Children's Heart Project

Hope everyone had a fun Monday off of work! We had such a fun an INSPIRING Monday so I thought I would tell all of you about it...

As many of you may (or may not) know my niece Ashleigh who is now 3 years old underwent heart surgery a while back..it went great and now is doing awesome! Ashleigh's whole ordeal inspired Matt's brother and his wife to do something very special last Christmas. Through an organization called Samaritan's Purse, they raised money to bring not one but TWO children from Mongolia who needed life saving Heart surgery to the United States..Ashleigh's heart surgeon at Childrens Hospital agreed to do both surgeries at no charge!

Both of the children (a little boy about the same age as Bailey named Byra and a little girl named Nandia who is about 10 or 11) arrived here in St Louis about 6 weeks ago..they both had their surgery and everything went great! They have been spending their last couple of weeks here doing things like going to the Botanical Gardens, the zoo, Six Flags, etc....and having so much fun. They also got baptized last week so needless to say this was a life changing trip for them!Yesterday we got to meet them, here are some pics:

This is Byra and Bailey. He LOVED Bailey. He and his mom live in the remote mountains in Mongolia and are basically herders and follow their animals around wherever they go... they live very very far away from any doctor. They live in a this tent like thing called a Ger...looks something like this:

Bailey and Byra hit it off big time!

Below is a picture of Byra and his mom, Nandia (on the left) and her mom, their interpreter, Matt's parents, and Kate.

When we left Nandia told Bailey "I Love You"! It was so sweet, she has learned a lot of English for being so young and only being here such a short amount of time!

Isnt it crazy to think that a couple of months ago they were in Mongolia needing heart surgery and yesterday they were at the Biermanns eating pork steaks and potato salad?? Pretty cool if you ask me.

Hope everyone else had a great Memorial Day weekend!!