LWB Community Blog

Now that COVID-19 has stabilized in China, our Unity Initiative is once again receiving new children into our program and providing life-saving surgeries to children from rural areas of Anhui province. We recently welcomed two new children into our program: Cody and Drew. Cody was diagnosed with his heart defect when he was less than one week old. This news was “snow plus frost” to his parents who did not want to believe it was possible. They took him to several different hospitals, hoping someone would give them a different diagnosis, as they knew they could never afford the costs of heart surgery on the father’s meager and sporadic income.

If you’ve turned on your TV at all these last few weeks, you’ve seen it. We all have. The news of this new coronavirus and the numbers of those now sick growing higher every single day has filled all of our hearts and minds these last few weeks. China is home to so many we love: our Unity families, the doctors with whom we partner, our sweet healing home babies, and our friends. Our hearts go out to them all as they stand together to weather this storm.

When we turned down the road headed towards their home, they were waiting at the corner:  smiling, waving, flagging us down. Little Bethany was holding tight to both of their hands, her mama and baba. Before we were even out of the car, they were lifting her up and holding her out for us to see. “Look! Look! Look how much she’s grown! She’s so much stronger now! She can walk and run! She is getting into EVERYTHING!”

When we first learned of five-year-old Mary Martha earlier this year, she had become so weak from her complex heart defect that she could no longer walk for more than a minute or two at a time. Mary Martha’s life was truly in danger, and her mother was desperate to find help. Surgery in Uganda was not an option for Mary Martha due to the severity of her heart condition (Tetralogy of Fallot), so when she was accepted for surgery in Israel, we all celebrated. 

Celine’s mother wrote to us pleading for help for her only child, “I am kindly asking you to help save my baby’s heart,” said Nassiwa. Celine began showing signs of distress immediately following her birth in January of this year. It has been an extremely difficult time for her mother. Celine is frail and sickly, and when she was diagnosed with Tetralogy of Fallot at three months old, her father abandoned his family. Doctors said that Celine needs open-heart surgery to be healed, but no such treatment is available in Uganda.

In 2017, Love Without Boundaries took our cleft team to Cambodia to provide surgeries to children with unrepaired cleft lips and palates. Many of the children who were treated had waited years to have repairs, suffering the pain of prejudice and maltreatment in addition to the nutritional, medical, and speech issues that are often associated with being born cleft-affected. Through our work with impoverished families, we have learned that helping children can often result in healing families as well.

In our efforts to support impoverished families who are desperate to find help for their critically ill children, LWB’s Unity Initiative provides life-changing surgeries for children in great need. Today, we are standing alongside two families from rural China.

Four-year-old Lorelai lives in the rural countryside of central China with her father, who is raising his two young children as a single dad. Lorelai’s mother sadly left the family when the hardships of living in extreme poverty became too much for her to bear. Now Lorelai and her family are facing yet another heavy challenge.

In celebration of Chinese New Year, we’re sharing updates on children served through our Unity Initiative. This program, for kids in poverty who were born with medical needs, is bringing hope to rural families. On our last blog we shared about little Anneke and how her surgery will now allow her to go to school. Today we want to update you on Colton, a handsome little boy who just had his second birthday. Colton had heart surgery back in May during LWB’s first cardiac surgery exchange in Anhui province.

In celebration of Chinese New Year, we want to bring you updates on two children who were healed through LWB’s Unity Initiative. This program helps keep families united by providing life-saving surgeries to children living in poverty. We receive requests every single month from families desperate to provide medical care to their children, but who have no financial means of doing so. The letters they send us are often heartrending, as was the one written by seven-year-old Anneke’s mom.