It's Official! The Dates are set for the surgeries

We have worked with Cheryl in Dr. Rick J. Smith's office to finalize the details for scheduling the dates of the surgeries. As of today, Dr. Smith will do the surgeries on Jose and Alexia's hard palates at Ingham Regional Medical Center (IRMC). IRMC has agreed to waive the fees associated with the surgeries.

The travel arrangements are being finalized now so we anticipate that the group from Mexico will arrive on Saturday, October 18th. Both children will see Dr. Smith for pre-operative visits on Monday morning and the surgeries will be performed on Monday afternoon. That will allow for a full week of healing before they return to Mexico on October 28th.

A very special thank you is extended to Mr. Steve Wickens, father of Victoria and Gabrielle. Mr. Wickens is providing the lodging for the everyone from Mexico, so the lodging is provided for Jose and Alexia and their mothers, and their translator and the President of Angel Notion Lavonna Redman, and Dr. Gabrielle Ayala Velazquez, the medical director for Angel Notion.

We're excited to watch the next week as it develops!

Some backgroud on Spreading Hope

Lauren and Hannah worked on a project in the Yucatan in November of 2007. Several pictures from their trip are included here.










At Kairos in 2007 Lauren came up with the idea for "Spreading Hope." Then she and Hannah devised a plan to share with others the many advantages that we have; we learned first-had in 2007 that our lives were very different from other children in other parts of the world. Our project in Mr. Moore's class last year addressed the need for available health care for everyone, and from there we wanted to "spread hope" for the children that we met Mexico.

Update: September 16,2008

The meetings with local health care providers to arrange some of the surgeries are ongoing. Lauren and Hannah met with Dr. Rick J. Smith, a plastic surgeon, last week to ask for his help and participation. He agreed to perform the surgeries without hesitation! Here are 2 pictures of the children who will come to our community very soon.

Alexia:


Jose:



Both of these children will have clefts of the hard and soft palate repairs completed here.

Thank you!

Thank you to all of the LCHS students, families, teachers and staff for making Spreading Hope a reality! You will find updates and comments from Lauren and Hannah here, too.