Woo-Hoo from China!

This morning I woke up to an email that made me almost wake up my neighbors as I shouted for joy, woohoo! A family in our China program is moving forward with the adoption of six year old Julian from Xiamen! He just had a corrective heart surgery done in Shanghai and is doing great. I am so happy he now has a family! He is a little boy we have been advocating for a family for over a year and I have visited at Xiamen three times now. Yay!

4aI met our team in the lobby of the orphanage and headed over to see some of the Xiamen kids in foster care. We visited with baby girl I believe age 3 with Down Syndrome that will be coming on our next list.  We also visited 3 foster brothers, one of which has a family that AGCI knew by the name of “Landon” who is seven years old. He will be home soon with his forever family!  His special need is deformed hands and feet and he is doing awesome!  He enjoyed showing us his art book and showing us all the pictures he has drawn.

2a OPTHe is fostered now with two other foster brothers and they both are boys we are also advocating for families for. Please let me know if you are interested in either of these boys! They were such goof balls and you can tell really are thriving in this foster home. One is known as Chase on our website, and he just turned 8 years old, he was dancing when I was trying to take his picture. His special need currently that we see is speech delay, and he will need some speech therapy. He can write, is good at math, is very smart and learning English! Their foster mom has them on a schedule every day much like a school and does home school work with them, teaches them stories, songs, crafts, etc. They even told us some stories and sang us some songs that I got video of. Daniel is the other little boy living in this foster home and he is seven and he also is a very active and happy little boy! They were too funny.

After our visit with the foster families we headed back to the orphanage and I was able to observe some of the older kids in class, as well as spend a few minutes with Joshua, who we are also advocating for a family for, while he was in physical therapy due to his motor delay.

1a OPTAfter that, we headed to a lunch with the orphanage staff and we discussed more about an overview of the last year of our one to one relationship through the CCCWA contract. I was so encouraged by our time together. I think the thing that meant the most to me at this lunch is hearing Lilian tell me, I am so glad we are friends now too. Yes! Our goal of course is to be professional, but we want to earn the staff’s trust as well as have a good relationship with them.  They said they are very happy with how things have been going. We talked about what is priority right now and it is the children that will be most hard to place and those that need surgery and tests done such as Jayden, Aubrey, Zoe, etc those that have more complex needs. These are the kids that sometimes keep me up at night, and I just worry for them, and I have to remember to give them to the Lord as I know he holds them and does not leave them. I love these kids! I am so honored to be here and represent AGCI and be able to help these children find families if possible. Thank you for your support and prayers!5a