A Little More About The Orphanage

The Yongfeng Orphanage is by far the nicest building in the community. The plot of land it sits on is fully fenced, with a nice brick courtyard that includes a large, plastic play structure for the kids. Interestingly, there is a large silver statue in the middle of the courtyard with an American-looking man holding a baby. Upon entering the orphanage we had to take off our shoes and slip on some flip-flops for walking around inside the orphanage. My toes and heels hung off the front and back of my flip-flips because there are not a lot of people with size 10.5 feet in China. The floors of the orphanage were polished tile - all very clean and impressive looking. As adoptive parents, we were obligated to give a gift of $3000 to the orphanage. That is 24,000 yuan, which would be a respectable annual salary for a worker in China. Guide Sally told us that this is the cleanest orphanage that she's ever seen. This made us all feel a little better, not just because it gave us some comfort knowing that Ming was initially raised in a nice environment, but also to know that the Chinese government was using the gift money to keep the standards high at the orphanage.

In spite of those observations, you couldn't help but feel sad about these little children. There were a couple that were 3-4 years old. One had hapatitus B, another had a slight mental handicap. The orphanage tends to keep the healthy babies as a general rule, and works to find foster parents for the higher maintenance special needs kids.

I sat down on the floor at one point to play with a little baby girl, and a couple of others scooted over to see what was going on. I wish I could have scooped up a couple more to bring home. As nice as the orphanage is, it is no substitute for a Mommy and a Daddy. Linda said it well: "Even though it is clean and the nannies do a good job caring for the kids, it's like being in day care 24 hours a day."

The good news in the midst of all these orphaned Chinese girls is that China is proactive with the situation. It is a very complex situation and there are no easy answers, but is a credit to the Chinese government that they opened the doors to international adoption in 1992. The process, although time consuming, is relatively smooth and safe. Much credit in our experience so far goes to Small World Adoptions and Kathy Storro. We are grateful for their commitment to serve families like ours, and their passionate labors "For His Children."