Considering International Adoption?

Get the information you need from the convenience and privacy of your home… log on to a Holt adoption webinar. Several times each month Holt International hosts a live online webinar where one of our adoption workers walks you through the process, answering your questions with helpful audio visuals. [...]]]> Join a Webinar Today

Considering International Adoption?

Get the information you need from the convenience and privacy of your home… log on to a Holt adoption webinar. Several times each month Holt International hosts a live online webinar where one of our adoption workers walks you through the process, answering your questions with helpful audio visuals. You get the most current information about:

• adopting a child through Holt–costs, time frames, countries, requirements, etc.

• the benefits and considerations of international adoption

• an opportunity to ask your specific questions

Adopting From China Webinar: In this live, interactive online seminar, we will share about the three ways to adopt from China: the Standard Process (generally, to adopt a healthy infant female); the China Child of Promise option; an expedited option to adopt an infant or toddler, boy or girl, with a treatable or manageable, identified physical condition; and the Journey of Hope for older children or children with more involved special needs. We will focus on the Child of Promise option and explain how families indicate the physical conditions to which they are open and how we work closely with you to make a match that is within your range of openness. We explain time frames to complete each process, the steps involved, travel and costs. You will also hear from a family who completed the Child of Promise option and be able to ask questions throughout. All webinars begin on Pacific Time……click here to Join a China Webinar

Read touching stories about families who have adopted a child through Holt’s China Child of Promise option

Foster families provide a loving home environment that even the most caring orphanage workers cannot provide. Their selfless love nurtures homeless children while Holt completes the adoption processing for permanent families. Holt’s dedicated temporary families are often the only hope for infants suffering from malnutrition, children recovering [...]]]> The value of foster care in China

Foster families provide a loving home environment that even the most caring orphanage workers cannot provide. Their selfless love nurtures homeless children while Holt completes the adoption processing for permanent families. Holt’s dedicated temporary families are often the only hope for infants suffering from malnutrition, children recovering from surgery, and others who need extra care.

The Chinese government is asking Holt to step up our foster care programs in China immediately.  Every effort must be made to get orphaned children out of institutional care. We need your help!

Before coming home to the United States, Lilah Ruud lived with one of Holt’s loving and attentive foster families. Lilah’s older sister, Danica, had this to say about her visit to China to meet her little sister:

“We visited an orphanage where babies were lined up in beds, in rows. These babies didn’t have the one-on-one attention of a loving family. I also saw babies – like my sister – who had been cared for by foster families. Love does great things for people. Foster care for orphans can change a child’s life!”

The Following is Joan Ruud’s account of meeting Lilah for the first time, and her thoughts on the importance of foster care:

In September 2004, my husband and I decided we wanted to grow our family through adoption. Because we had an 8-year-old daughter, we chose the country based on how quickly we could bring our second child home. As fate would have it, we chose China! As the wheels of foreign adoption churned, we ended up waiting for Lilah for 4 years.

We received our first picture and official match on November 2007, and that Christmas Eve, we received an e-mail informing us that Lilah was not in an orphanage – as we had anticipated – but with a foster parent. Holt had no additional information and we inferred that our daughter had recently been placed in foster care.

During our wait for Lilah, I had read a bit about orphanages.  I just assumed that our child would be placed in an orphanage, and we would bring her home almost directly from that institution. I was prepared for potential developmental delays and perhaps some attachment issues. The news of Lilah’s foster care placement didn’t mean so much to me, because I assumed it had been a recent development in her young life.

We arrived in China on January 8th, 2008 and held Lilah in our arms for the first time on January 13th. We had traveled in a group of 13 families to Jiangxi Province. About half of the children had been in orphanages and the other half had the good fortune to be placed in foster care. We also learned at this time that Lilah had been placed in foster care, thanks to donations to Holt, within a few weeks of birth.

As Lilah was placed in my arms, her inevitable tears began. Poor child had to deal with strange smells, strange sights and sounds, and strange people who were all so ecstatic to finally meet her. After an hour or so, she settled in and we began our bonding. She wasn’t so interested in big sister, she didn’t care for dad at all, but she wanted me. Lilah clearly assessed her situation and gravitated to the most familiar person; I attribute this to her relationship with her foster mother. She had experienced a home and recognized a family and, in particular, a mother. Her eye contact with me was constant.

We visited an orphanage on our third day in Nanchang. The infants were well cared for, but the ratio of care was 1 to 12 when the infant room was full. The babies did not have the connection that primary caretakers provide. Because of the necessity to care for so many, the babies weren’t mobile or sitting up or crawling.

A foster family provides a one-on-one relationship that allows children to achieve developmental milestones.

We have a picture of Lilah and her foster mom. You can see the love in both their eyes. Lilah is almost four years old now, and she talks about “the little lady in China who took care of me until you could bring me home.” Lilah adjusted so quickly to family life, and I believe she did so because of her placement in foster care and her understanding of family life.

Our experience with Chinese foster care inspired our older daughter, Danica, 14, to spearhead a campaign for Chinese foster care in 2009; she raised over two thousand dollars for foster care in China.

It is my hope to one day return to China and visit Lilah’s foster mother. Lilah has a birth mother, who she will never meet; she has me, her mom; and she has a foster mother who lovingly cared for her for 16 months until we could bring her home. We all have had a part in making Lilah the loving girl that she is today.

While a child waits for a permanent family, nothing can replace the care and affection of an attentive, loving foster family. Help raise funds for foster care in China!

Meihekou, China – At the end of a winding dirt road in Meihekou – a city in Northern China’s Jilin Province – behind a green door decorated in red for luck, a teenage girl spends her days engaged in the usual teenage activities. She text messages her friends on her [...]]]> by Robin Munro, senior writer

Meihekou, China – At the end of a winding dirt road in Meihekou – a city in Northern China’s Jilin Province – behind a green door decorated in red for luck, a teenage girl spends her days engaged in the usual teenage activities. She text messages her friends on her cell phone. Chats online. Listens to music. Paints her long, manicured fingernails in sparkly purple polish. And dreams of her future.

At 19, she should be preparing to leave her childhood home – to pursue her goals, and explore the world. But for Jie Lin (name changed), dreams remain just dreams. And independence a fantasy. Born with a condition that causes severe muscle atrophy, Jie Lin is, essentially, paralyzed in her arms and legs – they are thin as reeds, skin to bone, and folded beneath her like marionette sticks. As her body grew, it became too heavy for her to move from laying to sitting on her own. Her foster mother carries her to the bathroom. To leave the house, she must be pushed in a stroller.

“Sometimes I feel like I have no future,” she tells Sue Liu, who has known Jie Lin since 2000, shortly after Sue joined the Holt China staff in Meihekou.

Jie Lin has soulful, sad eyes, but her expression is often overtaken by laughter. Her hair is short and shag-cut, her face lovely and wise.

Holt has sponsored Jie Lin’s care since 1999, when she was 8-years-old. That year, as the Meihekou Ministry of Civil Affairs struggled to meet rising expenses, Holt took over funding for the local foster care program. To date, Holt and sponsors have invested more than 3 million Chinese Renminbi, or nearly a half million dollars, into local foster care, which has provided for as many as 60 children at once. At present, Holt sponsors care for 38 children in Meihekou and 22 in neighboring Tonghua. Sponsorship covers basic necessities, including food, shelter and clothing, and is often the only source of income for foster families.

When children turn 18, sponsorship ends. But special needs are common, and many children continue to depend on their foster families – and Holt – for care and support beyond the age of 18.

“What can we do?” Sue asks, worried about what will become of the children who “age out” of sponsorship.

Many would like to work, but their physical disabilities limit them. Jie Lin wants to open a small shop selling jewelry or clothes. She says she wishes her life had some meaning. It’s so boring, she tells us, to stay home all the time.

But limitations, including the start-up funds to open a stall, keep her from realizing this dream. Jie Lin needs help moving her own body. To accomplish the constant tasks – and constant movement – required of such work would also require extraordinary will.

But will, Jie Lin possesses. In spades.

She feeds herself and drinks from a cup without using her hands. Her calligraphy is astonishing. She fills pages and pages of notebook paper with elaborate Chinese characters, holding a pen between her teeth. To type text messages, she uses her chin.

When Jie Lin first came into care, Holt wanted to buy her a wheelchair so that she could attend school. But roads in her neighborhood are unpaved, and difficult to maneuver even in a car. Instead, Holt provided a tutor, who came to her home to give her lessons in Chinese, Math and English. Brought her outside to the see ice, for the first time, in winter. Posted maps on her walls so she could study the world.

“I have a strong will,” she types, when asked by Sue to demonstrate how she texts. “I never give up.”

Jie Lin chats with her foster mother through a window in her room, which opens onto a small kitchen. Given the resources, her foster parents will continue to care for her for the rest of her life. To feed her, clothe her, and carry her to their outdoor toilet – on dirt, on ice, in rain, in the middle of the night. But her parents’ health is deteriorating. Her foster mother has chronic bronchitis and a heart condition, her foster father diabetes.

Despite poor physical health, Jie Lin’s foster mother is cheerful and boisterous, laughs easily and welcomes us warmly. Although mostly confined to a small room – with a television, a stack of magazines to read, and a big picture window with a view of the brick porch out front – Jie Lin has constant visitors, and is surrounded by activity.

Her friends, of whom she has many, often tell her to think of happy things.

She realizes that many people care for and love her, and visit her often. But still, it’s hard not to feel as though she’s missing out.

Sue tells us no program exists for people with disabilities in Meihekou – no skills training for income generation, no way to become self-sufficient. I think of Ilsan, Holt’s historic care center for orphaned and abandoned children in Korea, where no child ever “ages out.” Those not adopted grow to adulthood in care, often living out their whole lives with the people who raised them. The Holt School was founded there in 1964 to teach children with mental disabilities, which opened the door for special education throughout Korea. Ilsan also provides a workshop for the residents, many of them severely disabled, to learn crafts to sell to visitors, giving them a sense of accomplishment and purpose.

Holt has already applied a similar model in three Chinese provinces, where children with special needs participate in knitting groups to learn vocational skills and enhance self-esteem. But like most programs in China, Holt partnered with the local orphanages to create these knitting groups. Meihekou has no orphanage.

And unlike Ilsan, Holt’s China programs are relatively new; only within the last two years, as sponsored children come of age, has Holt confronted the need for continued support.

“We should keep helping kids who were sponsored,” comments Jessica Palmer, Holt’s Waiting Child program manager, as we drive away from Jie Lin’s home. Jessica finds families for children who often wait longer to be adopted – because of a special need, or because they are older. Some end up waiting too long. When children turn 14, they are no longer eligible for adoption from China.

“We have so many of these children in Meihekou,” Sue says of Jie Lin – and of children who age out of sponsored care but continue to depend on their foster families.

In the afternoon, we visit another boy in Holt-sponsored foster care – a boy with dwarfism, who still depends on his foster mother for many of his basic physical needs. Like Jie Lin, he is also 19. He is also a typical teenager in so many ways – he poses for the camera with his hand on his chin, has stylishly cut hair, teases and jokes with his foster sister, and desperately wants a laptop. Over and over, he tells us he wants a laptop. Sue explains to him that sponsorship can only cover basic needs – that so many children need to be fed, to be clothed, to be given the love and support of a family. He acknowledges this with a smile, but still won’t let up about the laptop – amusingly, as he stands beside a giant computer monitor on the desk in the front room.

Like Jie Lin, this boy – Bai Ze (name changed) – will always depend on his foster mother, who never remarried after her husband died, seven years ago, because she feared a new husband wouldn’t accept her foster children. She is utterly devoted to the two children in her care – a sweet 17-year-old girl who hopes to become a nurse, and Bai Ze. The house smells of popcorn when we enter, and activity fills the front room, where the foster mother’s elderly father sits, smiling, on the bed. A neighbor girl has come to play, and others walk by the open door, saying greetings in Mandarin. It is a cheerful home – with posters for good fortune, family portraits and an aquarium full of huge, colorful fish. I’m so glad that Holt sponsors this family – and that the only thing Bai Ze lacks in life is a laptop.

by Robert Flanders

When people ask me to prove that God exists, I show them your picture and tell them about lines. The lines on which our lives travel along the points plotted by the choices that we make. I reflect upon [...]]]> A father’s poem to his daughter, Quinn—a child in Holt’s Journey of Hope Program

by Robert Flanders

When people ask me to prove that God exists, I show them your picture and tell them about lines. The lines on which our lives travel along the points plotted by the choices that we make. I reflect upon all the choices, some good, some bad, that have led me to the place where I stand now holding your picture. I can only imagine the decisions that your birth parents have made, especially your mother. In an act of desperation and hope, she severed a sacred bond and your lines diverged. Yours led you to the orphanage and, years later, to me. Your birth mother’s life line drifted away, as silent as a ghost carried along by the force of circumstances, into her future and your past.

I remember the day that our lines, and our lives, intersected. I saw your picture and two lines, out of the six billion lines moving through time and space, came together at one point. That point is called love. I’ve seen many pictures of older, waiting children traveling on their journeys of hope but our lines did not intersect. When the Holt worker asked me, “why you?” I did not tell her about lines, I told her about love.

Now the lines of our lives will travel together, parallel to each other in love. I feel certain that God was lovingly drawing our lines so that they would one day come together. I look down at your picture in my hands and I believe.

Older children in Holt’s care need families….click here to view the photolisting for Holt’s Journey of Hope children in China.

or visit our Waiting Child page

by Robin Munro

Jilin City, China—Today, we drove to a small farming village just outside of Jilin City, a forested, mountainous region of Northern China where Holt sponsors foster care for 39 children. Here, amid lush green acres of [...]]]> Senior Writer Robin Munro discusses her experience at a Holt-supported foster care program in Northern China.

by Robin Munro

Jilin City, China—Today, we drove to a small farming village just outside of Jilin City, a forested, mountainous region of Northern China where Holt sponsors foster care for 39 children. Here, amid lush green acres of corn stalks, rice fields and gable-roofed homes, we meet several of the children in our sponsorship program. Ducking out of the rain, we step into an unoccupied house – recently built by the village – where the families have gathered, anticipating our arrival. I am with Sue Liu, the Beijing office manager and assistant to Jian Chen, Holt’s China director; Jessica Palmer, Holt’s Waiting Child program manager; and a couple officials from the Jilin City Social Welfare Institute, with whom Holt has partnered since introducing a foster care project to this region in 2006.

I find a windowsill in which to sit and observe the scene – foster mothers sitting in a circle on the floor, cooing over babies swaddled in blankets as Sue and Jessica assess the children’s development and the foster care manager distributes formula and food. One boy – an older boy of about 9 or 10 – comes over to talk to me. “Hello,” he says in English, smiling. “Hello,” I say back, followed by a couple more simple phrases. He shakes his head, not understanding. “Ok,” I say. And he repeats. “Ok.” He wants to learn, wants to engage me with any means of communication he can find. I give him a thumbs-up. And he lifts his hand to mimic me.

But even this – this universal symbol for a job well done – he can’t use to communicate.  His hands and feet are deformed, bent at near 90-degree angles. He walks on the side of his feet, turned inward, his legs bowed out at the knees, his arms flapping to maintain his balance. But the smile of this boy, Geng Jia (name has been changed), never leaves his face. He is boisterous and charming and eager to show us what he can do.

As Sue and Jessica stand by, Geng Jia sits on the floor and puts on his shoes – his feet not flat inside, but angled sideways. He stands to walk, leaning against the wall to stabilize himself, all the while talking away in words I can’t understand. “He’s very smart,” says Sue. “Very normal mental development.”

His foster mother tells us that he’s very independent at home – washes his clothes and face by himself. I think of what Jian told me a few days ago about Holt-sponsored foster care – how Holt teaches parents not to help children with special needs too much. In this case, help can be a disservice. They must learn to do simple tasks by themselves – to feed and clothe and bathe themselves without too much assistance – so that, ideally, they can one day live with some independence and freedom.

Despite an extraordinary will, Geng Jia will always need care. He can’t use the toilet without help, a need that keeps him from attending school. The schools serving this region don’t have the resources for children with special needs, Sue explains. And he can’t walk too far on bumpy, dangerous dirt roads.

“You remember what you said the other day?” Sue asks Jessica. “How anything’s possible?”

“Anything is possible,” Jessica says about Geng Jia’s chances for adoption. Once Jessica returns to Eugene, she will work to find homes for the children we’ve met in China, including this boy.

Every child deserves a chance to be adopted, and Holt strives to ensure that chance – by posting photos and stories of children on the Journey of Hope photolisting, featuring them in the e-newsletter and Holt International magazine. In the last 2 years, Holt matched over 600 children from China.

“Sometimes I’m surprised a family comes forward for a particular child and sometimes I’m surprised a family doesn’t come forward,” Jessica later explains. “It’s really hard to tell which children will be adopted. Sometimes it’s really quick. Sometimes it takes one year, two years.”

With every child interaction, Sue and Jessica demonstrate incredible dedication and optimism about finding them homes.

As we drive away, I see Geng Jia riding sidesaddle on bicycle handlebars, the grin having never left his face, friends or family members pushing the bike. Anything is possible, I think. Anything is possible.

by Robin Munro

At the Jilin City Social Welfare Institute – the third orphanage we’ve visited in China – the beds are empty. [...]]]> Holt Senior Writer Robin Munro is traveling with Waiting Child Manager Jessica Palmer to learn more about a new group of children in Holt’s Journey of Hope program, as well as other Holt-supported programs.

by Robin Munro

At the Jilin City Social Welfare Institute – the third orphanage we’ve visited in China – the beds are empty. Except for one tiny newborn who recently came into care, no children occupy the cribs and beds that line the rooms. It’s a lovely building – a home for the elderly, and orphaned and abandoned children, with a central atrium that lets in abundant natural light. It’s a wonderful sight, all these empty rooms – it means all the children who’ve passed through this orphanage are now in Holt-sponsored foster care, a program that serves 39 children in partnership with the welfare institute.

After a short stay when they come into care, the children occasionally visit the orphanage for physical and developmental exams, and rehabilitation training for those with special needs. But their homes are apartments and houses, where they get to experience family life.

Today, we get to meet five children in Holt sponsorship, a program that funds their clothing, food and other basic needs for 350 Chinese Remnibi, or about $55, per child per month – a cost shared equally by Holt and the Jilin City Social Welfare Institute. We enter a room – the only one emitting any sound – and find four boys in motion, bouncing on giant balls or rolling around in soft tubing, teasing each other and making faces. Two of the boys, dressed in matching striped polos and shorts, look like twins. They are foster brothers, though not related, 8 and 9-years-old – happy, hyper, outgoing boys with telltale scars on their lips from cleft lip surgery. Their foster mom tells us they are both their teachers’ favorites in their 2nd and 3rd grade classes, both very popular with other children.

I can see that right away. The older boy, Shen Ying (name has been changed), has a great sense of humor. He jokingly puts on a scarf and exaggerates his smile for the camera. I bet he’s the class clown – sharp, easily bored, requiring constant stimulation. When he lacks engaging activity, I bet he creates it, entertaining everyone in the room. I like him immediately, and think about how lucky the family is that gets to adopt him.

“He’s very confident,” his foster mother tells us. Both boys help at home, have excellent manners, and sometimes fight as brothers do, she tells us.

“Does he know anyone who’s been adopted?” asks Jessica, Holt’s Waiting Child program manager here to meet the children in hopes of finding them homes.

Through translation, he tells us he loves his foster mother very much, but knows he may be adopted someday. He’s smart. He knows what’s going on.

The Holt sponsorship program that supports these children also enables Holt to learn more about them – not just their medical and physical conditions, but also, whenever possible, about their interests, abilities, goals, even how they feel about adoption.

Holt China staff provide updates on the children’s development every 4 months, after an hour’s worth of interaction with each child. “It’s meant to send to people who sponsor the kids,” she says – the generous donors who enable boys like Shen Yen to live with a family, eat well, go to school in new clothes and carry a school bag like the one he sports now, a stylish black “Just Do It” Nike backpack.

“But we can also get access to that information for home-finding,” says Jessica, who posts photos and information about the children on Holt’s Waiting Child photolisting.

Here in China, we have the extraordinary opportunity to hear the children’s stories directly from their caregivers, and sometimes even directly from the children.

One girl we meet today can’t tell her own story – she’s only 3 and a half. We learn how she came into care, how she developed the brain damage that palsied her movements. Like so many children in China, a country that’s criminalized child abandonment, Rhu Li (name has been changed) was left out in the open for someone to find her. Because she was abandoned in winter, she nearly froze to death.

“But she didn’t give up,” explains Sue, the Holt Beijing office manager and our unofficial translator on the trip. The hospital swaddled the little girl in blankets and warmed her with hot water bottles. “Several hours later, she came back,” says Sue.

Rhu Li came back, but she will never be the same. Though born healthy, she now has Cerebral Palsy, a neurological condition that permanently affects body movement and muscle coordination.

She is a beautiful girl, with short, cropped dark hair and thick eyelashes, wet from crying for her foster mama when she leaves the room. But her crying subsides when Sue comes to comfort her– to give her affection and attention, which she’s clearly accustomed to receiving from her foster mother.

“It’s very hard for foster parents to care for children with mental problems, but most of them give very good care,” says Sue. “Before this little girl came into foster care, she could do nothing. But her foster mom trained her to stand, speak, tell colors.”

Three times per week, Rhu Li’s foster mother brings her to the welfare institute for physical therapy. She spends one half hour walking up and down stairs using a handrail, another half hour walking between two bars, and receives speech therapy. Although CP can never be cured, the therapy and training Rhu Li gets now, early in life, will help her overcome her developmental disabilities, and learn different ways of accomplishing challenging tasks.

As we leave, Shen Yen runs to hug me. I feel so honored. I feel so honored to have met all these children.

Holt Senior Writer Robin Munro is traveling with Waiting Child Manager Jessica Palmer to learn more about a new group of children in Holt’s Journey of Hope program.

Robin Munro, Senior Writer—Today, we visited a beautiful orphanage in Northern China – a place full [...]]]>

Holt Senior Writer Robin Munro is traveling with Waiting Child Manager Jessica Palmer to learn more about a new group of children in Holt’s Journey of Hope program.

Robin Munro, Senior Writer—Today, we visited a beautiful orphanage in Northern China – a place full of color and life.  Each room opened onto another group of faces – curious, apprehensive, wide-eyed faces.  Most of these children have special needs, conditions beyond which most birth families have the capacity to provide medical care – conditions like cleft lip and palate, CP, Down’s Syndrome, Spina bifida, feet and hand deformities, as well as a few cases of pneumonia.

In the first room we enter, metal barred cribs line the wall.  In each, a child sits or lays, staring at the ceiling, the wall, or nothing in particular – into middle space.   These children have some of the most severe conditions.  Most don’t seem to notice our presence in the room – don’t jump up, or cry, or reach out to us.  I walk over to one boy, who lifts his head when I touch his back.  His head is swollen from Hydrocephalus, a condition in which water gets onto the brain.  In some cases, this condition is minor and won’t interfere with the child’s life.  But this boy’s condition is serious, says Sue Liu, the Beijing office manager.  As I rub his back, he begins to smile.  When I stop, he stares at me blankly.  I gently touch him again, and his smile returns.   I ask about his chances for adoption, and Sue shakes her head with regret.  He is too sick.

We move to another room, where a big, chubby boy immediately sits up in his crib to greet us.  His expression is neutral, content.  As the caregiver reaches out to pick him up, he climbs up the bars with amazing acrobatic skill – and then I see his feet. One bends inward, the other is almost nonexistent, both red and swollen at the ankles from surgery scars.  But they don’t slow him down a bit, as he demonstrates by first standing, then walking, then practically running across the room.  When he loses his balance, he wobbles a bit, but regains it quickly and resumes the task at hand – lifting a water bottle from my camera bag, or making kissy noises in response to mine.  His right hand is also deformed – a trait I didn’t notice during our time together, but found out afterward – and he is Hepatitis B positive, a potentially life-threatening liver infection. On a list of names, his is highlighted in yellow to indicate he has special needs.  But I just see a fat, healthy baby, curious and cuddly and completely loveable.

With every child I meet, all I see is a child, and not a condition.  A little body and mind that will thrive when nurtured and loved, in the care of a devoted family. I think of Harry Holt’s inspired statement – that “every child deserves a home.”  And I’m so hopeful that these children will soon find the loving homes they deserve.

Holt Senior Writer Robin Munro is traveling with Waiting Child Manager Jessica Palmer to learn more about a new group of children in Holt’s Journey of Hope program.

Robin Munro, Senior Writer—At the Peace House in Beijing, the floor is where the action [...]]]>

Holt Senior Writer Robin Munro is traveling with Waiting Child Manager Jessica Palmer to learn more about a new group of children in Holt’s Journey of Hope program.

Robin Munro, Senior Writer—At the Peace House in Beijing, the floor is where the action is.  A ball flies at me from one direction.  From another, a baby comes crawling to investigate.  The children seem intrigued by my foreign blue eyes.  My camera.  My notebook.  My purse.  Especially my purse.

Finally, a caretaker comes to intervene.  Jhi Lin graciously accepts his defeat, and hands the bottle back.  “Xie Xie,” I say.  Thank you.  He smiles, and moves on to explore other frontiers.

Jhi Lin will turn 3 in August.  Full of life, full of moxie, he is a dark-haired, bright-eyed mischief-maker – a typical toddler.  He came to the Peace House one year ago, where he stayed while Peace House foster mother, Teresa Huangwu, raised funds for his heart surgery.  His condition was severe – a congenital heart defect that causes what’s commonly known as “blue baby syndrome.” This surgery cost over $100,000, which healed him completely – a feat accomplished by love alone.

“Teresa finds the resources to do the surgeries,” says Jian Chen, Holt’s China program director.  “It’s not her work. It’s purely out of love.”

Teresa Huangwu started her unofficial work as a foster mother after inspiration struck, eight years ago, while working as a volunteer caretaker in an orphanage.   While washing a malnourished baby with a cleft lip, she thought how much better a child could be nourished to health in a warm, cozy home environment than in a sterile institution.  A small home, where a sick child could get constant nurture from a loving caregiver.  “I just thought, ‘If we could just take the baby home and nurse him,’” she says.  “And then bring him back.”

In August of 2003, she founded the Peace House – a haven for sick children from all over China who come to Beijing for medical care.  A clean, cozy apartment cluttered with toys, the Peace House is just that: a peaceful place of healing and nurture.  Its location in Beijing is critical – it enables the children to get the best medical care in the country.  After surgery, they stay here until their condition stabilizes – until they are ready for adoption.

That’s a deal-breaker, says Teresa.  She takes on the tremendous responsibility of fundraising for surgeries – even matching donor funds – and provides care for as long as it takes the children to recover, all on one condition.  “My only requirement is [that Holt] submits adoption paperwork,” she says.  She hesitates sending children back to orphanages that may not submit adoption applications to the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs as fast as possible, leaving the kids she’s helped to languish in institutional care.

Because of Holt’s proven success adopting children with special needs, especially those with more involved medical conditions like Jhi Lin’s heart defect, Teresa has come to rely on Holt to find homes for children in her care.  From a mantelpiece lined with photos – all former Peace House children now with forever families – she selects a framed picture of a little boy Holt placed.

“I matched that child!” exclaims Jessica Palmer, Holt’s Waiting Child program manager, from where she’s sitting on the floor playing with a chubby baby in a blue jumpsuit.

Of the 8 children currently staying at the Peace House, Holt referred 4 – 2 babies in Holt-sponsored care, down from Northern China’s Jilin province for cleft lip surgery; the chubby 9-month-old that captured Jessica’s attention; and Jhi Lin.  “When she first came here, he was very, very skinny,” Teresa says of the 9-month-old girl.  After 3 months at the Peace House, she shows no signs of malnutrition.  Her cleft lip surgery has also helped her to become the healthy, rolly-polly girl she now is; defects such as cleft lips create feeding problems for infants – they can’t suck on a nipple.  Six months of age is when they usually receive their first surgery.

The cost and urgency of the children’s surgeries – from under $10,000 for a cleft lip to over $100,000 for a heart problem like Jhi Lin’s – is one reason Teresa only cares for 8 children at a time.  “When you have 50 kids, you don’t know how to raise the money [for the surgeries],” says Teresa.  “And some of these kids can’t wait, especially the heart problems.”

Even if she had the resources, she’d rather create another group home than expand the Peace House.  Even with 8 children, Teresa and her caregivers have their hands full.  Teresa bounces from one child to the next – feeding, wiping, carrying, playing – with what seems like boundless energy.  She is slender, dressed in nurse’s white, a constant, natural smile on her face.  She’s a spitfire – has two Master’s degrees, one from the University of Oregon in special education, the other in education psychology, a field she worked in for 10 years.

“She’s very busy and has been working like that for 8 years,” says Jian.  “It’s amazing.  I was touched by somebody doing this out of their heart for so long.”

Nearing 60, Teresa could retire if she wants.  Originally, the Peace House was only supposed to be a 3-year gig.  But every year, she just says, ‘one more year.’  She hopes Holt will gradually take over more of the responsibilities.  At present, Holt refers children to Teresa, helps pay for surgeries when possible, and perhaps most importantly, finds forever families for the children – children whose conditions were once so severe, their chances for adoption were slim.  Teresa’s efforts and generosity, as well as her alliance with Holt and other donors, make adoption not just a possibility, but a likelihood for hundreds of children.

“All she wants is to help one child at a time,” says Jian.  “She is close to 60.  Most people [at her age] would sit comfortably and sip the tea, but she puts out her heart and soul for the children.”

Robin Munro, Senior Writer

Wuxi, [...]]]> Holt Senior Writer Robin Munro is traveling with Waiting Child Manager Jessica Palmer to learn more about a new group of children in Holt’s Journey of Hope program. On her first day in country, she met 3 of these beautiful children.  The following is her thoughts on this meaningful day.

Robin Munro, Senior Writer

Wuxi, Jiangsu, China—Today, we arrived in a town called Wuxi, in the south China province of Jiangsu. We are here to meet a group of children the Chinese Center of Adoption Affairs, or CCAA, designated Holt to find families for. They are all children in Holt’s Journey of Hope program– a special program for older children, or children with special needs in southern China.

On our first night, we meet three children. Their orphanage is in Zhenjiang, a great distance from Wuxi. But the caregivers know traveling to meet us will heighten the children’s chances to be adopted. Here, Waiting Child Program Manager Jessica Palmer will interview the children, assess their conditions and post their pictures on Holt’s photolisting, in hopes of finding them families.

*Yan Lin is 12. She is tall, in shorts and a T-shirt, a Mickey Mouse button on her yellow Crocs shoes. She seems shy among strangers. When summoned, though, she quickly snuggles up to Sue Liu, the young, sweet-faced manager of the Holt office in Beijing. In care since she was a baby, Yan Lin was born with a minor condition which made it difficult to control her bowels.  She underwent surgery to correct this condition.  Now healed, she is more confident in school. She wants to be a teacher, like her favorite caregivers. She feels discouraged when children find families. And fears for the day she turns 14, when she will no longer be eligible for adoption.

*Yan Bing is almost 5. He likes to pose for pictures – to throw up his hands as though about to summit a roller coaster ride, a big open grin on his face. He climbs on Sue’s lap and makes himself at home there, stealing her bracelets to try on his wrists.He is adorable, and seems perfectly healthy. When Yan Bing came into care – as an infant – his head was swollen from communicating hydrocephalus; he had water on his brain. Now, his symptoms are gone. He has developed into a healthy, high-energy charmer of a child. I can’t imagine he will stay in care much longer, and feel confident about his future.

The third child we meet is named *Guo Bai. He is only a couple months younger than Yan Bing, his closest friend in the world. Both boys came into care as babies, around the same time, and grew up together in the orphanage. They play together throughout the evening, jumping like monkeys on the hotel bed and tumbling over one another with the comfort of brothers. In development and personality, though, they are very different. Guo Bai has little stubs where his ears should be, and hears very little. Because of his ear deformities, he learns slower. While Yan Bing is in his second year of school outside of the orphanage, Guo Bai is still in the orphanage preschool. I hope they both find families, as well as Yan Lin. I hope their journey of hope ends in fulfillment – ends in a family.

On this, my first night, I’ve met three children I can’t forget. But it’s just the beginning. Tomorrow, I will meet over 40 more – children who’ve journeyed from all over this broad, steamy province in southern China in hopes of finding a family.

*names changed

More information, including videos and photos, will be available for this group of Journey of Hope children in the weeks to follow.  Click here to view other children in Holt’s Journey of Hope program still in need of families.