Portion for Orphans Newsletter

December 4, 2005

"What you do in this life echoes for all eternity." -- Gladiator

"For God regards more with how much affection and love a person performs a work than how much he does." -- Thomas A. Kempis

Dear Portion for Orphans Friends,

It is such a pleasure to sit and write to you all each week about this ministry to orphans that you are taking part in with us in whatever way you've chosen. I wish that each one of you could be here, seeing and learning about the children, and watching the portion that you have set aside accomplish great things. We have already donated $1000 towards the medical expenses of the children at China Care and I have decided to give a bit more. 100% goes directly to the medical expenses of China Care children who have been brought from other orphanages for medical attention. All other China Care expenses are taken care of by private donations and fundraising so that our contribution goes directly to the children themselves. Thanks for working with us as we visit orphans and strive to improve the care that they receive.

We have now been working with China Care for 3 weeks. We spent the first two weeks with the children in Beijing, and this past Monday I took a 10 hour night train, with two other girls who are working here, to Taiyuan, China. That is a smaller city southwest of Beijing where we visited the children at the first China Care orphanage. There are 27 children there and 8 others who have been set in China Care foster programs. All of the children at China Care orphanages have some sort of special medical need, mainly cleft lip, pallet or face, heart problems, club feet, spina bifida, and one, 2 year old Xiao Hong, who is suffering severely from water on his brain. That little boy really made us stop and think about our lives, about suffering and about how blessed we are to be healthy. He received surgery but his condition has only gotten worse. We spent time holding many babies, learning about their disabilities, their needs, the care they are currently receiving, and in what ways we can be of help. One thing I see here that I've not yet seen anywhere is that each child has a photo posted with their name and birthday on it, and each one has their own baby album, we spent some time decorating those. I look forward to sharing that idea with other orphanages.

While we were in Taiyuan, a small baby named Li Jie was brought to China Care from a state orphanage. They estimated her age to be between 5 and 8 months, her weight was 4 lbs. due to malnutrition in the orphanage. She died at the hospital before we even returned.

We will spend the coming week with the children in Beijing, the infants, the toddlers and those who are in the foster care programs. I'll be helping the foster care teacher this week, teaching English lessons and sharing some new ideas with her. We are planning to take a few of the children to a nearby indoor swimming pool (heated of course since we just received this year's first snow), and we invited the music group from the African Church service that we attended this morning to come and play some music one afternoon for all the kids... so this week should be interesting and full of smiles. :-)

Thanks again for joining us as we reach out to orphans around the world and strive to learn more about what we, together, can do to improve their care. Please help us to increase awareness and to work together to help them, a few at a time. If you have any ideas or are interested in helping in any way, we'd love to hear about it. If you would like to hear more about our trip when it's over, please let us know and we'll do what we can to come and share about what we're learning. As for now, check out our website www.portionfororphans.org for more info about what we're doing and why. If you have any questions about any aspect of our trip, feel free to ask. It's great to hear from those who are supportive of what we're doing.

We thank you and our Heavenly Father for hearing your prayer requests on our behalf. May He be glorified in all that we do as He is our strength and our portion. He is more than faithful in every way and we are dependent on Him each day.

• Praises ~ For safety, For visa extensions without problems, For a church to attend, For all that China Care is accomplishing, For opportunities and openness all around us. :-)
• Requests ~ For babies like Li Jie, For greater awareness, compassion and care for orphans around the world, and For greater freedom of religion in China.

The kids in China Care's Foster program doing an afternoon activity with pipe cleaners and beads that we brought from the states.

Tian Qiang working on a bracelet to go with his neclace.

Little Paul who is precious but unable to hear.

Tian Shuong working on making her heart stand up.

One of the baby albums.

Gui Lu and Sally spending time together, they said that we look alike. :)

Gui Lu making progress towards his first step. :)