LWB Community

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.

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An Adoption Story: JD

In 2008 we adopted a little girl from China and were active at that time on the chat room for our agency. One of the moms on there always posted older kiddos in need of families and one of the children she posted was Aiden. He was 8 years old with achondroplasia dwarfism. I saw his picture and thought he was adorable! Since we weren’t adopting again, I prayed for him and went on with my life. Read more.

Keeping Families Together

In 2005 one of the LWB directors was traveling to our cleft exchange in Henan Province. On the train he saw a young couple holding a baby boy with cleft lip, and the mother was quite distraught. After watching them for a while, he introduced himself and asked where they were going. It was then that the mom broke down and told him that they were from a province far out west. They did not have the funds to pay for the surgery to repair their baby’s cleft lip, and so their extended family had told them that they must abandon the child so as not to bring shame to the family. They were so ashamed by what they felt they had to do that they were traveling all the way across China to abandon him. When our director called to let us know what was happening on the train, we decided to encourage the couple bring him to the cleft exchange site so that our medical team could repair their baby’s lip. Instead of returning home to their home province in despair, they joyfully returned home with a baby who had been healed. For many years we have remained in touch with them, and the family is doing beautifully. It was experiences like this chance encounter that made us realize that perhaps we could help rural families stay together, instead of having to make the terrible and tragic decision to abandon their child in the hopes that their children would then receive medical care.

Jaimei and her parents

LWB’s Unity Fund was established to assist rural, impoverished families with medical costs they simply cannot afford for their children.
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Just Jack

Not surprisingly, since it is pretty rare, most people have never heard of Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP).  Almost four years ago, an LWB medical mission trip brought us to Jack, a child with this condition (read about our first meeting in a blog from 2007). Jack was brought quite a distance by his caregiver to see the doctors who had come from the U.S. “He was adorable, a little man in a hat and cute clothes and ever so serious,” Dr. Straka told us after she met Jack. She also told us it would be very hard for an orphanage to provide Jack with the type of care that he needs: massive protection from the sun, limited time outdoors, and regular medical follow-ups with a dermatologist. To have the care he needs, Jack really needs a family of his own.

Just recently a very positive update on Jack was sent by his SWI.
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Puppy Love for Patrick

It’s difficult to think of anything cuter than a boy and his dog. Our always-smiling Patrick seems pretty thrilled to be holding a cuddly puppy! We actually think that Patrick is the one who looks cuddly.
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Daniel’s Big Personality

Daniel is full of personality! A resident of our Xinxiang foster care program in Henan, three-year-old Daniel races to heartily greet everyone who enters his household with an enthusiastic smile and welcome. His days are filled with playtime with his many friends, and most importantly to Daniel, time with Grandma.
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Nicholas’ Adoption Grant Just Increased!

Do you remember me?

My name is Nicholas, and I am still waiting for my family.   I have just learned that there is an additional $3,000 grant for my adoption expenses, which brings my grant total to $5,000! (Grant Me A Chance is offering $2,000, and LWB is offering the new grant of $3,000.)
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Counting Our Blessings on the Twelve Days of Christmas: Foster Care Love

On the fourth day of Christmas, we are grateful for the hundreds of foster families who work with LWB to provide one-on-one care to orphaned children. We believe that babies do best when raised in a loving family setting, and we have seen absolute transformations occur when children are moved from a crowded institution into their very own family. Recently, our foster care director visited every child in our program in both Henan and Anhui provinces, and she came back to tell us again what child development experts have written many times. Emotionally, kids need to know that they are safe and cared for and that they can trust the people in their lives. That is the goal of our foster care program, to allow orphaned children to have moms and dads and grandparents and siblings – so they can grow up in the warmth of family life. We loved this photo of little Aiden, who is in our Zhang Village program in Anhui, as it clearly shows the bonds that form through foster care.
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Andrew, Warrior from Kaifeng

I first heard about Andrew from our Kaifeng program just a few weeks ago. This was first photo I saw of him:

You can imagine how my heart swelled at his sweet face!

I wondered why he had been waiting many months for a family to match with him. It turned out that Andrew was born with a form of spina bifida, which is a life-long condition, making Andrew’s chances of finding a family slimmer than many other children. So, writing a post about Andrew became more challenging than I thought it would be.
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Billy: LWB’s Featured Child of the Week

Billy (who was featured in last week’s blog, “Billy’s Fight”), is a little boy in desperate need of help. He has only been on this earth for ten short weeks, and he has been through more than most people go through in a long lifetime. Billy was born with a heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot (ToF). ToF has at least four typical defects of the anatomy of the heart and Billy had a pretty serious case. He was sent to LWB’s Heartbridge Pediatric Unit with the hope he could grow a bit more before surgery, but he soon went into cardiac distress and we knew we had to move him for surgery immediately.
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