LWB Community

Visiting Heartbridge

A visit to our Heartbridge Healing Home is always a treat, and last month’s visit was no exception. The children there, who once were very weak and fragile, are thriving. You would never suspect from looking at and playing with these children the odds they have overcome. Attentive nannies, quality nutrition, and lots of TLC make an unbeatable combination!  Here are some of the beautiful faces from our visit.

Adrienne, seen above, babbled away to us, probably telling us about the great care she has received at Heartbridge. Read more.

Visiting the Henan Healing Home

Visiting the Henan Healing Home is always a wonderful experience.  While this home might be small in size (with room for eight babies), it is HUGE on love.

Amy and Sheri snuggling with the babies at the Henan Healing Home

We have been working with a rural orphanage over the last year that really struggles with their babies born with cleft lip.  We have a very good partnership in place where they contact us about their newly abandoned babies, and we move them to our Henan Healing Home as soon as we can.   In February, we had taken in two new babies who were both really vulnerable and tiny when they arrived.  Some of you may remember when little Bennett and Abby arrived to our home, neither weighing more than 3 kg.   As we got new pictures of them each week, I could tell that their faces were starting to fill out, but it was hard to gauge just how small they were since the photos were normally closeups of their faces. Read more.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

An Irish 10K to Help Babies in China

Would you fancy a reason to visit Dublin, Ireland? Well, here’s your chance! We invite you to participate in the Flora Women’s Mini-Marathon on June 4 to help support the babies in our Henan Healing Home.

The Flora Women’s Mini-Marathon is the largest event of its kind in the world! 40,000 women run in this 10K race to fundraise for their charity of choice. Places are going fast, so click here for your race number. Read more.

Jade: LWB’s Featured Child of the Week

Since early times, jade has been valued in China even more than gold and silver. The newest resident of True Children’s Healing Home (TCHH) in Fujian is truly a precious gem. Jade is just four months old and was born with a very sick heart. LWB was able to arrange open heart surgery to repair Jade’s pulmonary artery valve stenosis at a pediatric hospital in Shanghai. Upon discharge, Jade was moved to True Children’s Healing Home for one-on-one care during her recovery.

When little Jade arrived, she weighed only 6.5 pounds, but her sweet smile and bright eyes tell us how lively she wants to be. Read more.

Ricki: LWB’s Featured Child of the Week

Little Ricki came to our attention in June 2011. She had been born prematurely and needed extra care and as a result, was moved to our Anhui Healing Home. Initially Ricki was described as very quiet, and our healing home staff reported that she had difficulty keeping her food down and was quite weak.

After a few months of careful feeding, Ricki had gained much needed strength and weight and was now described as an energetic little girl who loved to smile. By early September, Ricki was a lively, chubby little girl, and plans were made to place her in foster care. Read more.

Love The Orphan, LWB Style

LWB has been presented with a wonderful opportunity to show support for orphans — in style! Starting today, we are partnering with Sevenly to raise funds specifically for children in our healing homes. Sevenly is a unique organization that harnesses the power of art and community to raise funds and awareness for select charities. Sevenly’s designers created this graphic exclusively for Love Without Boundaries, and we love the sentiment of “Love the Orphan” as well as the stylish design. Read more.

Christopher: LWB’s Featured Child of the Week

Christopher is the youngest resident at our Henan Healing Home. He was born in late November with a cleft lip and palate. Christopher developed pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital from his orphanage in Luohe. After a one week stay in the hospital, he came to our healing home in Kaifeng to receive some intensive one-on-one love and care from our loving nannies. Christopher weighed just over six pounds when he arrived just before the Lunar New Year, so we know that he has to gain significant weight and strength in order to be ready for his surgery.

Read more.

Brody: LWB’s Featured Child of the Week

Tiny Brody is the newest addition to our Heartbridge family. He was born in late November with a serious abdominal blockage. By the time Brody came into orphanage care a week later, he was in critical condition. Fortunately LWB’s medical team was able to arrange for emergency surgery the very next day. While our volunteers awaited news on Brody’s condition, we all hoped and prayed that this sweet baby boy would survive. Read more.

Counting Down Our Top Ten Photos of 2011: Scotty Smiling

We first met Scotty in his rural orphanage in Guizhou Province, one of the poorest regions in China. He was so tiny and weak that his cry was almost inaudible, and his nannies explained that he wasn’t able to eat easily due to his cleft lip. We knew that he needed to be moved to one of our healing homes as quickly as possible, and so we phoned our home manager in Fujian, who asked how soon he could get there.

This photo, coming in at #5 in the voting for our Top Ten Photos of 2011, was taken just a few weeks after Scotty had arrived to our healing home. It is pretty obvious from this photo how he felt about having his own dedicated nanny, good formula, and essential cleft bottles at his disposal. We are so happy to report that Scotty went on to not only find healing, but also his very own adoptive family in late 2011! Read more.