Archie’s Adoption
In 2017, an eight-day-old newborn named Archie joined our Cambodia foster care program. He was handed to wonderful foster parents who were already fostering two older children. Quickly, Baby Archie won their hearts, and the entire family found themselves in love with this precious baby boy.
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Three Brothers, Together Again in Foster Care
For a young child, the gift of a loving family is truly invaluable. In a perfect world, every child would be able to be raised within their biological family, but that is, unfortunately, not always a viable option. In these instances, the role of foster care becomes key. A loving foster care family provides stability, love, and a feeling of belonging for children whose biological families are no longer living or who are unable to provide for them due to any number of circumstances.
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A Snapshot of Orphan Care in India
This week, we have set a goal to find 20 additional sponsors for our foster care program in India. This program has been a dream of LWB’s since 2016 because we believe so fully that every child deserves a family. India has one of the largest populations of children in orphanage care, so expansion of our successful foster care program here from other countries was a definite goal.
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Celebrating National Adoption Month with Two Adoptions
This past week, we slipped right into the month of November and National Adoption Month in the most beautiful of ways — with not one but TWO adoptions! Both Gage and Connie have been part of LWB programs since they were just tiny babies, and now both have left our care to meet their permanent families.
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Helping Others, One Smile At A Time
Julia Decker is on a mission — a mission to help others like her. Born in China with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, Julia lived in an orphanage for the first three and a half years of her life. An anonymous donor sponsored her lip surgery, which she feels was a catalyst to her getting adopted. “If I had not received this amazing gift, I might still be living in an orphanage and not with my amazing family.” Julia is now dedicated to helping other children born into the same circumstances.
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Gabby Gives Back
Sixteen years ago, Gabby McElwain was born in China and then taken to an orphanage. LWB had recently set up foster care in her city, and we were very happy when she could move into a wonderful foster family instead of being confined to an orphanage crib. For over a year, she experienced the love of a family who cared for and cherished her.
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Realistic Expectations: Post-Adoption Struggles
We hope you have enjoyed our series on “Realistic Expectations” and wanted to end today by discussing the realities of post-adoption emotions. If you have found yourself standing in China becoming a parent, chances are it has been the culmination of a many year process of deciding that adoption is right for your family, paperchasing, and then waiting endlessly for the moment you meet your child. And then everyone is supposed to go off into the sunshine to live happily ever after, right? With so many adoption blogs talking about love at first sight and how wonderful those first few months together are, new parents can feel blindsided when they find themselves with an angry child who seems to hate them, or when they return home and have very intense feelings of “what have we done?”
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Realistic Expectations: Clothing
When I was waiting to adopt my first child from China in 1999, I read story after story in online forums about the infamous “clothing police” I was sure to encounter on my adoption trip. I was warned about grannies who would come up and yell at me or wag their fingers if my child-to-be wasn’t covered from head to toe even if I thought the outside air temperature seemed fine. Well, now I can say that many of the clothing police are women I greatly admire. They are devoted foster moms and grandmas and orphanage nannies who have watched far too many children over the years struggle with issues like pneumonia and fevers when they fall sick.
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