Recap of Journey of Hope Program

I can’t even begin to put into words the experiences we’ve had on this Journey. The past few days were very long, emotional days, but we were able to gather invaluable information on the children – information that we never would have gotten from just viewing their paper files. Although we saw many special needs from minor to major, we saw one thing in common with all the children – they all need and want a family.

The first day of the program began with speeches to kick off the ceremonies. FTIA presented a slide show to explain to the children how we find families and what life is like in the US. Next, the children participated in individual and group performances. After lunch, we were able to individually interview, videotape, and complete a medical and social evaluation on most of the children. It was invaluable having Drs. Keck and Champley with us to examine each child. Today, the closing day of the program, we were able to finish our evaluations of the children and just have some good play time that included lots of physical contact. The closing ceremony was an emotional one, filled with promises of doing everything possible to help these children find their forever families.

We were able to go beyond the 31 children originally assigned to us and saw 9 additional children, as well as several others at the Nantong SWI. It seemed as though there was always just one more child that the orphanage staff wanted us to see.

We feel very privileged to have participated in this program, yet very humbled by the task ahead of us. Just before leaving, one little girl asked us “What are you going to do for me?” Our response was “We are going back to America and try to find a family for you.” The girl’s response was “How are you going to contact me? I don’t have a cell phone – I knew I should have gotten a cell phone.”

If you are reading this post, we know you must have an interest in adoption. Even if you aren’t in a position to adopt, please help us help these children find families by getting the word out. Come back to this blog soon as we will be posting information on these children upon our return.