Progress is Made!

Hello from Zhanjiang City !!

We are sorry for the delay in this post. We have been busy from the moment we touched down in ZJ.

We finally made it to ZJ on Sunday afternoon. We were greeted by Director Su and Asst. Director Ms. Yi. The Directors of ZJ took us for a late lunch at an amazing seafood restaurant. I owed Julie (FTIA) a large favor and had agreed to eat worms with her. So….bon appetite…actually they were not bad at all. They were seasoned with garlic and that was all you could really taste. The food in ZJ is really good and they are known for their seafood due to being next to the ocean. We had shrimp that had been marinated in a type of tea and it was delicious.

After lunch, we all checked into the hotel and unpacked. The RN’s and Julie went to visit some of the foster families to check on the girls. There are now 14 foster families. 3 of the girls were adopted in the past month and there have been new children moved into these homes. I am happy to report that all of the children looked great. They were on target developmentally, and the babies and foster families were all very happy. Thank you again FTIA for providing this much needed foster program for the ZJ orphanage.

On Monday morning, we arrived to the orphanage very early. We were able to meet all of the foster mothers, as well as the new Aunties that ZKO has hired for the Open Arms program. All of these ladies spent both the morning and afternoon in training with the RN’s.

While they were training, Martha and I went up to the nurture room to access what we would need to get the painting started. We then headed out to the local market to purchase some the paint and the supplies. That in itself was an adventure. We went to a little market which at first glance seemed to be a store that sold your basic paint supplies. Once we were finally able to communicate what we meant by “light yellow” the fun began. The man opened the large tin of white paint and then pulled out little syringes of bright yellow paint. He added two of them to the large container and then got out a big wooden stick and started to hand stir. No Home Depot shaking machine used there—ha!! We thought you would enjoy seeing a picture of this, it was really something. We then moved on to painting supplies and the brushes looked like the ones that you would use to smooth out wallpaper. And then we were told that they did not sell paint pans….hmmm…we were not sure how we would get past that dilemma, but what can you do? So we had all of our supplies and off we went. We had a lot of fun painting, but it was really hard work. The weather here in ZJ is already very hot and humid. Thank goodness for the breeze.

The nurture room, which we have named Ava’s Room, is a wonderful room! It has two large windows facing to the south and then two more large windows facing to the north. So the lighting and ventilation is wonderful for the babies—very light and bright. The room itself is very large, about 22’X22’, and the orphanage has also provided us an office which sits directly beside Ava’s Room.

The staff at ZJ have been incredible. They have been very accommodating to every single request that we have made. They have even offered us some of their staff to help with the painting. Directors Su and Yi are so excited about this program and have been nothing but smiles since the time that we have arrived. There are not enough words to express our appreciation to this staff for allowing ZKO to do this program for the children.

As for the children at ZJ, there are approximately 90 babies under the age of 12months and they are located directly beside the Open Arms office on the 8th floor. There are additional children from the ages of toddlers on up, but I have yet to visit that part of the orphanage.

Many things have changed since I was there last March. The babies are now on the 8th floor. When I entered the nursery it was like music to my ears—literally. The music that some of our ZJ families purchased, along with CD players were being used in every room. The babies’ cribs all had soft mattresses on them, the little ones had their heads propped up. They have just recently stopped using the little pillows that the ZJ families purchased since the weather is so hot. Once it turns colder this fall, they will use them again. The babies were being rotated from belly to back. It was as if I had walked into a different orphanage. There is no doubt in my mind that the training that the RN’s provided last May, along with the changes in leadership, has made all the difference in the world. The nannies were laughing and singing along with all of the music, it was a very, very happy place.

We were able to spend time with all of the babies, holding them and talking with them as much as we pleased. As Martha and I were working in Ava’s Room throughout the day, we were free to move about the floor and visit the nursery whenever we wanted.

The RN’s were able to physically examine all of the babies. Physically, there were some colds and some babies with heat rash, but all in all, they were in very good condition. Developmentally, we were still looking at the same delays that we had before. This will now all change with the Open Arms program. We will be enrolling 100% of the babies from the ages of 3 days old (a little boy that was brought in while we were there) up to 9 months. The 10-12 mo babies are all scheduled to be adopted out, but we still selected a few who were really behind to be in the program with the hopes that we can give them a jump start to getting caught up before they leave to go with their forever families.

I am also thrilled to say that we were able to enroll 4 special needs children in the Open Arms program. We have one with a heart condition, two who are missing an arm, and one who is missing her right hand. It is not always likely that an orphanage would allow a special needs child to be enrolled in a special program, but when we asked Ms. Yi she did not even hesitate!

So at the end of the day, the aunties received two full sessions of training, the babies have been selected for the program, and Ava’s Room is now painted. Needless to say, the ZKO team was exhausted, but we were all smiling from ear to ear as we were driving back to our hotel!! What a wonderful day, with lots of progress, and we are so thankful for everything that the ZJ staff has done for us and for this program.

The ZKO Team