Molly is an adorable four-year-old girl who has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome. Last fall Molly’s orphanage agreed to place her in LWB’s Sanmenxia Foster Care Program. This sweet young girl has truly thrived with the experience of receiving one-on-one attention and being in a family setting.
Molly’s foster mother has worked with her on manners, social skills such as greetings, feeding herself, and being safe by holding hands and not walking in the street. Read more.
Just in time for Easter, we bring you the tale of Isabella Bunny!
Once upon a time a little bunny named Isabella lived in a village in Henan with her foster grandma, foster grandpa, and foster brother. Isabella was six years old and was known throughout the village as an easygoing, mild-mannered girl full of happiness and joy. Read more.
I ended Friday’s blog by saying that the shift in orphanage populations has significantly changed the responsibilities of nannies over the years. A decade ago, the nannies were caring for 10-15 children at a time in the main baby rooms….but on the whole, these were primarily “healthy” babies. Now they are often caring for the same number of children, but ones who have medical needs. Their jobs can be difficult indeed. I will never forget walking into a rural orphanage in a western province and seeing a nanny thread a worn looking rubber tube down the throat of a baby with cleft. She then proceeded to pour milk drop by drop into the tube. She explained that the child was unable to suck from a regular bottle, and so she had come up with this homemade NG tube on her own to save his life. Read more.
While we wish we could post the photo of every child we helped in 2012, we hope you will enjoy this much shorter snapshot of some of the joys of this last year!
In January, we celebrated our Unity Fund, which works to heal poor, rural children so that families can stay together. HeQing’s father had no financial means to heal his precious daughter’s heart, and we are so grateful to our donors who gave her this second chance at a healthy life. As you can see, her smile absolutely lit up the hospital ward! Read more.
Dr. John Ness celebrated his birthday on our 2012 cleft trip in Henan Province. Dr. Ness has traveled to China with LWB multiple times, performing surgery on children born with cleft lip.
His wife wanted a picture of how he spent his special day healing babies. Originally we were going to take a photo with just a few children, but the orphanage nannies wouldn’t accept that as they all wanted THEIR babies in the picture with Dr. Ness. Soon everyone gathered around, singing “Happy Birthday” in Mandarin, while piling babies on his lap!
We have had nothing but glowing reports about five-year-old Junie, a resident of our foster care program in Henan. Last month, our China manager visited her and said that she was just like a little angel! Sweet Junie is on the shared list and is waiting for a family to call her as their own. Read more.
Gal is one of our newer residents at our Henan Healing Home (HHH), born at the end of May and joining us a couple of weeks later. Born with a cleft lip and palate, Gal had the additional problems of an oral infection, a very upset little tummy, and the added insult of a bad diaper rash.
After several weeks of medical treatment and tender care from his nannies, Gal began to feel better, eat more, and open his beautiful eyes to take in his surroundings. Read more.
In April all six of the babies in the Henan Healing Home had successful cleft lip repair surgery during LWB’s 2012 Cleft Exchange trip held at the Kaifeng Children’s Hospital. These babies have all healed and graduated to foster care programs. With the discharge of these babies, new babies have entered the home to receive the devoted care of the nannies and nutritious formula in special bottles designed for babies with cleft. This cycle of nurture and healing continues to help more babies born with cleft lip and palate gain health and healing.
Read more.
Have you ever read about a new arrival to one of our healing homes and wondered about how that little one ended up there? We know our volunteers make it look fairly effortless, but the reality is that a whole lot of communication and travel are usually involved before a new baby is safely tucked into her new home. Read more.
All of us at LWB sure are happy that Dr. John Ness came into this world a few decades ago. Before we tell you about the surgery day, we just want to thank this very special man, who has traveled with LWB on cleft trips multiple times to change the lives of so many children. We had an extra special surprise for him today, when we asked him to sit back on one of the hospital beds so the very grateful nannies could make a “baby pile” on his lap in honor of all he has done. Following the photo, the nannies all sang a very special happy birthday song in Chinese to him. Later that night he was presented with a dragon cake, and we hope this was a birthday he will never forget. Read more.
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