It's Shane's Day!

I have been really blessed to see three of our eaglets leave the nest for a forever family during our short time here so far. It's always bittersweet. We love the kids and pour ourselves into them, spending time getting to know them, weighing and measuring them while they wiggle, worrying about them when they are ill and laughing over their silly antics as they learn to crawl and walk and run. And then we say goodbye. We are so happy that we know where Shane will be going and hope his new parents will let us know how he is doing from time to time.
God bless you, Shane! We love you!

With a thankful heart,

Donna

Director, Eagles Wings

Wow! Busy Month!

It's been a very busy two weeks as we have enjoyed the Spring Festival here in Jiaozuo. On New Year's Eve, February 2, we celebrated with a party at Eagles Wings 3. The children from about 9 and up were allowed to stay up late playing games, watching the official CCTV New Year entertainment marathon (which is actually pretty good) and eating traditional snacks (oranges, peanuts, sunflower seeds and some candies). The Eagles Wings 1 kids taught the others to play Uno, Swap, Jenga and the Beijing Memory Game, some of our favorites. We also had a mini (mini mini) pool table which kept some of the kids occupied for hours. At about 10:15 I realized that some of the kids were starting to fade so rather than lose them we had our midnight festivities a little early. We set off four confetti fire works. Those things are WAY cool. They are large tubes filled with paper confetti that explode with a pop and shoot the confetti into the air. A great way to usher in the year of the rabbit.

 

Last night was the full moon which signifies the end of the spring festival, and my favorite part of the holiday...Lantern Festival. Traditionally families will light paper lanterns and send them into the sky (kind of like a mini hot air balloon). It's so pretty when the sky is dotted with little lanterns. And then there are the massive fireworks! Just a great time as hundreds of people gather to watch. It's one of the things that makes me feel part of the community. It's also a very, very noisy day as firecrackers explode from morning until night along with smaller fireworks displays pretty much everywhere. The explosions echo off the buildings and car alarms go off everywhere. It's very exciting, but also nice when it stops. Which hasn't quite happened yet...we woke up at 7 this morning to the boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom of firecrackers just below my window.

Eugene Needs Your Prayers!

Please pray for our little Eugene. He is one of our two 4 month old babies. Today he went to the hospital for the second time this winter. Winter here is so hard for our littlest ones, they are still gaining the weight and resistance that they need to survive.

He has come home once this year when it looked pretty bleak. Please be praying that he will pull through again. Our God can do it!

With a thankful heart,
Donna
Director, Eagles Wings

Eagles Wings Program for Blind Children

One of our focus areas is for blind children. We currently have seven vision impaired children in our care (one was adopted in December). This is a really challenging area, and few programs like ours have the training to meet the needs of children with significant vision impairment. With the help of Bethel School for the Blind in Beijing, we are getting trained to help these children reach their potential. In the fall, I went with one of our staff to a week long training to help us see firsthand how to run a program for children with visual challenges. After six years, they really have a great program and are willing and excited to share what they have learned with others.

Most of our vision impaired children have other issues as well, so we are working on several fronts at once. Sensory issues are common and one of the first things we need to work on so that we can get to strategies for managing their vision problems. We currently have one staff member who works five days a week with our three most affected children. The improvements have been quite amazing, and we are so encouraged about what is possible with this kind of focused attention!

This past week a team of four from Bethel came to Jiaozuo and spent time evaluating each of our vision impaired children and giving us some additional advice and strategies for working with them. We appreciate this help so much! Learning from these experts makes us all smarter and also encourages us that we are on the right track.

Of course, I don't have any photos...I had my camera but was too busy soaking up all that knowledge. :)

With a thankful heart,

Donna
Director, Eagles Wings

More Happy News...

This time it's Danielle who met her forever family just this week. We miss her serious face that breaks into laughter and then becomes completely serious again. Her little pouty lip, and her quiet, inquisitive way of exploring.

Happy Life, Danielle!!

With a thankful heart,
Donna
Director, Eagles Wings

Tessa...Happy News!

Just a quick follow up on my earlier post about Tessa...our special girl met her forever family on Monday!

Yeah, Tessa! Yeah, family! From all accounts she did great. I so hope that her family will keep in touch with us. Tessa has been part of our Eagles Wings family for 2 1/2 years. We all miss her so!

Happy Birthday, Lucy!

Today our Lucy is 12...or 13, depending on where you live. Traditionally in China, your age counts the year you are beginning, not the year you have finished, as in the west. So today our Lucy started on her 13th year and thus is shi-san, 13. Which also means that for the next 3 weeks I have 2 15-year olds and THREE 13 year olds in my house (and a 9 year old -- she and I are the only non-teenagers).

For orphaned children, birthdays are seldom even acknowledged much less celebrated. With 60+ children in Eagles Wings you can imagine that it is difficult to have a big party and many gifts on every birthday. One of the issues that I hope to work out as China Director is how we make every child feel special on their birthday without having it be focused on cake and ice cream and presents. In some ways this is a small issue, but in the context of raising children with a sense of value and of individuality, I think it isn't really that small. In fact, I think of all the things we do here, this may be one that our children will remember well into adulthood.

So today was all about Lucy. A cake, many homemade cards from her sisters and brother and a couple of small gifts...all in all it cost me about $12. I think these photos tell you what it meant to her.