We visited Pallet on Saturday with some friends to build relationships with the special needs community.
Asatosan began Pallet 3 years ago to provide the first ever day care for children with special needs and to give their parents a much needed rest time. Children can begin coming at age 1 until they are school age. Then when school age, another program was started by
Asatosan's boss for after school care. These men are blazing trails here in Okinawa. They are in the thinking stage of what to do for special needs folks 18 years and older, i.e.....group home type setting. They are so bold to take such a risk as the
gov't provides no support for such needs. The facility is in a neighborhood, in hopes that the neighborhood children will feel free to come in and play with the children, thus growing up not being afraid of children with special needs, starting a
whole new thinking for Japan or man as far as that goes. So far it is working quite well.
Shiho is my new friend. She has such a STRONG hug that I had to pass
Tomoyuki to Beth for his safety. That just shows me how much love she has that she so dramatically wants to share, especially with those who are smaller than her. She showed me how smart she is by staking some cups perfectly.
"O"
san has such a wonderful smile and such patients with all the children. It amazes me that no matter how loud it got, or no matter how children were acting out
their emotions, we continued to stay on track with the task at hand, they are doing a great job with the children. Most of the children that attend Pallet have Down Syndrome and Autism.
Juda, Bethany and myself visited pallet a few months ago to see how we could help.
Juda remembered the BIG trucks and picked up where he left off with playing with the same trucks.
Tomikosan in the blue is my friend that I met through my neighbor. Bethany is holding her son
Fujitara.
Fujitara will be 3 in Oct. She is an
english teacher and will go back to work at the local middle school in Oct after taking the past three years off to spend with her son. Hazel is playing the guitar for our closing time before we leave. Hazel was such a blessing as she just found out about our visiting Pallet the day before and asked if she could come along. We discovered that she had dinner in our home when we lived here before. She came home with Andy and a group of kids from youth group back when they were in 10
th grade. God is so good to give us confirmation in the sweetest ways. She was a blessing and received a blessing too.
Dr. Ryan and his wife Audry asked me to help them find some volunteer work. Well....here they are loving on
Shinji. Ryan and
Shinji hit it off immediately by playing ball, bowling, etc.....They communicated beautifully. The best fun for
Shinji was when Ryan would lift him high in the air, then
Shinji would back up to him for another trip up, this appeared it could go on for ever, but then they went onto another fun thing.
Here are some of us, not everyone wanted to be in the picture, i.e.
Juda......Beth is holding
Tomoyuki by Bethany. She is an OB/
GYN who handles only high risk pregnancies. As a hobby, she has two trained therapy dogs, beautiful big black poodles. I met her when we visited an orphanage together back in the spring.
Asatosan was not sure about the dogs, having never heard of such a thing, but after meeting with Beth and seeing pictures of the dogs, he agreed for her to bring them this coming Sat. So we'll go back to Pallet on Sat and love on the children again.
Asatosan is in the white shirt holding a little boy. He is the most patient man and the busiest man. In order to spend time with him, you have to go into his office and close/lock the door or else the children will not leave him alone. All good......Our next stop is the Developmental Center on island which is very near our home. The children who are there have more physical special needs. This crew and others are very interested in making these connections and building relationships with these communities as I am. What a blessing we all received from the children and workers at Pallet.
Shiho is my new friend. She has such a STRONG hug that I had to pass Tomoyuki to Beth for his safety. That just shows me how much love she has that she so dramatically wants to share, especially with those who are smaller than her. She showed me how smart she is by staking some cups perfectly.
"O"san has such a wonderful smile and such patients with all the children. It amazes me that no matter how loud it got, or no matter how children were acting out their emotions, we continued to stay on track with the task at hand, they are doing a great job with the children. Most of the children that attend Pallet have Down Syndrome and Autism.
Juda, Bethany and myself visited pallet a few months ago to see how we could help. Juda remembered the BIG trucks and picked up where he left off with playing with the same trucks.
Tomikosan in the blue is my friend that I met through my neighbor. Bethany is holding her son Fujitara. Fujitara will be 3 in Oct. She is an english teacher and will go back to work at the local middle school in Oct after taking the past three years off to spend with her son. Hazel is playing the guitar for our closing time before we leave. Hazel was such a blessing as she just found out about our visiting Pallet the day before and asked if she could come along. We discovered that she had dinner in our home when we lived here before. She came home with Andy and a group of kids from youth group back when they were in 10th grade. God is so good to give us confirmation in the sweetest ways. She was a blessing and received a blessing too.
Dr. Ryan and his wife Audry asked me to help them find some volunteer work. Well....here they are loving on Shinji. Ryan and Shinji hit it off immediately by playing ball, bowling, etc.....They communicated beautifully. The best fun for Shinji was when Ryan would lift him high in the air, then Shinji would back up to him for another trip up, this appeared it could go on for ever, but then they went onto another fun thing.
Here are some of us, not everyone wanted to be in the picture, i.e. Juda......Beth is holding Tomoyuki by Bethany. She is an OB/GYN who handles only high risk pregnancies. As a hobby, she has two trained therapy dogs, beautiful big black poodles. I met her when we visited an orphanage together back in the spring. Asatosan was not sure about the dogs, having never heard of such a thing, but after meeting with Beth and seeing pictures of the dogs, he agreed for her to bring them this coming Sat. So we'll go back to Pallet on Sat and love on the children again. Asatosan is in the white shirt holding a little boy. He is the most patient man and the busiest man. In order to spend time with him, you have to go into his office and close/lock the door or else the children will not leave him alone. All good......Our next stop is the Developmental Center on island which is very near our home. The children who are there have more physical special needs. This crew and others are very interested in making these connections and building relationships with these communities as I am. What a blessing we all received from the children and workers at Pallet.
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