LWB Community

Ruth: LWB’s Featured Child of the Week

Ruth is a sweet six-year-old girl who works hard in school despite cognitive delays. Ruth enjoys all of her classes but is particularly fond of her Mandarin and music classes. She finds math challenging, but fortunately a special needs school is located near her orphanage where Ruth can be in a supportive learning environment. The school provides the special attention and patience this lovely girl deserves. Ruth loves going to school each day, and. with your support, she will be able to continue to learn in a supportive and encouraging environment. Read more.

A Visit to Shantou Is Like Coming Home

Returning to the Shantou orphanage is always like coming home to me. I have been visiting this orphanage for over nine years, and two of my children spent the beginning of their lives in this facility. This trip was especially poignant to me as the word “changes” kept swirling through my head. There are so many changes in China each year, both wonderful and somber, and my heart felt split in two as it soared with joy at moments but then also crumbled at the increasingly complex needs. Everyone with a heart for the orphaned has to face the reality that almost every child abandoned now has a medical need, and so the issues the nannies face are often immense. The days of orphanages being filled with healthy baby girls due to the one child policy are over, and yet that myth is still perpetuated in news articles and blogs. Read more.

An Adoption Story: Kai

Do you ever wonder about the children we blog about here?  Have they been matched?  Are they home with their families this holiday season?  How are they doing?  We are very fortunate that some adoptive parents contact us after they return home with their newly adopted child to help us answer these questions.
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PT Camp Beginning in Guizhou

For the past few weeks, our blog, LWB Community, has been unavailable; however, we are happy to report that it’s working again! Today we’d like to repost some blogs from the past few weeks that were published on the main Love Without Boundaries website (lovewithoutboundaries.com). We’d like to thank our readers for their patience.

For the last several years, LWB has been blessed to have teams of PTs and OTs who have been willing to travel to China at their own expense. These dedicated professionals hold “therapy camps” for orphanage staff who wish to learn how to best care for their children with special needs. This year’s camp is being held in Guizhou province, with Michelle Murphy, Lisa Hoffman, Julianne Murphy, and Cindy Wu making up the team. The Zhongshan orphanage in Liupanshui has agreed to host the camp.

Early Saturday morning, our team started the day in Guiyang, the capital city of Guizhou Province. After a quick walk to the Wal-Mart from some last minute supplies, they then met up with several staff members from the Guiyang orphanage who would be traveling with them to the training. But the first logistical issue was getting all of their supplies onto the train to western Guizhou! For anyone who has traveled by train in China, you know that the train stations often have multiple layers of stairs to navigate, and the crowds are extremely large.
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Beautiful Cloud

A chance meeting with Cloud by Paula and her Hunan-born daughter during a return visit to her orphanage last year made a permanent dent in their hearts and cemented their determination to help advocate for this sweet girl. Cloud will celebrate her 12th birthday next week. In her short life, she has grown in inner strength despite her tough start. She entered orphanage care just two years ago and in that time has shown that she is a caring and loving girl.
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More Love

Eleven years ago today I stepped off a train into mainland China for the first time. I look back on that moment now and smile as I remember thinking it might be the only time I would ever be there. It was my first adoption trip, and I had a thousand thoughts running through my mind, from excitement to fear to exhaustion to anticipation.
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Counting Our Blessings on the Twelve Days of Christmas: Team China!

On the tenth day of Christmas, we are thankful for all of our amazing team members in China, who give of themselves each and every day to bring love and hope to orphaned children. The stigma surrounding children born with special needs in China is so enormous that many people feel working with those who are orphaned is bad luck or not a job of which to be proud. LWB has been extraordinarily blessed to have built a network of kindhearted, caring staff members throughout China who live our vision statement each day:

“To provide the most loving and compassionate help possible to orphaned and impoverished children in China, and to show the world that every child, regardless of  his or her needs, deserves to experience love and be treated with dignity and care.”

For all of our teachers, caregivers, managers, doctors, and volunteers on the ground in China — you are changing lives every day! We are SO grateful for your commitment and passion to make this world a better place.
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Special Needs Adoption

Every day in our work with orphaned children, we have one hope for the great kids we help — ADOPTION. Whether it is domestic or international, we know that no humanitarian aid program in the world can completely change the life of a child the way a permanent and loving family can. Because of this, we are passionate about adoption advocacy. Did you know that last year special needs adoptions made up 50% of all of the adoptions from China? And yet for all of 2009, that means only 1500 children with special needs found homes.

Right now, on the main special needs list from the CCAA, there are over 1500 Chinese children waiting right at this moment for someone to choose them as their son or daughter. That list can be overwhelming to a lot of people, especially if you just read a line that says “Mei, age 5, Hepatitis B” or “Kai, age 2, limb deformity”. For a lot of people, it is easier to focus on the special need they read than the fact that every line on the shared list is a CHILD waiting for someone to believe in them.
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Shanna in Search of A Family

I first saw this adorable face in November of 2007 when I visited the Believe In Me school in Shantou. I had walked into a room full of preschool age children who were sitting in little chairs up against the wall awaiting my arrival.

After a few minutes, the children began to sing and dance to a song about cats. They were each wearing a kitty cat “hat.” It was such fun! I could not have stopped smiling even if I had tried.
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LWB Lantern Festival Riddles

This past week, I had the good fortune to celebrate Chinese New Year with my daughter’s third grade class. I read the stories Ruby’s Wish and Sam and the Lucky Money to the children. We also made paper lanterns festooned with riddles in the tradition of the Lantern Festival that is celebrated on the 15th day of every new year. There was a lot of giggling as my daughter’s classmates simulated a lantern parade and tried to guess the answer to such riddles as: What animal has its own built in shower? (Answer: An elephant)!
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