LWB Community

Journey to Guizhou – Reflections

All of the wonderful people who volunteer for LWB know that I have a few rules about going on an official trip. One of them is that you can’t cry when you are in an orphanage, even though I know all too well that it is absolutely overwhelming at times to walk in and see crib after crib, filled with babies living without a mom or dad. The reason for this rule is that I never want any orphanage caregiver to misunderstand our tears. I would never want them to feel that we are crying out of judgment.
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Journey to Guizhou – Day Five (Liuzhi)

The journey to Liuzhi can only be described as HARROWING, and I would like to recommend to anyone traveling between mountain cities in Guizhou that their train system is lovely. : -) Picture mountain cliffs with no railing, two lane roads with trucks passing around corners, fog, wind, rain, and thousand foot drop offs. When we finally made it to the city, our driver told us he was happy we did it in the dark, as he thought our hearts wouldn’t have taken doing it during the day. That certainly made me smile.
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Journey to Guizhou – Day Four (Liupanshui)

We took a three hour train from Guiyang, through the rural countryside of Guizhou to get to our next destination of Liupanshui. The passing scenery was beautiful, with crop terraces all up the mountains. Whereas the eastern side of Guizhou has many homes made of wood, the western side has white stone and concrete houses, but still with the traditional Chinese style curved tile roofs.
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Journey to Guizhou – Day Three (Tongren)

Guizhou gets more rainfall than any other province in China, and travel throughout the mountainous regions can be a real adventure, with winding dirt roads and rockslides. I want to give a public shout out of thanks to our most excellent van driver who got us to all of our destinations safely. Tongren is a mountainous city in the northeast part of the province, with absolutely beautiful scenic spots such as the Nine Dragon Cave and Jinjiang River.
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Journey to Guizhou – Day Two (Kaili)

The Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture is located in the southeast corner of Guizhou. 80% of the people in this region are ethnic minority, with the largest group being the Miao. The capitol city is Kaili, and that is where we began our day.
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Journey to Guizhou – Day One (Guiyang)

Over the next week, we want to share more information about our recent trip to Guizhou, China, as it is a region that hasn’t received as much international assistance in their orphanages as other provinces. While the blog posts might be longer than normal on some days, we hope you will enjoy reading about this very special region of southwest China. Guizhou is one of China’s poorest provinces, but definitely one of its most beautiful. It has one of the highest populations of ethnic minorities, including the Miao, Dong, Yi, and Bai people.
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A Visit to Xinxiang

The foster care team had a great visit to the Xinxiang orphanage and the foster care families today. It was a beautiful fall day, and all the children were excited to have visitors. Our volunteers were so happy  to visit with three of our Henan Cleft Healing Home graduates. Many of you might remember Neil, Isaiah, and Eoin. All three boys are doing beautifully in foster care and have bonded great with their new foster moms. Eoin wins the “Mr. Moose” award as he was quite heavy to hold!
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2010 Cleft Trip – final day

Saturday saw many more children being discharged from the hospital. The nannies had their babies all bundled up and ready to head for the train station for their journeys home. The parents of the rural kids we were able to heal were emotional as they thanked our team for helping their children. Our staff in China were deeply moved by their words.

The medical team from the US was trying their best to hurry out of Fujian before Typhoon Meigi came ashore. They were delighted to find that several caregivers and babies would be traveling with them to the airport. Maureen Brogan wrote the following: Read more.

Day Four of the 2010 Cleft Surgery Trip

Dr. Ness and Dr. Martin deserve Superman nicknames today as they did five bilateral cleft surgeries, which made for a very intense day. The repairs look wonderful, and we are so grateful that the kids are receiving such beautiful repairs. We wanted to share this before and after photo of Lianne (just a day after surgery), so you can see what an artist he is in the OR. (I did remove a bit of the blood from her nose with a photo tool, but the rest is all from Dr. Ness!) Her aunty had changed her out of her little blue hospital gown back into her pink sweater and hat, and I think this is the first time we have had a baby in the same outfit for a before and after shot! Read more.

National Day of Volunteer Service

In 1994, Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, making Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national day of volunteer service.  On this day I am recommitting myself to bringing as much hope and healing to children who are hurting and who wake up every day without parents to love them.