our sightseeing day. 


How's that for a beautiful picture!  :)  This was taken at the Aya Sophia. April is Tulip Festival month, so we got to see them all at their peak of beauty.  The colors were amazing! 

In Pakistan, Sonny and Rob got to put together a Soccer Coaches Clinic to teach them how to train the younger players and develop their teams for the future.  They taught the coaches about nutrition, health, safety, making things fun for the kids so that they want to learn, how to build team spirit, staying off drugs, etc, etc...  Then the coaches got to put their training into action with their own Soccer Clinic for the kids.  It was a great success.  The guys were interviewed by two different newspapers and were even on TV.  We were very impressed!! 



Kids and Coaches all had a great time!  Lots of relationships were started and hopefully we will be able to build on that foundation later.  Way to go, guys!! 

While the guys were becoming famous, Chris and I did some Community Health Workers' Training.  You can check out our website thirdworldrehab.org to see the curriculum.  We taught some foundational principles of how to help those in your community with disabilities and then demonstrated different techniques that are useful in helping the disabled.  We talked about preventing deformities, preventing pressure sores, doing good transfers, dressing independently, walking with cane/crutches, etc...  We ended our sessions with a brainstorming time where they could come up with ideas to help make their neighborhood more accessible to those with disabilities.  This was all a very big stretch for them.  We really just scratched the surface of things that we could do and things that they need.  There is a huge disabled population in Karachi that needs to be addressed...everything from congenital and developemental disabilites to strokes to amputations to spinal cord injuries to blindness and much more.   Chris and I led three separate trainings.  The first one was with only ladies and it was held in a less restrictive part of town at a "Helpless Women's Shelter."  These ladies really got into the training and jumped in to practice on each other just like we wanted them to do.  They were great. 




When we did the Men Only session, Sonny and Rob came along to be our demonstration dummies.    Sorry guys!  They were a huge help though since we were not allowed to touch any of the men who came.  Not even to shake hands, much less to do therapy on them.  Anyway, we had 15 very eager learners who were either Health Workers or just friends and neighbors of disabled people.  A couple of the guys even went and got their friend who fell from the third story of a building he was working on several years ago.  He is a C6/C7 quadraplegic now.  Oh, if I had had the gift of healing, I would've used it on this sweet young man for sure.  His friends were so thankful for anything I could do and everyting we taught them. 



Practicing Range of Motion exercises. 

Our last session was held in this same neighborhood where the people are very, very conservative.  Our ladies only session was much more subdued.  It took alot of coaxing to get the ladies to participate because they are so very inhibited.  We were told that "large body movements are discouraged."  We were not allowed to take any pictures either.  The ladies very rarely get out of their homes and when they do, they wear the black cover that covers all but their eyes.  They enjoyed getting out and getting together to learn something new.  Physically they are not very strong and it took alot of effort to do some of the exercises, but they seemed to enjoy it after they got started. 


One more thing that we got to do while in Karachi was meet with the Director and Assistant Directors of the new Occupational Therapy school that has just opened at DOW University.  What a great opportunity!  I am excited to see how this is going to be used to open doors for us to get involved there.  I can't wait to go back!! 


Okay...that's all for now.  I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it...
Love you all,
Emily