Sunny

This week we want to tell you about “Sunny!” Sunny is a shy and quiet 12 year old girl in our Journey of Hope program. She is in 4th grade and her favorite subjects are Chinese and English. She likes basketball and running. She rides her bike 20 minutes to school every day and last year ran in a marathon!

Sunny participated in another Journey of Hope program last year and was sad that she didn’t find a family. She has been with a foster family for six years now. Her foster mother describes her as kind and loving, likes to share, and help with housework. She says that Sunny saves her money for donating. Sunny has a mild intellectual delay due to hydrocephalus and a brain tumor which was repaired about eight years ago. Sunny also loves arts and crafts and brought several of her handicrafts to show us.

If you’d like to learn more about Sunny or any of our other Journey of Hope children, please go to our website at: http://www.ftia.org/waitingchildren/JOHList.asp Families that currently have active applications with FTIA can see all the files of the Journey of Hope children and the Special Focus children by joining the JOH Yahoo group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FTIA-JOH. If you aren’t currently active with FTIA, just fill out and fax us an application (with no fees) and once received, we will send you an invitation to join the Yahoo group.

Alex

Alex was the biggest giggler of all the Journey of Hope kids! His favorite game with the doctors was to take their equipment and walk away with it – waiting for them to catch him. Give this boy a retractable tape measure and he could laugh for hours! There is ashort clip of him available here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFCxbAq3Ca8&NR=1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFCxbAq3Ca8&NR=1>Alex lives with hydrocephalus. Alex has had no treatment for this condition up to this point. However, he has no limitations. In fact, he is at or above target in most areas when compared to children his age.He is 4 years old and has good muscle tone and reflexes. He interacts well and is extroverted.To learn more about the Journey of Hope program, please go to our website at:http://www.ftia.org/waitingchildren/JOHList.asphttp://www.ftia.org/waitingchildren/JOHList.asp> Families do no tneed to officially apply with FTIA to review the Journey of Hope children's files – they only need to fax us a completedapplication in order that we can determine their eligibility to adopt.

Sean

This week we feel compelled to tell you about Sean. It’s hard to describe Sean in just a few words! His has the best personality and we all believe that he will do great things as an adult. He is a bright 11 year old, in 4th grade and his favorite subject is computer. He enjoys reading about science and technology and his favorite sport is soccer. Sean’s personality fills a room! He is great with the younger kids and was nicknamed the “Little Director” because he was keeping them all in line for their program. Sean was disappointed last year when he participated in another Journey of Hope program but did not find a family. He wants to live in America because everyone has a house! He has been in a foster family for 4 years but desperately wants a forever family - maybe with an older brother and sister. Sean was born with cleft lip and palate and has had surgery for both. He may need some reconstruction and some dental work; however, his speech is excellent and he liked practicing his English on us! Part of our interview with Sean can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT-hJiasqe4&feature=channel.

Sean and Natalie (featured last week) are great friends and we hope that they will both find families that will let them stay in contact. Sean was often found “coaching” Natalie while we were interviewing her!

Natalie

This week, we’d like to tell you more about the girl we nicknamed as “Natalie.” Natalie is a beautiful 11 year old girl, who just doesn’t realize how beautiful she truly is. Natalie was born with a cleft lip and palate. She had palate surgery done at the age of 5 and 7, so didn’t learn to speak clearly. Because of this, Natalie is not comfortable speaking and is very shy. Natalie seemed very curious about us though as I noticed her most of the time we were there – just barely on the outskirts of most activities. Natalie does very well in school and is currently in 6th grade. She has taken some English but is not confident enough to try to speak it. She has been with a foster family for 10 years and they report that she is very helpful with housework and has a gentle and clever personality.
Natalie says that reading makes her happy as well as playing ping pong. She also said she would like to have some siblings! Once home, Natalie will probably need some cosmetic work on her lip as well as some dental work. You can see Natalie at the beginning of this Video
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg8rJJ-_dUM&feature=channel). To learn more about Natalie or the process for the Journey of Hope files, please go to the Journey of Hope page on our website.

Article on Journey of Hope

Please be sure to read the Journey of Hope article in our current FTIA Newsletter by going to:

http://www.ftia.org/newsletter/index.asp?set=453&all=37&step=no

Towards the bottom of the page, there is also a link to a pdf poster that you can print out and post at your local church, library, place of business, or anywhere you can think of that would help get the word out.

Thanks for your support!

The Files Are Up!!!

We know you've been waiting to see and hear about all of the beautiful children we met during our program. Finally, you can see a photo and a short description about each child by going to our webpage at: http://www.ftia.org/waitingchildren/JOHList.asp

You will also find a description on how the process for adopting one of these children works.

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.