Great need for families to adopt boys from China

After you read what I write, please click on the link at the bottom to read a really informative blogger post about current trends in adoptions from China. It sheds light on a great deal.

Many people don't realize how many boys wait to be adopted from China. The problem is, the orphanage directors assume that Americans prefer to adopt boys when actually the reverse is true (only 35% are willing to adopt boys right now roughly.) So, the orphanage directors put more boy files on the shared list of children's files to be adopted than girls. With about 65% of the files being boys and only 35% of the families willing to adopt them, many wait, even with minor needs in this shared list program. The program is usually called the special needs program, but as you know from Jamie, it doesn't necessarily mean a special need in the sense that Americans typically think of the word. There are a whole range of needs. Some lifelong, some major, moderate or minor; many are correctable. Jamie happened to be on the remarkably low end of the need spectrum with his tiny heart murmur that is getting smaller and never affected his health along with the small umbilical hernia that is closing on its own and we could never even tell he had it except for a little excess loose skin around his belly button. Did you know that in China, if you have a visible special need (like even a port wine stain birthmark on your face) you can not go to school? Even for the healthy children, being an orphan has such a stigma associated with it, the future is very, very bleak for Chinese orphans who are never adopted. They have trouble finding any jobs, trouble finding apartments. Many become prostitutes. I have read that it is considered especially good to be able to become a doorman or a waitress if you are an orphan--a sign that you really made it, and not many get to become those even.

If you know of families that you think might be open to the SN program from China, feel free to have them contact me for more info or they can look into agencies like the one we used, Small World or an agency like Holt or BAAS. Josh Savley runs the Small World China SN program. They're a small Christian agency. They do prefer to work with practicing Christian families. I can give you his email address if you want to contact them or you can google it. Say that Jacqueline, mom to Jamie referred you to them if you actually wind up signing with them as it could possibly reduce our fees in the future if we adopt a second time. Holt is great. They're a very experienced older agency and a large one. Beth Smith is the woman that is one of the people running their china SN shared list program. Their program is called Child of Promise so you can call her and talk with her. She is very nice. I've also heard great things about BAAS (Bay area adoption services) though I don't know anything personally. Many, many people love them.

There is an amazingly informative, eye-opening post made by another blogger who attended a seminar run by Amy Eldridge, one of the people working with an amazing organization that helps thousands of orphans in China called Love Without Boundaries (LWB.) Amy met w/ 100 Chinese orphanage directors in China and this blog entry covers a lot of what Amy shared. Please take the time to read it. I tried to copy and paste it here but it isn't working. Here is the link: http://chinaadoptiontalk.blogspot.com/2010/07/amy-eldridge-of-lwb-speaks.html

Some new pictures

Here are two pre hair cut pictures and some post cut pictures. He is adorable no matter the hair cut but I do LOVE those curls and miss the curly wild look. Isn't he the cutest?

Ha! We told him he had to eat broccoli if he wanted more ONIONS!!

LOL! This kid amazes me. He is picky and he normally does not like much variety and rejects many/most veggies. So what does this kid decide he can't get enough of tonight and complained if we didn't start giving him our own portions off our plates? Roasted red onions, lol. I am still shaking my head. If he were adventurous and non-picky I could see it. The funniest part (and David and I kept giving each other amused looks) is he decided he ONLY wanted to eat the onions and couldn't get enough of them so we had to resort to telling him he had to eat the salmon or broccoli and then he could have the reward of onion. Have you ever heard of a kid whose reward/treat was a grilled red onion?! lol! This kid is a riot. Of course at his age, tomorrow he'll probably decide it's disgusting. ;-)

By the way, today he helped me make french toast. He is so pleased to help in the kitchen. Tonight he wanted to help and he raced over to grab a cardboard fake brick block to use as a stool to reach the stove when I went to get something out of the oven. He hated not being able to help me (it was hot so no way will I let him). I love that he likes to be in the kitchen cooking!