Something Of Value
Report
Pan American Health Service, Inc. Box 888, Keene, TX 76059 www.panamhealth.org
Dear PAHS Family – The year is well underway, and there is much for which we are grateful! Several groups of volunteers have blessed our campus in great ways, please read about them in the accompanying enclosure. For the school children, classes started in February. And it is heartwarming to watch them be excited about their school routine and energetically doing their chores. Each precious child has a unique story, and we would like to share Jenny’s, who after being in the Casita Feliz for 3 ½ years, moved to the Children’s Home in January. Jenny came to the Nutritional Rehabilitation Center when she was 4 ½ years old. Her mother had abandoned the family a few months before. Jenny, her 7 year-old sister, Ana, and two brothers were undernourished, when their father, who had been struggling to keep food on the table and take care of them alone, brought them to us. Although he consented to treatment for his girls, he was unwilling to leave his 5 and 6 year-old boys, stating that they could help him pick coffee. Jenny and her older sister, stayed in the Casita Feliz to Jenny, pictured here in 2008, has recover. The bond between the sisters was strong as Jenny sparkling and engaging eyes. relied heavily on her sister for mobility. Jenny had never walked, and the two were inseparable until a few months later – when her sister was enrolled in school for the first time. When their father came to visit he decided Ana should come home, stating that if she wasn’t needed to care for Jenny, he needed her at home to cook for him and the two boys. As much as we begged him to leave Ana in our care, he refused. A sad and bewildered Jenny was left behind. She could no longer view the world from the perch on her sister’s hip. She learned to get around on her own, gradually finding she could “walk” on her knees. A local business provided the funds to send Jenny to a pediatric orthopedist to find out why she could not walk. From there she was referred to a neurologist. What they found was that the nerves from her knees down were not communicating properly with the muscles. Jenny was sent to therapy, and fitted with braces, but could only walk with significant assistance. Over the years Jenny’s inability to walk touched many hearts. Loving hands in Tennessee crafted a wheelchair and a walker exactly Jenny’s size and sent it to her with a church group led by Dr. Carolyn Brannon of Chattanooga.
Jenny, Clarissa and Rosita have grown up together in the Casita Feliz. They are now living in the Girls’ Home with the big girls.
Jenny Snyder, and her family, raised money to transport Jenny’s walker and wheelchair from Tennessee.
www.PanamHealth.org