The SFCV Journal

Leah had done such a great job updating our site, we know many of you had grown to love and expect her posts.  As you probably know, she has returned to the US to care for family and pursue graduate studies.

So, after a few months without your treasured updates, we are just about ready to resume.  We have interns and new team members working on updated information on all of our kids and our website content is about to get a major update as well.

Please stay tuned…We promise it will be worth the wait!

Our dear sweet Stacey-girl, who recently turned 19, is in the hospital for another surgery, due to the extensive burn scars on much of her body.  She’s had expanders on her abdomen & neck, creating new skin for her face and arm, for nearly five months.  Please pray for a special peace to descend.  She’s done this before, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t scary.  For the doctor’s wisdom, especially as they possibly attach her hand to her abdomen.  And for a quick and pure healing.  She is such a delight, and we miss seeing her around the village.

They sang some songs.  Then we sang some sangs.  All in our first ever hangout in the new Outreach Center.  A big THANK YOU to Penny’s Gang for spending the day with us!  They were a great encouragement to our staff and lots of fun for our kids.

Walter

We’ve had three new arrivals in the last two weeks, and Walter is the second smallest at one month.   He was born with an imperforate anus, and though he has already had a surgery for a colostomy, he will need further surgery in the future.  If you are interested in sponsoring Walter, please contact our sponsorship coordinator at Desiray.Christen@ChinaOrphans.org.

I am so thankful for our precious nannies!

Truth be told, two-year-old Rae Anne used to be a bit of a grouch.  If anyone entered her House of Peace living room that she didn’t approve of, she’d start glaring and whining to her nanny.  But, it wasn’t a fearful cry as much as it was an annoyed cry.  When she was moved to House of Love last fall with her nanny, Rae Anne’s grouchy little personality was transformed, and in its place is a good-tempered little girl with a strong dose of silliness. And while she still doesn’t like visitors, she is curious about them.  She’ll wander up behind them, trying to appear uninterested, and if they look at her, she’ll keep walking by.  But if they don’t notice her, she’ll stand by them for awhile, as if she’s trying to figure them out.  If you can catch on to her little game, you’ll be rewarded with a huge smile and infectious giggle.

I love Mariah’s story, too, because visiting her today, you would not recognize the desperately sad little girl that arrived last summer.  For days after arriving, she would make no eye contact, letting the nannies dress her and just sitting quietly on her own, staring down at the floor.  Though we knew about her heart condition and had been told she was deaf, we were a little surprised to find she also had a cleft palate and rotted out teeth.  After a week, three-year-old Mariah was looking up more and engaging her nannies and housemates.  And in that week, the nannies were surprised to discover that she was not deaf: she had no problem hearing when lunch was called or when the nannies said her name.   And they say her name a lot, as this bundle of energy and smiles is prone to becoming super excited and running around like a crazy girl. In the best possible way.  : )

Dawn has spunk, and nearly as much as the women she was named for.  At eight months old, she loves the bouncy chair and being sung to while bouncing in her nanny’s lap.  Her cleft lip has been fixed, and hopefully sometime this summer, we can move to repairing her cleft palate.

I posted a couple of new albums on our Picasa site yesterday: http://picasaweb.google.com/PhilipHaydenFoundation.  I’ll try to get a few more up next week, and someone asked for videos of their sponsored kids.  We can’t do that for every kid, but I will try to post some “by house” videos in the next week or so: http://www.youtube.com/user/chinaorphans.

Thank you for loving on our kids!

I love these little monkeys trying to escape from their cage, or what we adults like to call “safeguards!” Mich, Adam, Charlotte & Evan are led by their fearless three-year-old leader, Christopher (center).

Tiffany

Luke

Since I returned from home leave, I’ve been meaning to write about the kids who started walking in December.  Mostly because three of the kids, Luke, Ginger & Tiffany Mei-mei, are fragile heart babies living in Samaritan’s House.  This is a far bigger deal for me, I think, than the nannies.  I like to think it’s because they’ve been helping the kids learn to walk, but their glances at my cheers are always a little, “Most babies walk eventually, Leah.  You don’t have to applaud & scream every time.”

But, as true as this may be, these are some terribly fragile kids who are WALKING!  Ginger just successfully came through a hernia surgery, and she has heart surgery planned for May.  Luke, until a few months ago, looked uncomfortable even just sitting for the pressure of his bad heart.  And Mei-mei, at four, just began pulling herself and taking steps.  The blueness of her skin is discouraging, and there is nothing the doctors can do for her heart, but she pulled herself up anyway.

It’s these small celebrations that I love about day-to-day life in the village.

Our babies don’t get chubby all on their own; it takes a pretty steady diet of formula to make that happen.  And chubby do they get!  Within months, our smallest are transformed into rolly-poly chubness.  But in the last few weeks, the price of formula has significantly jumped, and in the last few months, the number of babies in our home has jumped by nine. We need some help.

If you know of anyone coming to the Beijing area who could bring in regular or soy formula for our children’s village, we’d much appreciate it.  Our staff & drivers are in Beijing often enough, we can even send someone in to pick it up.  We prefer the Nestle brand (in China) but any brand from the West is appreciated.  This need will be current through at least June.  Though we can purchase regular formula here, soy formula needs to be brought in from the West.

Another need, though not quite as dire, is for XL diapers.  We have an amazing team in Hong Kong that started a Hong Kong PHF Diaper Club, and they help supply our diapers each month.  We are forever grateful, especially as the nannies’ salaries, prices for food, and medical care has all risen in the last few months.  It has greatly alleviated our house budgets to cover those increases.  But, their company doesn’t make XL diapers.  We have some larger children, mostly House of Love kids like Judah & Xander, who still need diapers.   Again, if you know of anyone coming in who could help us purchase XL diapers, we’d much appreciate it!

UPDATE (2009.03.05): We use NESTLE or LACTOGEN brands for formula.  SOY is more difficult to get in China, but at this time, we can use both regular and soy.  Apparently there is more than one size for XL; size 6 (16+ kg) would be helpful.  Thank you!