Merry Christmas, Chung Yi!

A few months ago, Ahma Penny, the grandmother of two children adopted from Taiwan, decided to organize a Christmas project with her daughter, Nicole. The goal was to fill a shoebox with Christmas gifts for each child at the Chung Yi orphanage.

Andrew and I decided to take up the challenge. We hit up Target to shop for 6 children in all age ranges, newborns to older teenagers, boys and girls. We crammed 6 large Ziploc bags with inflatable globe balls, a train set, pink pouffy hair accessories, a soccer ball (apologies to FFC's Laura Trinnaman and the other volunteers who will be transporting our items when they go there in November for a work project - more on this to come), t-shirts, pajamas, character toothbruses, journals, pens, deodorant, a puzzle, Christmas cards, die-cast cars, a beading kit, mints in a pretty jeweled box, toothpaste, a soft baby book, and assorted other sundries.


I enlisted Andrew to help me paste into the Christmas cards a typed message to each child; my handwriting is far too frightening for anyone to make sense of.

We packed everything up and took it to the local post office this afternoon. Goodbye, box! Here's hoping the children will enjoy the gifts. More importantly, here's hoping that they will feel loved in what can be a lonely and harsh world for orphans.

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We continue to await news of a referral. This weekend, Craig and I spoke at length with Dr. Abigail Farber, head of the International Adoption Health Program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). We've contracted with them to review our referral once we receive it and to perform the physical evaluation of our child once s/he's home. Dr. Farber walked us through all of the medical conditions listed on the Child Referral Request form and helped us to consider more thoroughly the ramifications of each. We are awaiting FFC's answers to some questions that arose when filling out the form before sending it back to them.