The Week in Photos: Happiness leads to laughter

Blessing lays in her blanket as she wakes up.

Frank lays in his bed in the ICU as his mother Annette and sibling Happy keep him company.

Nurse Eric gives Dr. Justin a syringe as they perform an endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) and irrigation.

Blessing lays on her bed with her mother Margret in the hostel before morning rounds.

Our charismatic nurses, Melat and Tigist, took a moment to enjoy the sunshine after another successful day at CURE Ethiopia!

Our amazing PACU nurses and mothers-to-be, Seble and Hewit, showed off their baby bumps after finishing up with their cases for the day!

Yetachu practices walking again! We are so grateful. Look at that smile healing brought out!

The usual crew on wheels: Ahmed, Mariam, Tesfanesh, and Abush. They struck a pose for us in the midst of all their fun!

Ahmed’s silly personality and joy is rubbing off on his new best bud Abush and helping him heal! Way to go Ahmed!

Belachew Girma, record holder for a Laughter Guinness World Record and motivational speaker, decided that CURE Ethiopia was the best place to celebrate his son’s second birthday since this is where Nahom was treated for his cleft lip as an infant!

Our children loved celebrating with Nahom and his family Nahom’s special birthday!

Belachew Girma took time to speak with our Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. Rick and share his admiration for our staff’s compassion at CURE Ethiopia! We thank Belachew for thinking of the children we serve here on his son’s special day!

Merry-go-rounds are a lot of fun, and this little sweetie agrees! We met her at one of our mobile clinics.

“Close your eyes and tell me: Can you feel this?” Dr. Koyo asks Mildred. Mildred has lost feeling in her legs, and Dr. Koyo is touching her legs with his pen to see if she can feel anything.

We met Happiness while on clinic and can’t help but love her name and her silliness!

Dr. Fasto and the kiddos are enjoying themselves as he greets them!

Dr. Fasto isn’t just giving high fives. He’s giving high foots!

Dr. Fasto also gives high elbows!

Boniface was playing with some of the other toddlers and we found him exploring behind a crate! As soon as he saw the camera, he ran out for a photo op!

Boniface loves to smile for the camera, and the camera loves him back!

Aisha gives us her adorable half grin!

Aisha! You’re not supposed to walk on those!

Esther is back for another AFO (ankle-foot-orthotic) for her clubfoot. She’s so excited to go home with two flat feet and to be able to help out in the garden!

Gugu is always coming in for physiotherapy, and she’s so sweet!

Eda listens to Thandy translate her get-well messages while Grandma Jinny watches.

Thandy reads Aisha her get-wells. She was delighted to see her photo and hear from all her sponsors!

Boniface loves attention! He had his get well messages read to him, and he was grinning the whole time! Although, since he’s one, we don’t think he understood a word of it. His mom, however, was grateful for all the prayers and well-wishes!

Faith loves having her photograph taken!

Eda gets to go home after her bone grafting surgery! She’s so happy to be able to go home, but she still has a long journey of healing.

Shakira is back! When we first walked into the hospital, we heard some giggling from behind a wall. She hid as soon as she saw us, and when we peeked behind it, she burst out laughing!

Zahira is practicing walking, and she has such a lovely dress for it!

Boniface is always chewing on his fingers!

Boniface is going away to Feed the Children for a week. He will come back for a last wound check before he can go home.

Shakira is going to have another operation for her hand’s burn contracture.

Yamikani and Shakira have become fast friends after just one day in the hospital together!

Loveness is back for a checkup of her osteomyelitis! We’ve missed her laugh!

Dr. Lubega performs an abdominal flap surgery for Bridget’s burn-contracted hand.

Meet lovely Jane! She’s here for syndactyly (fused fingers) releases for her hands. She was enjoying listening to the Spiritual Department give a sermon in the playroom!

Faith is still waiting here for her skin graft to heal!

Shakira is waiting to go in for her operation. So exciting!

David is surrounded by prayer before he is discharged.

It’s hard to keep from getting bored when your sibling is in the hospital, but Hadassah found the closet in big brother Psalm’s room to be the perfect place to play hide-and-seek!

Hadassah even managed to convince Jenny to come inside and play, too!

Kurt got the awesome news that he only has to wear his braces half of the time! So, he gave us half a smile to celebrate!

We first met Zeus when he was a week old. A few months later, he’s clubfoot free!

CUREkid Jocy’s dream is to ride a bike after her arms get freed from a severe burn contracture. While waiting for her return to the hospital, the CURE media team is out and about doing fun errands to make her dream happen!

We picked out a nice pink bike with a pink basket just like Jocy wanted, and we’re ready to take it to the hospital for the grand surprise!

Kurt hangs out with a sucker in hand while patiently waiting for the doctor to come back in the exam room.

Spiritual Director Madel prays with Psalm’s family as they thank God for answering their cry for Psalm’s healing after 11 years of praying!