There is this marvelous story of a man who once stood before God, his heart breaking from the pain and injustice of the world. "Dear God", he cried out, "look at all the suffering, the anguish, the distress in your world. Why did you not send help?" God responded, "I did send help. I sent you." When we tell our children this story, we must tell them that each one of them was sent to repair a broken world and that this is not the task of an instant or of a year but for a life time. --David J. Wolpe
It has been a little more than one month since I got the cleft palate babies and it has been very busy as you can well imagine. Things are finally calming down a little and I feel that I need to write a thank you letter to all the supporters and donors of Starfish.
I do not have the adequate words to express my gratitude to you for the generosity that has been shown to the children and to me. To me, because I think in the response to my my plea for donations, it showed me that you trust me to use the donations you give in the very best way to help the children to get the care that they need, while we wait for them to get adopted. I cannot tell you how I appreciate the freedom to be in a position to be able to help a child in need. On a daily basis I can find children who desperately could use some intervention. To me, there is nothing as depressing as walking away, because I did not have the finances to be able bring them home with me. So you can imagine that when I can say yes to bring nine babies to Starfish, it provides me with wonderful feeling of joy. I completely understand just how much extra work I take on when I do this, it has not been easy and I have worked hard to stabilize us as we took on this huge responsibility at Starfish. It would have been much easier to have just kept one apartment. However, I do think of myself as a ship who has been sitting in the harbor for too long. Things have been calm for a while. This is not what ships are made for, they are made for the open sea. I think of the ship going out to battle the high waves and the storms and hopefully to return to harbor safely once again. Maybe I have just an overdeveloped sense of adventure, but I really like the challenge of having faced some tough times and to say that I was not defeated by it.
I hear so many stories of true sacrifice. I retired couple on a fixed income, teenagers giving US$10 of their monthly allowance and kids cleaning out their piggy banks. I think of some families going without dinner at their favorite restaurant, so that they could donate and help a child they have never met. I also think of those who have enough whose heart have been touched do donate. All of us work together on behalf of these children and I can feel the power of this united front so greatly. I am so impressed that is spite our differences whether they be religious, race or nationality, we have a common goal and that is to help an abandoned child in China get the chance to have the opportunity to be healed, be adopted and to have what we take for granted: A family. How privileged I am to have a front row seat, to experience first hand the good that is done with the donations that are sent. I hope that you too will feel a sense of accomplishment for the lives that are effected by what you have done and continue to do.
I pray Heavenly Father's richest blessings on you for your generosity and support. How I love what I do and how grateful I am for this once in a life time opportunity to spend everyday trying to figure out the best way to help the children in my care.
Life, Love and Laughter,
Amanda
Starfish Children's Services
US Tax Number: 20-4682916
Xian China
At Starfish, we have taken care of 67 children to date, arranged almost 50 surgeries and had 19 international adoptions, so our little starfishes live all over the globe: the US (latest adoption to Maine), Netherlands, Norway and Spain. One child is matched at the moment waiting for her family. We currently have 29 babies under the age of 3 1/2 at two foster homes.
We opened a new cleft palate house on February 5, 2009 and have nine babies.
www.thestarfishfosterhome.org
http://chinesestarfish.blogspot.com
NEW BLOG SITE FOR CLEFT HOME:
http://chinesestarfishcleft.blogspot.com
chinese.starfishthrower@gmail.com
Cell: 86.1348.812.4847
Monday, March 9, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Orthodontic Molds
One of the reasons I did not hesitate taking on some cleft palate babies is because I found a dentist in Xian, who lives 15 minutes away from the foster home. Dr Niu is one of only two dentists in China that can make orthodontic palate molds for babies with cleft palates. He studied with Dr. Barry Grayson in New York and has had about 30 patients since he came back in 2002. Once I found out that he was able to do this, I knew that it would be easy for me to help the cleft babies even more. We now have now added seven more patients to his list in a matter of months.
There are four major things the cleft molds do:
1) It gives the baby a fake palate which allows them to drink better so they pick up weight easier.
2) It aligns the gums which are often in different positions and not only that but their cleft can leave a wide space in the gum line. In the first week of Karl's mold this gap closed the space 50mm which is half of the 100mm gap. You have to go to the dentist every week for an adjustment.
3) It gives also helps in speech development and will prevent any speech impediments because there is a roof of the mouth for the tongue to use.
4) Gives support to the nose so it does not fall flat.
Five of the cleft babies have started this process from the cleft home and there is another two up in regular foster home. I have been amazed by this whole process and how a child's mouth can change. Tina is growing like weed and had to have her mold redone because it had changed so much in two weeks.
I have been so grateful to Dr Niu for his work on the babies. Joseph's mouth now needs very little work. We now just have to wait for him to get big enough to get the surgery.
Life, Love and Laughter,
Amanda
Starfish Children's Services
US Tax Number: 20-4682916
Xian China
At Starfish, we have taken care of 67 children to date, arranged almost 50 surgeries and had a whopping 19 international adoptions, so our little starfishes live all over the globe: the US (latest adoptions to Kentucky and New Jersey), Netherlands, Norway and Spain. Two children are matched at the moment waiting for their families. We currently have 30 babies under the age of 3 1/2 at two foster homes.
We just opened a new cleft palate house on February 5, 2009 and currently have nine babies.
http://chinesestarfish.blogspot.com
NEW BLOG SITE FOR CLEFT HOME:
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