ChinaBird

Hey y'all! Hope your summer has been as fun as ours! It's been almost 2 months since my last blog post, so I wanted to take a moment and share some of our summer highlights with you! Children's Day My FAVORITE Day of the year! Why? June 1, International Children's Day, is one of the biggest and bestest (😜) days of the year at SFCV, the kids perform, sing, dance, act and flaunt their incredible talents, what's not to love!?! We have the same routine/ schedule every year and it never gets old. Morning: kids perform, Lunch:McDonald's with the kids (a treat), Afternoon: campus-wide water fight! Just check out the photos... they say it all. July 4th: U.S. Independence Day! America's 241st birthday was celebrated in true American fashion: BBQ, Cornhole, fireworks, smores and lots of smiles! It was a great day celebrating the freedom that allows people like me to be able to come here to China and do what I do. All around spectacular day with the kids all...

Greetings Friends!! I'm here today to tell you about one of the greatest young men there is, Xander! He's very quite but has a very loud personality. Xander will be 12 years old on June 20th of this year and although he can't verbalize it, his hearts desire is to find a forever family. I believe I've shared this before, but in China after kids reach the age of 14 they can no longer be adopted. They lose the chance to have a forever family of their own. As of June 20th, Xander only has 2 years to find his family. Last April, I wrote a blog post about Xander, we received several inquiries into Xander's adoption file, but haven't had a family step forwards just yet. Here is some of what I wrote last year...      "When he first came to SFCV back in 2008, Xander struggled to control his Autistic "meltdowns", he couldn't self soothe nor did he know how to effectively communicate his wants, needs, or feelings. Although a sweet boy, he was at...

Richard and his May birthday buddies: Gloria & Francis Guess who turns 11 years old today?! Yep, you guessed it! Richard Xie Minyu! 11 years ago today, May 25, Richard was born and I'm oh so glad he was! I love this boy so much! How has the time gone so fast? When did he get so old? Richard is one of the coolest, happiest and best kids I've ever met. I know, I know....I'm biased, but I'm being honest. He's so incredible. He has an amazing sense of humor, servants heart, and is always looking out for his friends, brothers and classmates. In November of last year, I wrote an advocacy post about him. Here is an updated excerpt of that post.... " Richard came to SFCV from his orphanage in Fuzhou when he was 6 years old. He has Unilateral Cerebral Palsy, meaning he has high tone and spasticity that effects only the left side of his body. Over the last 5 years that he's lived here, he's made incredible gains socially, emotionally, and physically. ...