A Great Need: Children in China and Taiwan with Down Syndrome

Happy National Adoption month! Let's start this month off right! We have an exciting announcement to make! 

Superkids spent the month of October in Taiwan and China. We traveled to over a dozen cities to see more than 200 adoptable children. The final trip will take Superkids to Guizhou for a week over the Thanksgiving holiday, to update files for children who were formerly on the ‘shared list’. As Gladney staff and volunteers return home, the hearts and minds of the teams collectively reflect and wonder and hope. We hope that there are families for these children we have met.

Over the past month we cuddled, chased, and developmentally screened close to 60 children who have Down Syndrome.

As National Adoption Month begins, we would like to announce that a portion of funds in Gladney Center’s Asia Adoption Support Fund will be made available to parents adopting a child with Down Syndrome through Gladney Center.  Grants will be in the amount of $4,000 for children who are matched with parents who have completed their Gladney Application.

The grant will be applied to offset program fees due after home study approval and after the official child referral has been signed.  Families who complete their applications between now and February 1, 2017, are eligible to apply for this grant.  

For more information, please contact Wendy.stanley@gladney.org. 

Update for Sierra!

We got to see Sierra while we were in China earlier this month. Oh my! What a sweetheart! She is 5 years old and is blind. She loves to be held and stroked softly.

She is in foster care and seems to have a close, trusting relationship with her foster mom.

She walks using a walker or if someone holds both of the hands. She is just so cute pushing her little walker around! I want to see her learn to live independently in a family!

She needs a family who will help her thrive! Could sweet Sierra be your daughter? She has a $5,000 private grant available! Please help us find her family by sharing her posts!

 Please contact April Uduhiri at april.uduhiri@gladney.org for more information about Sierra!

The Information

When we arrive home form a trip to China or Taiwan we have so much information! We saw hundreds of children in the weeks we were there. We have a sheet detailing our time spent with them for each one. We have thousands of photos. I took 4, 175 photos in the two weeks I was there and 320 videos. Each of these must be edited and placed in the correct child's folder. Then the information sheets, the photos, and the videos all need to be uploaded to Dropbox. That's a whole lotta uploading!

So we start with the matched families because we know that after waiting for the two weeks we were there then for us to get the information to them they feel as if they are  dying a slow, painful death. Believe me, I have been on the waiting end. It is torture! So we start there.

Then it is time for the information updates for the children we are currently advocating for. It is so fun to have new information, photos, and videos that you know could make this child stand out and be seen by their family! So watch for the updated blog posts over the next couple of weeks! Children like Lyle, Lorelei, and Sierra will have all new blog posts!

We continue to organize our information so that it is all there as files come in throughout the coming weeks and months until we go again.

It is a privilege and an honor to be trusted with all of this for all of these children!

Taiwan Match!

We are so thrilled to announce that sisters Dakota and Delia are matched! We’ve been advocating for these awesome girls for a while, and met them during our Superkids trip earlier this month and in May. The opportunity for Superkids to meet these sisters and advocate for them is what eventually found them their forever family.

Our fingers are crossed that the remaining process will move quickly and seamlessly so that these girls can be home soon!

The Ones We Didn't See

We are home again and working through jet lag and the normal fog of re-entry into our everyday lives. We have hundreds of forms and videos and thousands of pictures that we are organizing in order to get them out to families waiting for updates and to use for advocacy.

I'm excited to have new information and pictures to share, but I'm not quite ready to move forward with that.

First I need to acknowledge something beautiful that I thought about over and over as we visited orphanage after orphanage. There were children we didn't see this time because they are not there any more. They are home. Home with their families, where they belong.

 I think of Landon, Samson,  Levi, Chrystal, Suzannah, and many others. These are children who have been seen by Superkids many times, but they don't need us anymore.

This is why we do what we do. These are children who don't have a voice. We give them that voice. Sometimes they advocate for themselves and we merely give them the platform through which their voice can be heard. Landon was one of the most amazing self advocates we have ever met. He knew he wanted and needed a family and he expressed himself so well!

It is a sacred responsibility. Every trip we meet children who are just waiting for a family to see them for who they really are and to take that step to bring them home. This trip was no exception.

By next trip there will be more children who are not there because they are at home. We will take more care packages and show children pictures of their families for the first time. We will keep on speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves.

It is what keeps us going. The ones who aren't there because they are HOME!

Ningbo

We weren't able to blog last night due to poor internet speed, but I don't want to miss blogging about the wonderful day we had at the Enmei orphanage! It was such a great way to end our time seeing children for this trip. Between giving packages to the matched children and seeing sweet little familiar faces and meeting new children it was just perfect.

One of the new little girls we met

Almost right away in the morning little Noah came in! He is walking well and his sweet little smile makes everyone around him smile too.

I think Noah looks happy to see his Mama!

Neil getting his care package

Nick seeing Mama and Baba's picture

Nikki was just a cute and sweet as ever. I am just in awe of how determined she is to do what she wants to do and how joy filled she is!

We were all very happy to see that Nancy still loves warm hugs!

Later in the afternoon Andy came in with his endearing grin. I can't even tell you how my heart sings at the thought of him thriving in a family. He obviously knows us and gave Darla a big hug as he was leaving.

Something funny happened at the end of the day. On Thursday evening Melissa was WeChatting photos of cakes to Darla so that Darla could show them to her daughter. Rocky saw all of the cake pictures being sent to Darla and assumed that it must be Darla's birthday. So he had one of the college students who helped us with translation buy Darla a cake. Part way through the day he needed to purchase a train ticket for Darla and saw in her passport that her birthday is not until December! We already had the cake, so we had a birthday party for Darla anyway! We sang and ate cake and took pictures. It was fabulous! Darla said it was the best birthday ever. She got cake but didn't turn a year older!

What a fun way to end our time together!

Connection

Connection is one of those words that adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents use and think about a lot. Before you meet your child it may be one of your biggest questions. Will my child be able to form a connection, a bond with their new family? Will they have received enough love to keep their little hearts open to be able to give and receive love?

Today we witnessed ample evidence of connection. We were in the Jing Hai foster care center near Tainjin. Most of the children were brought in by their foster parents. We saw it in the pictures and videos we were shown by proud foster moms. We saw it as we watched the care that was being given as the children waited for their turn to be seen. We saw it in the smiles and laughter at the children's antics. We saw it in facial expressions.

Did we see some difficult things today? Of course we did! These children need a permanent loving home where they can receive medical care and the therapies they need. They need parents who adore them and are committed to them for life!

But today our hearts were lightened by the good we saw.