Adoption Reunions
Summer is the time for reunions! We recently heard about this wonderful reunion of children adopted from the Huainan orphanage in Anhui (where LWB has many programs), and it got us wondering. How many other groups out there have held orphanage reunions or adoption trip reunions? Please share your thoughts and experiences for the benefit of others who may be looking to connect!
I joined a Yahoo Group for children adopted from Huainan Children’s Welfare Institute right after I found out that our daughter was living there.
Having adopted from Huainan Children’s Welfare Institute in April 2007, I felt it was important to keep up with other families who also adopted from there.
What I didn’t see was a lot of discussions on the Yahoo Group, so I decided to start a Facebook page for Huainan Families. To date there are 123 families on the Huainan Families Facebook page from all around the world. Connections were made that probably would never have been made otherwise.
We just had a Huainan Reunion in Orlando, Florida. Attending were families from Florida, Pennsylvania, Massacusetts, North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, California, and even Sweden. There were twelve Huainan children plus 20 siblings, most of who were adopted from other provinces in China; children adopted from Korea; and biological siblings. It was wonderful to see the connection between these children. Some had been together in China for most of their lives. Others, like my daughter, were adopted at a very young age and didn’t know anybody but have since made life-long friends.
We are already working on a location to host our next Huainan reunion so that more families can attend.
We hope that through our experience on Facebook , other families may be inspired to start Facebook groups for their children’s orphanages, so that they, too, can stay connected.
~Candy Ostrow, Mom to Rachel Qinghuang
