LWB Community

Getting Ready To Change Lives: The 2012 Cleft Exchange

Our 2012 Cleft Exchange in quickly approaching.  In less than one month, four doctors from the United States will travel to Kaifeng, Henan and perform up to 40 cleft lip and palate surgeries.  At the same time they will be working with Chinese doctors and training them in the best methods of performing quality cleft surgeries.  It is our hope that through this training, more children in China will have beautiful cleft repairs for years to come.

Our last cleft exchange took place in Fuzhou in the fall of 2010 where thirty children received life-changing surgeries.  Most of the orphaned children who were a part of that trip have since been adopted by their forever families. Read more.

Isaac: LWB’s Featured Child of the Week

Isaac is a gentle and kind-hearted four-year-old. He lives at the orphanage in Huainan and attends the Believe in Me School there. Isaac’s teachers say that he participates happily and follows directions well. He is a good helper and clearly very bright. His favorite activities at school are playing with playdough and doing puzzles. Although he is shy and quiet, Isaac is a good friend to his classmates. He especially likes spending time with his best friend, Maxie. They can often be seen walking hand-in-hand. 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.

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.

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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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.)
Read more.

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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Patrick Strikes a Pose

I just love this photo of Patrick – he looks like he is posing for his school photograph or modeling for a catalog.

Nine-year-old Patrick is part of our Kaifeng Foster Care Program in Henan and is waiting for a family through China’s Waiting Child program. Currently he attends school, and his teacher says he is eager to learn and improves quickly.

He was visited last week by some of our volunteers.  They remarked on how happy and thrilled he was when they gave him paper and markers to draw.  He enthusiastically began showing them what he could write.  Everyone found him to be sociable and good-natured.  In addition, Patrick seems to have a good sense of people, quickly assessing your level of friendliness and then giving you a sign he is friendly too.
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A Chance for Nicholas

What does it take to make a difference in another person’s life?

Grant Me a Chance, a nonprofit organization, hopes to make a difference. They say, “Together we can GRANT ORPHANED CHILDREN THE CHANCE they deserve… a chance to be healthy, happy, and HOME!” Grant Me a Chance makes a difference by providing adoption assistance grants with the hope of improving the lives of parentless children throughout the world.

Nicholas, a twelve-year-old boy in LWB’s Kaifeng Foster Care Program, will no longer be eligible for adoption soon. Grant Me A Chance has chosen him to offer a $2,000 grant toward his adoption expenses. We can imagine how excited Nicholas would be to receive his own family!

When Amy Eldridge, LWB’s Executive Director, visited with Nicholas this past summer, she remembers how he sang for her and her travel companions. Everyone was in awe of his heartfelt song. Nicholas had a foster sister to whom he was particularly close. When she was recently adopted, he took it really hard and was sad when he had to say goodbye to her. More recently Nicholas has enjoyed the addition of his new foster brother, who will also be adopted soon. Nicholas would love to have his own family and the chance to be a big brother again for another sister or brother. On the same visit, Nicholas told Amy, “I would be so kind to a mama and baba.” What a sweet heart he has!
Read more.