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My name is Clare Waterwash and I have
fallen in love with two little girls who were born in China.
One lives an hour away from me in New Jersey and calls me JiaJia, the other lives many thousands of miles away in the PRC and I will never meet her... |
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But to know that my little sponsored child
through Amity, Cao Hua Hong, who is nine years old and crippled from
polio, can now stand with braces because of an operation last summer,
attends school and best of all has a foster family who loves her, fills
me with such satisfaction and hope. I've been able to make a
difference in this little girl's life.
Not only am I committed to my continued involvement in Cao Hua Hong's education and foster care, but I have decided that I want to finance two Hugging Grannies on a yearly basis. I'm a working artist and each year I plan to paint enough pastel portraits to sponsor three Amity Hugging Grannies a year. It's what I can do to help in some small way. So many people have so many different talents that they could use to see to it that Amity is able to do its work. One just has to give it some thought and commitment. And, as in all giving situations, the giver is the most blessed. Clare Waterwash Clare's Art Portfolio website at : http://www.claresartportfolio.com/clare/ |
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My name is Christine Aamot. I live in
Seattle with my husband, Kris, and our three girls. I am a former
engineer who chose to take what will probably be a permanent break
to stay home with our girls: Audrey born 10/95, Amelia born
5/97 who we adopted at age 3 from Shaoguan, Guangdong and Allison born
8/98 who is from Luoyang, Henan.
My husband Kris and I feel very blessed to have three little girls with such "big personalities"! They keep us hopping, but we wouldn't trade it for anything. |
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We love to travel and hope to live in China one day to help us work on our Chinese and to experience another culture for an extended period. In the meantime we spend most of our free time swimming, playing and going to the beach. I am happy to assist Peggy Gurrad in her Amity work in any way I can. It makes me feel I am helping out, in some small way, the children who are left behind. |
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My name is Becky Miklos. I'm a
first-time single mom living in South Florida. I'm helping out
because I am so grateful for the care that my daughter Sarah received
from her foster family in Nanchang, and the medical and photo history
that we were given.
Sarah was loved very much during the nine months that she was with her foster family. I was fortunate to meet them when we visited the orphanage. |
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Sarah was very attached to them, and this
has laid the foundation for her being able to attach to me relatively
quickly. I write to them and send pictures, and their daughter writes
back in English. Sarah has always been very healthy and continues
to develop on-target. She is a bright, curious, determined and happy
child.
I am paper chasing for another daughter from China, and have asked CCAA that she also be from Nanchang. |
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I would love for my daughters to share their birthplace. But regardless, I will take Sarah with me when I adopt again, and plan to visit her foster family. Foster care is an incredible gift for a waiting child. Becky M. |
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I'm JoAnn Stringer, coordinator for the
Fuzhou (Linchuan) schoolchildren sponsored through Amity. I keep copies of
their progress reports and scan their photos, then send the information
to their sponsors. I have created web sites for the sponsored children
of three of the orphanages.
We also sponsor a child in foster care. My husband and I adopted our daughter from Fuzhou (Linchuan). |
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| Social Welfare Institute in 1998, and I am the keeper of the directory of Fuzhou (Linchuan) families. Volunteering for Amity helps me to keep in touch with my daughter's "alma mater," and I hope the efforts of Amity will make the lives of the children left behind better. After all, they are my daughter's Fu sisters and brothers. | ||
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We are Gordon and Lori and we adopted
our first daughter, Samantha, in August '97 from the city of Nanchang in
Jiangxi Province when she was 14 months old.
After about 18 months with Samantha, we began the paperwork process again to return for Samantha's little sister. |
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In November 1999, we traveled to the city of
Nanning in the Autonomous Region of Guangxi and were united with our
second daughter age 19 months, Page. While Samantha had apparently
spent six months in foster care, she'd been back in the orphanage for a
few months prior to our meeting. Like most orphanage children, she
was far behind developmentally and remains a bit behind in speech to this
day.
Page on the other hand, had been placed in foster care days after arriving at the orphanage and remained with her foster family for her entire 19-month life. We were fortunate enough to meet with her foster family and it was clear that she'd received lots of love and attention from these wonderful people. Page, in sharp contrast to Samantha, was right on track developmentally and a wonderful well adjusted little girl. Shortly after our return home, we read a post on the A Parents China (APC) list post from Peggy Gurrad soliciting sponsorships for foster care in the orphanage where Samantha came from and others. The foster care sponsorships were one of several programs being coordinated by the Amity Foundation, to which we'd already been exposed. We began sponsoring one child, and shortly after began a tradition of sponsoring two more each year as Christmas Gifts in honor of Samantha and Page's grandparents. About a year later, when Peggy send out a request of help with the distribution of information on the sponsored children, we were anxious to help. When its time to distribute the information sheets and pictures, it becomes a family project. More importantly, it provides us the opportunity to tell our girls what we are doing and why. It is sort of an extension of all the adoption books we read to them and another way of showing them that there are thousands of people around the country who have the same kind of story as they do. |
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| Judy Payne, an Altrusa volunteer who was living in Shanghai has moved back to the States. The expatriate community in Shanghai continues to look for ways to make a difference in the orphanages. |
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My name is Christi Landes. I live in Kansas with my husband,
Steve, and our three wonderful children. I am a former second grade
teacher who is now a stay-at-home mom.
Our children are Derek born 4/92, Ryan born 6/94, and Anna born 7/00 and is from Leping in the Jiangxi province. |
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Anna was in foster care for the year before we received her. I am so grateful for the care and the love that she received during that first year. After returning from China, I became very
involved with Amity and the foster care program. I believe that
the foster care program is so important for the children of China.
I am happy to be helping the children that are still in China! |
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