On Valentine’s Day, many people have love, chocolate, flowers, and hearts on their minds. Here at Maria’s Big House of Hope, our preschoolers took a short break from the Chinese New Year festivities to celebrate Valentine’s Day. We learned a song about “Haley Heart” as we painted hearts, did Valentine-themed alphabet activities, made Valentine cards, and decorated heart-shaped cookies (and then ate them, of course!).
Hearts are something we talk about and have on our minds very often at MBHOH and our other care centers, not just on Valentine’s Day. It’s not the heart-shape that may initially come to mind this time of year, but rather the physical, beating, life-giving heart. This week, we were not only celebrating Valentine’s Day, but we were also particularly mindful of children all around the world living with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD).
Many children with CHD live in our very own home… children such as Fahlin, Maria Claire, Nathalie, and Dante, and many others whose photos appear at the bottom of this post. Today and every day, we celebrate that these children are given opportunities to live and thrive. We pray for healing to come to their physical hearts, but also for their emotional hearts to be tended to and molded as they are loved and cared for.
To conclude Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Week, we are trying to raise the funds to provide a surgery for a child with CHD. Give a gift from the heart!
