This boy...our boy. He is an amazing child already and we can make a difference in his life. Sometimes it's hard to fathom that there are so many children out there, so many that we can't get to every single one of them. I have read in other adoption blogs and stories about families that have traveled to finally bring their child home and it's then that they have the full realization of just how many children there are who won't be going home. It's one thing to see it on paper or to review many, many files of available orphaned children. It's another thing, I imagine, to actually go and see their faces, hundreds of them, looking at you when you go to pick up "the one" child that you have worked for months to bring home. There are so many ways to help. Funding programs for better orphanage care or sponsoring specific children, so they may receive special medical care that their orphanage might not be able to otherwise provide, are among just a few ways. I like to think that I can make a difference in the life of one child. I can make a big difference. There are so many children...I can't change their plight by myself. But I can change the life of one boy and it will make a difference for him...and for us.
We first knew about YP (I can't use his Chinese name until we get our official referral from China) last February. February 23rd to be exact. It was a Sunday and I was talking to my good friend SB at church. She and her husband had just brought home two beautiful boys from China (ages 6 and 8) the previous August and they had been home now for a little over six months and were doing just great! She knew we had been looking at different files of children from China that our adoption agency had acquired. She mentioned that she knew of a ten year old boy in the same orphanage where one of her sons was from. This boy (our boy) was ten years old and had been waiting for a permanent family for his whole life. He came in to orphanage care at 5 months of age. She was advocating for him because of a friend whom we now know, that lives in China and has volunteered at this particular orphanage for many years. This special lady is amazing and advocates for many children who need families. She is an American who has lived in China for many years and has been able to volunteer weekly at this orphanage all that time. She knows the children well, and has been able to help connect children with families by advocating for them in many ways including through social media.
Anyway, SB told me he was a wonderful boy who loved school and her son remembered that he was nice to the other children all the time. Initially, my thought was that we hadn't really considered a ten year old and were looking at children younger than our youngest who was five at the time. We talked a bit more and that was all. The next evening SB posted on a local Facebook adoption advocacy group that I am a member of about this particular boy. Strangely, the very first thing that I noticed was his birthday. It's in January. All of our family members have birthdays in a different month of the year, so that leaves four months with no birthday celebrations. I would always kid around saying that we would know when we found our son or daughter because their birthday would have to be in one of those four open months, so they could have their own month too. (I was kidding...really.) But anyway, January was open and it crossed my mind for a second, so I clicked on the post and saw his picture for the first time. He is such a handsome boy and I became more and more interested as I found out more about him. All of a sudden, it didn't matter that he was ten and we were looking for a five year old. Something told me it was right and it would work. That was the beginning of a journey that has lead us to where we are now.
I was able to contact SB's American friend in China (TW). She sent me several photos of YP and shared so many wonderful details and stories about him and his growing up years. She put me in touch with one of her adult daughters who LOVED to visit and play with YP when she was a teenager and living there in China with her family. She has since moved to the US and started a family of her own, but she was able to give us a glimpse into YP's young life and also send us some wonderful pictures of him as a baby and toddler from when she used to play with him at the orphanage. When he was two, a program called Half the Sky came to his orphanage (halfthesky.org). It is an amazing organization founded in 1998 by a California woman after she and her husband adopted two little girls from China. Over the years they have been able to make a huge impact on orphan care in China by providing much needed training to the caregivers and nurturers of these children. So when YP was two years old, Half the Sky began something called a Family Village at his orphanage and he was able to go live with an "imitating family" or foster family. Not all children have this opportunity, but he has been very fortunate to have grown up outside of institution walls and know what a family is like. TW tells me that his foster mother is a sweet and caring woman who has a heart of gold. He has foster siblings as well, although all of them are from the orphanage and not related to each other. He even has the opportunity to attend normal school, and not the school at the orphanage which is a big blessing for him. We feel like we were led to him and he is just right for our family. I remember Dr. G saying several years ago, "When it's the right child, we will know." I knew it....it didn't take me very long. Like two days. Dr. G took more time to assimilate all the information and adjust to the idea of having an older child instead of a four or five year old like we originally planned. Experience and our adoption training and knowing people and stories of people who have adopted older children gave us a lot of information to digest and consider. It took a few months, but we eventually submitted our paperwork into our agency to formally request for a pre-approval for this sweet boy. That took place in April and by June we had pre-approval from China which means we were able to now move forward with gathering all of the needed information and paperwork for our dossier (file) to be sent to China, and getting everything in for our Homestudy. It's a long process and one that takes even longer if you have a busy life filled with all kinds of stuff like we do. But we were able to get through it, and now are almost at the end of that road, so we can wrap everything up by the year's end.
We think about him everyday. The kids ask about him and what he is doing and include him in their conversations. Our youngest "Little Bro" turned six last week, and specifically asked for TWO nerf guns so that when YP gets here, they can play together. Our girls helped finish up the Christmas decorations last night and hung an extra stocking on the fireplace for him. It was so cute. Next Christmas, he will be here and life will be very different I imagine....mostly for this sweet boy who will finally have a forever family to love him.
