Our 8th Annual “Born in My Heart” Art Auction is now LIVE! The excitement is building, and we have some incredible art and handcrafted items in the auction this year. With every penny going to fund critical medical care for orphaned children in China, your generous contribution will give these children the opportunity to grow and thrive, and perhaps even find a family of their very own.

Once again we have many beautiful original oil and watercolor paintings, giclees and prints, stunning quilts, amazing photography, a handcrafted flute, embroidery, jewelry, handmade children’s clothing, handmade dolls and more! A couple very special items you won’t want to miss are an autographed book and cd of “Cinderella” from Steven Curtis Chapman and tickets for six to see the New York Yankees vs. the Colorado Rockies at Yankee Stadium.

Currently we have seven URGENT children and 17 non-urgent kids in need of funding on our website.  Half of the children are currently in the hospital or have already received treatment.  To fund their needs, we need $38,990 for the urgent children and over $52,000 for the non-urgent needs.  So please spread the word and join us for this year’s auction on eBay through a link on LWB’s website or directly at our regular eBay store location. The auction will end Tuesday, April 19, with items closing throughout the day.

You can also play a part in saving lives by posting about the auction.  If you have a personal or family website or blog, or if you could post to your smaller adoption Yahoo groups, Facebook, or Twitter, we would be so grateful if you would mention this event, as so many children are counting on us for surgery. Thank you for helping us spread the news that lives can be saved!

Our heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who donated items to the auction. THANK YOU for helping us to make this year’s auction our best ever!

The 7th Annual Love Without Boundaries “Born in My Heart” Art Auction starts on eBay today (April 22) and runs through April 27. We have over 350 INCREDIBLE items to auction this year, with every penny going to fund surgeries and medical treatment for Chinese orphans. This year we have many beautiful original paintings and prints, porcelain sculptures, a gorgeous array of quilts, calligraphy, scrapbooking pages, amazing photography, embroidery, gift baskets, jewelry, clothing, heritage items (including a reproduction of a terra cotta warrior) and so much more. We even have tickets to the Metropolitan Opera in New York as well as Yankees baseball tickets!

But let’s shift the focus away from the beautiful stuff. This event is really about children like Emily, who is new to LWB and little Samuel, who is one of our “seasoned veterans.” Little Emily, who is from the Li Cheng orphanage in Fujian, is just seven weeks old. She was born with a condition called “bladder exstrophy,” meaning her bladder is on the outside of her body. We learned about Emily just last week, and she is to be moved to Heartbridge as soon as we can get train tickets for Emily and her nanny. At Heartbridge, Emily will receive the nurturing and specialized medical care she needs to gain enough weight and strength to safely have surgery.

Thankfully we have a little experience with bladder exstrophy: Samuel, also a resident of Heartbridge, had his surgery for the same problem last March with the wonderful surgeons of MedArt in Hong Kong. He is now a very active boy who charms the socks off everyone he meets and gets into everything. With your help, Emily can have a second chance just like Samuel and by this time next year will be taking her first steps and getting into as much mischief as Samuel!

So please – for Emily and Samuel and others like them – join us at this year’s auction. You will be able to reach our auction on eBay through the big red button on the homepage of the main LWB website or directly at our regular LWB Store on eBay. Bidding begins Thursday, April 22, at 11 a.m. EST/8 a.m. PST and will be closing throughout the day on Tuesday, April 27.

Also, you can take it a step further and play a part in healing these children by helping us spread the word about the auction. We would be grateful if you could share information about the auction on your personal or family website or blog, your smaller adoption Yahoo! Groups, or Facebook or Twitter. Help us make this year’s auction the best ever!

Last night as I was cooking dinner, my six-year-old son asked, “Mom, why do people make sculptures?” I really had to think about that. I finally responded with, “I think that some people feel better and can make more sense of the world when they create beauty like sculpture or other kinds of art.” This seemed to satisfy him. Thank goodness! I don’t know if I could have explained more than that.

I thought of the upcoming Love Without Boundaries Annual Art Auction and again thought, thank goodness! Thank goodness that there are talented artists around the globe willing to donate their beautiful art objects to an auction that puts every penny raised to work healing orphaned children who could not otherwise receive medical care. Thank goodness there are people who appreciate beautiful art and are eagerly awaiting the opening of the auction to not only purchase items that make us feel better and make more sense of our world, but also to do good.

The seventh annual Love Without Boundaries Art Auction will be open on eBay from April 22-27. Join in and enjoy the art (and purchase the art!) and make a positive impact on the lives of children.

Linda Mitchell is a wife and mom to four, blog contributor for Love Without Boundaries and volunteer at her kid’s school, student of School Library Media, K-1st Sunday School Teacher…..and creative writer when she can get a word in edgewise.

Our 6th Annual “Born in My Heart” Art Auction goes live Thursday, April 23rd 9am (Pacific Time).

You now have the opportunity to bid on some amazing items and forever change the lives of children with heart defects. As always, 100% of the proceeds go to fund heart surgeries.

Access our auction from the Love Without Boundaries website homepage at: www.lovewithoutboundaries.com, or by visiting our eBay store where the items will be auctioned (click here).

And don’t forget to spread the word — Send a link to this blog or directly to our eBay store.

This is your chance to give a child a second chance!

Lacy is a beautiful, 18-month-old girl who loves to play ball, dance and twirl. But, her heart needs help.

She loves to dance, twirling around the room, waving her hands. Her foster parents are afraid she’ll gets dizzy, so they ask her to stop, but she just laughs and laughs and keeps dancing.

Lacy was born with a heart defect called ventricular septal defect (VSD) – also called a “hole in the heart.” Sometimes these holes can close on their own as the child grows, unfortunately Lacy’s VSD is too large and she needs to receive surgery soon.

If VSD is repaired early in life most people won’t have any significant long-term problems. If Lacy has surgery soon, not only will she have a better chance at a healthy life she will also have a better chance at adoption.

Please check out our 6th Annual ‘Born in my Heart’ Art Auction April 23-28th on eBay. Bidding on any of the wonderful donated items will help Lacy receive her heart surgery which will bring her one step closer to finding her forever family.

Laura Baldwin is the Medical Program Director for Love Without Boundaries. She lives in Texas with her three children, Elise (Vietnam), Grace (Vietnam), and Julie (Guangdong Province).

. . . Baby Xiao’s Life is Forever Changed!
As we are preparing for this year’s Art Auction on eBay beginning April 23, I went through the list of the 13 children with heart disease that were helped with the proceeds last year.

Children whose lives have been changed and are now alive because of this money. This year, more than ever before, this auction is so needed to heal children….children with heart defects that are waiting for their lives to be saved.

One child in particular that I was taken by while reading through the list was baby Xiao. I remembered the heartbreak of his story…..We didn’t think we were going to help him after the first review of his information. We were told that his “window of opportunity” was almost closed, and he may not be a candidate for surgery.

Little Xiao had truncus arteriosus and also had a very small pulmonary artery. In the US, these children are immediately healed at birth with a complete repair, but by the time we received his file, baby Xiao was already 7 months old and his heart was enlarging. He was SO blue…one of the bluest babies I had ever seen. Because his little heart had still not been repaired, his pulmonary hypertension was increasing, and he had HUGE collateral vessels. If there was any chance to help him, we knew that he needed to be moved to the hospital immediately. There was no time to waste.

Thank goodness we had Art Auction funds. We sent him to the hospital and did a heart cath. They thought that they would be able to help, and right away moved him for surgery. They performed a Bidirectional Shunt to improve his blood flow, and his color improved right away. He will still need another surgery, but he is doing so well now, and he is alive!

He is now almost 17 months old and loves to eat. His favorite food is crackers. Developmentally, he is doing well. He can stand in his walker, sit on his own, and is crawling. His nannies love him and say that he is very well-behaved.

I look at his photos and know that this child is alive today because of the Art Auction….Thank you so much for making this a success each year! These children count on your continued support.

Karen Maunu is the Associate Executive Director for Love Without Boundaries. She lives in MN with her husband LeRoy and five children, Ryan, Tyler, Trevor, Anna (Guangdong province) and Ellie (Jilin province).

The Wall Street Journal recently featured a beautiful story about a very special friend of LWB, Mui Koh, and her daughter Portia. Mui teaches English in Guangdong and has donated items for our Born in My Heart Art Auction in past years.

In 2005, Mui set out to help orphaned children by volunteering at an orphanage near her Guangdong home. It was through this volunteer work that she met her daughter, Portia.

Now home with her daughter since January 2006, she was asked to describe her feelings for Portia. Mui answered, “Portia is part of my heart. She is part of me. Life is rich and meaningful with her.” I’d say that any of us who have been blessed with children through adoption know exactly how Mui feels!

Read the full article along with photos here.

Debbie Smith
Public Relations Director