Have You Voted Yet?

There are just 5 days left in the Chase Giving Challenge. We have heard from many people who didn’t realize they needed to vote AGAIN in Round Two, as it is a brand new contest. Please take the time to visit http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/263934 and cast your vote to help orphaned children in China. It will only take a moment, but the results could last a lifetime for all the children who still wait.

Everyone with LWB is so grateful for your help!

Older Child Adoption

Many people may not know how many children there are waiting for families in China. While the wait for healthy babies continues to get longer, there are children on the waiting child list who wait almost as long for their families to find them.

Choosing the waiting child path may not be for every family, but there are so many amazing children who wait every day. These children may have may have medical special needs and others may be older. Right now, there are a number of children who are in LWB programs that wait.

One story of the special needs path has unfolded over the last six months on the Motherlode blog, part of the New York Times. Last week, the story of an older special needs adoption from China was featured, “An Adoption, Six Months Later”. Jenny Staff Johnson and her husband adopted a six year old little who had severe scoliosis from China this past July. Jenny, who has written periodically about her adoption of her daughter Rosemary, wrote an essay about what it means to bond to an older child and to be a family.

In this essay, she talks about the process of bonding with her colicky, biological children and then how surprisingly easy the bonding process has been with Rosemary. She had planned for the worst, but says that it has “exceeded my wildest dreams.”

She summarizes her experience this way:

Parenting both biological and adopted children has taught me this: fit is different with every child, regardless of how they come to you. Sometimes you just have to work at it for a while. It’s natural, and it’s O.K. We expected our daughter to grieve, and she has. To sometimes be angry at us, and she has been. But mostly, she is a game member of the family she joined already in progress.

This essay was very well written and honest, and the comments that follow are just as informative. What an uplifting and inspiring story…..our only hope is that another child waiting will find their family.

Have you considered the adoption of an older child or a child with a medical special need? What concerns do you have? If you have adopted an older child, what were your experiences? What advice would you have for someone considering an older child?

Photo of the Week - Amazing Changes

This week, two little babies had their lives changed forever by a simple surgery. Both of these children had severe bilateral cleft lip and palate. In less than two hours, their lives were transformed. Thank you to the amazing cleft surgeon at Anhui Children's Hospital who performs these miracles everyday. Both baby Ronnie and baby Paul will now have a wonderful chance at finding a forever family....amazing!

Finding Birthparents

On Monday, The LA Times ran an article called “Adoptive families' quests to trace Chinese roots often meet dead ends”

This article featured one family who went to China and within minutes of putting up a poster at their daughter’s finding site found her birthparents. At the same time there are success stories, there are also stories of failures. Another family featured in the article has traveled to China 13 times and has yet to locate their daughters’ birthparents.

Changfu Chang, associate professor at Millersville University in Millersville, Pa has created a number of documentaries about adoption in China. In the LA Times article, “Chang says he knows of perhaps 20 adoptive families who have located birth relatives of their children, a minuscule number considering the more than 60,000 Chinese babies adopted by Americans since the early 1990s.”

Have your children asked you to find their birthparents? Have you travelled to China to look for your child’s birthparents or are you planning to? If you have gone, what did you do to find them? If you are thinking of going, what are planning to do to find them?

Karen Maunu LWB

International Adoption 13-Year Low

Last Friday, a new article on international adoptions by Americans came out “Foreign adoptions by Americans hit 13-year low” by David Crary. In 2009, foreign adoptions dropped to 12,753, 27% lower than 2008 and nearly 45% lower than the all-time peak in 2004.

This article sited many reasons most of them pertained to adoption reform. In this article, Chuck Johnson, chief operating officer for the National Council for Adoption was quoted:

"This drop is not a result of fewer orphans or less interest from American families in adopting children from other countries," he said. "All of us are very discouraged because we see the suffering taking place. We don't know how to fix it without the U.S. government coming alongside."

Thomas DiFilipo, president of the Joint Council on International Children’s Services believes that in 2010, adoption numbers could fall even further. He would like to see more help from the State Department saying, "One of their primary functions is to help potential adoptive parents, when their focus should be on children in need of adoptive families."

We would love your thoughts on what this might mean for your family. Were you thinking of adding to your family through international adoption? Does this article make you rethink these plans? Are you planning to contact any of your congressional representatives?

Photo of the Week - Cozy Andrew

What an absolutely adorable face! This is Andrew from our Kaifeng foster care program. He will be snuggly warm this winter in his new coat, courtesy of our Coats for Kids program.

Photo of the Week - Surgery for Iris

Little Iris in the US having surgery on the large hemangioma on her neck. Yesterday, she had the first of two surgeries she will have while she is here. Thanks to Dr. Hochman and his team, her first surgery was a success! She did so well yesterday and loved being the center of attention. The only thing that made her upset was that they removed her pretty bracelet after she was put under anethesia. Our hope is that as soon as she goes back to China, her paperwork will be submitted so she will be able to have a forever family!

Status of Adoptions from China - BOYS

The National Council for Adoption recently released a report on the status of adoptions from China to the US. You can read the entire document here.

I had never seen the total number of adoptions broken down by gender before, and was surprised to still see such a disparity between the number of girls being adopted versus boys, especially since many of our programs in China run pretty much 50/50 on the boys and girls we help. In 2008, 3030 girls were adopted to the United States while only 822 boys found homes. I actually found myself thinking that I probably knew at least half of those boys who had found a family!

A little bit later on in the article, they mention a study on boys from China published in April of this year. In this study, 61 families were asked questions regarding their adoption of a son, and it was wonderful to read that the vast majority say their sons are doing well. The main concerns raised were the lack of resources for boys from China, since the majority of adoptions are of little girls, and also a need for more help in framing their son's stories, as most people believe only little girls are available for adoption.

If you have adopted a son from China, what explanation do you give when asked how you were able to adopt a boy? Did you specifically request a boy from China or were you open to either gender? Why do you think the majority of waiting children files returned "unchosen" to China are of boys?

Amy (proud mama to one of the cutest little boys from China ever, and yes, completely biased!)

Photo of the Week - Healed Heart for Austin

Austin is a little boy from our school in Jinjiang who had a really serious heart defect. His smile is so infectious! He had surgery last week and was just discharged. When his Ayi told him he would be having surgery and he smiled. Our hospital monitor told us that Austin was nervous but very brave ‘and didn’t cry’. We are so happy this beautiful child is now healed!

Photo of the Week - Cindy and Samuel

What an absolutely gorgeous photo of our manager Cindy and baby Samuel. Samuel is a child who is being cared for at our Heartbridge Pediatric Unit. Cindy visits monthly to do reports and play with this kids. With all of the snow that Beijing has had, the roads have been icy, so Cindy's husband joined her on her most recent visit. From this picture, you can sure tell how much Cindy loves her job. We are just so grateful for all of our kind and loving staff who work so hard on behalf of the children.

Racism Around the World

This morning, President Obama arrived in Shanghai, the third leg of his four nation trip to Asia and his first visit to China. I was struck this weekend with the timing of his arrival to China with a photo that I just happened to see…..a photo of President Obama and his Chinese American niece taken during a vacation in August. As I looked at the photo, I thought of how much I wish our country could truly look beyond race.

China is now dealing with the issue of racism as well. As Chinese society opens up to the outside world and more Chinese marry foreigners, they are now dealing with very similar issues. There was an interesting program on NPR last week called “Mixed-Race TV Contestant Ignites Debate in China” about a young girl whose mother was Chinese and father was African-American. She was raised in Shanghai and recently appeared on a Chinese reality TV show. Her appearance has caused an online racist debate.

Hearing about this young girl, I was so struck by how similar her story is to many in our own country. And how much the story of differences causes stereotypes and judgments. I hope that as our world becomes smaller and smaller, that there will be more acceptance around the world with all people in all nations.

As you read news stories, do you feel that worldwide we are becoming more accepting of other races? Do you feel that the media runs stories to sensationalize race? What are you doing as a parent to raise an open family?

Photo of the Week - Harvest Party

It's harvest time....and harvest party time in our Believe in Me schools. Thanks to generous sponsors, these children were able to celebrate fall with a wonderful harvest celebration. We just loved the photo of these children in their party hats. Happy fall!

Prematurity Awareness Month

November is National Prematurity Awareness Month, and that of course made us stop to give thanks for all of the babies LWB has been able to help in China who have been born too soon. Did you know that 13 million babies a year are born premature? And 85% of those babies are born in Africa and Asia.

We are frequently contacted by orphanages who receive babies weighing just 2-3 pounds, and immediate medical care is needed to save their lives. We are so grateful to everyone who has helped us with these tiniest of babies. To celebrate this special month, we thought we would share a few of our recent survivors with you. Each of these babies found themselves orphaned weighing just a little more than 1 kg each. Aren't second chances just WONDERFUL?




This month, join us in saying a special prayer for all of the babies who arrive in this world as preemies. What miracles they are!

Photo of the Week - Visiting China

This week, Julie from Ireland and Arlene from the UK have been visiting our programs in Hunan, Henan, and Anhui. We have received a few wonderful photos from their travels. We loved this photo of Julie that was taken on Monday in Hunan. What a precious new baby!

Unity

Last week, I was invited to attend an event on behalf of Kathy Ireland who received a Woman of Achievement Award through her partnership with the Sheba Medical Center in Israel. I have learned through knowing Kathy that she is a philanthropist with a huge heart, supporting many different charities. Receiving an award like this was much deserved, because she works so hard to help others.

Attending this event was a very powerful experience for me. Kathy Ireland is very strong in her Christian faith, and most in attendance were Jewish. We began our prayers with a Jewish prayer and broke bread together in the Jewish tradition. The entire message of this wonderful event was one of Unity – of looking beyond individual faiths and beliefs to come together to help those in need.

Kathy is quoted in this article on Yahoo Finance before receiving this award:

“The extraordinary work of Sheba Medical Center is critical to Israel and all Nations. It is essential that Jews and Christians come together to support the wonderful hope and inspiration that is accomplished at Sheba everyday. The doors of Sheba are open to all people. . .race, gender, religion do not matter to the wonderful people who devote their lives to helping others heal. My prayer is to be able to contribute in some small way to the magnificent work of all those who support Sheba Medical Center," shared Kathy Ireland.

During the talks at the event, I learned that at Sheba, Palestinian babies lie next to Jewish babies in the newborn nursery. The hospital is a place of healing, in ways more than just medicine. In a world that often has so much division, what a wonderful message to hear.

So you might ask yourself, where do Chinese orphans come into this picture? We have always talked about how we are a worldwide foundation, where helping orphans in the very best way is our daily mission. This world might have just got smaller, as Kathy invited me to meet with Emeritus Director of Sheba Medical Center, Prof. Mordechai Shani, and the Executive Director of Friends of Sheba Medical Center, Jack Saltzberg. I hope through this meeting that we might be able to introduce Sheba to hospitals in China….to widen this message of Unity. We are all one people…..a worldwide group….working to better the lives of all.

Karen Maunu

Changing the Lives of Orphans in China

Desperation

I read this powerful blog here on abandoning a child who needs life-saving health care that they can’t afford. It really made me about the anguish a family must go through when they feel that abandoning a child might save their life.

We have seen a number of parents in China on the verge of this desperation. We’ve also seen children who have obviously had some medical treatment as they are abandoned with surgical scars or needle marks from previous IVs. Obviously the parents tried to give the child they medical care they needed, but we have to wonder if they ran out of funds and so felt the desperation of having to leave them in the hopes they would get care. This is the reason behind our Unity Fund, our medical treatment fund that helps poor, rural families who can’t afford medical treatment. We want families to stay together, and we love when we can “prevent an orphan” by providing the medical care needed so that the family doesn’t have to consider such a drastic decision.

Can you imagine yourself being so desperate to save your child’s life that you would have to abandon them? Imagine how many families around the world are faced with this dilemma and the thoughts that must lead up to their decision to leave their child. What more can be done around the world to help support these families?

Karen Maunu

Changing the Lives of Orphans in China

Photo of the Week - Happy Birthday Maria

Little Maria just celebrated her birthday at our Heartbridge Pediatric Unit in Beijing. One of our past Heartbridge Coordinators sent her a birthday gift. Don't you just love birthdays? Guess what else Maria will be getting this year - a family!! Happy Birthday Maria!

An Essay from China

We always love hearing that young people want to get involved to make a difference in the world. Recently we received the following letter from a wonderful group of school students in Shantou, China, who have formed a club to help orphaned children in their hometown. We wanted to share their words with you today because they truly touched our hearts. What a wonderful world this could be if everyone believed as they did that reaching out to children can show us the true meaning of love.

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.”

I always love reading these poetic words. They are beautiful. They seem to sound right to my ears in a pleasant way. I neither understood the true meaning of it nor gave much thinking of it before my visit to the Shantou orphanage with my teacher.

Two years ago, one day before the New Year, after entering the classroom, our English teacher asked for volunteers to visit a special place to meet some lovely babies. Spontaneously, I raised my hand. On the way to where those babies stayed, I felt nervous and curious. My heart was mixed with a kind of hard-to-explain sadness and excitement. Our teacher told us, “Those babies don’t have parents. We are going there to see whether we can offer some help.”

It was the first time in my life to see so many babies at one time. Two or three babies were sitting in each of their little four-wheel-chairs. Several others were lying in their cribs. One toddler was holding onto the cribs, learning to walk while the other is crawling on the play mats. These babies were NOT cute at all for the mere look at their little faces. One tiny face was covered with tears, saliva and spilled milk. He was a cleft baby. Another tiny face looked BLUE. This baby had a heart disease. One baby was born with deformed legs and it was obviously that he could not walk if he was able to live to an older age. After asking for the permission, I held up a crying baby girl carefully in my arms and started to talk and sing to her. She then stopped crying and suddenly giggled. That was the miraculous moment when something special touched my heart. “I must do something. I want to do something to help these babies.”

“But what can I do?” Together with several other classmates, we joined a charity group in our school. Then we started the “DIAPER” program. Our work was first confined to our school campus, but later we decided to tell our parents, friends and citizens in the community about the babies. On the leaflet, we wrote: “The New Year is approaching. While we are missing our beloved living afar, we hope that we could get a diaper for our babies nearby.”

Not only were we able to raise enough funds for diapers, baby waist-wrappers, winter clothes, portable thermoses and heaters, but found many generous hearts willing to help. Students and teachers at our school surely made the first step. One parent of my classmate heard of news and donated a large box of baby shoes and baby hats from their family-run shop. At the front gate of a kindergarten, parents were urging their children to put a 10-yuan note in our box, saying, “You know? You are helping some little brothers and sisters in Shantou.” Our hearts were warmed by many of these generous people. A tricycle worker, an old doorman, a primary school girl, a grandma on her way to the market, a foreign tourist, all were willing to show their love and care to these vulnerable babies.

In a thank-you letter to Shantou students, (who donated artwork to help heal orphaned children’s hearts,) Amy Eldridge, director from Love Without Boundaries wrote, “We know that one of the greatest gifts in the world is love, and you have shown us how much you care for others, and what it means to help unselfishly.”

Different people may have different understanding of love. For most people, love means being willing to help others unselfishly and the appropriate action of showing it. Love with word, yet without deeds, is meaningless. As a vocational school student, I perhaps cannot do much GREAT deeds, but through this volunteer’s activity, I have gained a deeper understanding of love. I have learned to give off without thinking of rewards; I have learned NOT TO TAKE EVERYTHING FOR GRANTED; I have learned to give thanks; and the most important of all, I have learned to be strong.

In fact, all I have learned should be indebted to those children I visited. It is these children who teach me the true meaning of love.

On a recent visit to the orphanage, in their classroom, I experienced an unforgettable moment. When the teacher announced the time for lunch, several teens stood up, and clearly they are boys with some mental disabilities. But each of them holding a toddler’s hand, together they walked down-stairs to their room. A tiny girl, no more than 18 months, independently toddled off to her room about thirty steps away. A four-year-old girl, who has an incurable eyes disease, gave everyone a most beautiful smile when she waved good-bye.

I see the best character in these children – affectionate and hopeful, caring and strong.

A great Chinese teacher, Confucius said, “To be fond of learning is akin to knowledge. To practice with vigor is akin to benevolence. To possess the feeling of shame is akin to courage.” One student asked his master, “What is Benevolence?” “Benevolence means to help others in the way you want to be helped. It means to love others as himself.” Confucius answered.

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.”

These are not the simple words lying in the text book, waiting to be memorized. They are the lights that shine upon our path of life. If we follow these lights faithfully, then our world will be much brighter and better.

Article on Children from China Seeking Their Roots

We wanted to pass on this article about Chinese adoption and children returning to their homeland in case you haven't read it yet. We agree with the author that the vast majority of children in China's orphanages now have some sort of medical need. In fact, it has been reported that 4 of every 5 babies now abandoned has a medical condition.

I hear again and again from people that China is no longer a country to consider for international adoption. That couldn't be farther from the truth! The waiting child program is still a wonderful way to form a family. Most adoptions can be completed within a year, and so many INCREDIBLE children are waiting right this moment for a loving home....children just like my own son....who brings me more joy than I could ever imagine. For more information on waiting child adoption, watch our video here.

Amy

Generations to come

I was listening to the radio in my car the other day, and the newscaster began talking about a 99 year old woman who had recently passed away in Jerusalem. She had 11 children, and each of those children had large families, and it multiplied out to great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. I was amazed when the newscaster said this one woman had over 1000 known descendants.

Wow.

I got home that same day and found photos in my inbox of a very sick baby girl who has a heart condition. She is almost one, and my first thought when I opened up the photos was of a “smiling blueberry”. What a sweet spirit this little girl obviously has, but my own heart felt heavy as I looked at her blue tinged skin and lips. The orphanage reported that she has become short of breath more and more frequently, and she will need surgery soon to survive.

Having just heard about the woman in Israel, I looked at the photo of baby Natalia and thought again that one single life can have a profound effect on the world. Without surgery, little Natalia will soon pass away as an orphan. With surgery she will get a second chance at life. She will have her paperwork submitted for adoption, and I have no doubt she would be quickly chosen by parents and grow up knowing the blessings of family. I looked at Natalia’s face and imagined her healthy and strong, growing up to someday have children of her own. Can’t you just imagine her grandchildren someday telling their own kids, “Nana’s life began in China.” A piece of the world changes forever if Natalia lives, and I believe it changes in a beautiful way.

I just want to thank everyone again who supports our work with orphaned children. Probably when you donate, you are only thinking of the one single child who needs help right that moment, but it truly goes even further than that. When you bring hope to a child in need and help change their future, it can impact generations to come. Isn’t it a wonderful thought that a single act of kindness can keep moving through the world indefinitely? How many life stories of children can we help write that will begin with the words, “because someone believed in me”?