If You Would Like To Sponsor A Baby~

If you would like to sponsor a baby please contact Kimberley at timnkim@gmail.com
Please tell her which baby or babies you would like to sponsor and for what amount. She will have a picture and a sponsor sidebar link sent to you. She also will instruct you as to how to make your monthly donations.
If you would like to make a one time donation, simply click the Pink Starfish Link on the sidebar. It will take you to GroundSpring where you can make your on-line donation.
Thank you and may God bless you and may God bless the children.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Another America Trip

In my life BC (before children) I travelled a lot. I probably spend more money on seeing the world than on anything else. I need to fly from China to South Africa to complete my third trip around the world. Maybe one of these years my family will get to see me, I have not been at home since 2001. I loved seeing the many different places and the people, the food and the culture. When people ask me I often would say that the next place was my favorite because I loved the adventure. When I started the foster home, I knew that would be one of the things I would have to give up. For 4 and a half years I did not leave China. For some odd reason this is the year of seeing the US. I am leaving in less than 48 hours for America, my second trip this year. This trip was planned for a while and now at the last minute I am writing about this, which is just my style. One of my mode of operations: If it was not for the last minute nothing would get done. Not the best way to deal with things but with the amount of work I have to do in a day it is the only way that works. I am going to be speaking about Starfish and generally thanking people for all the wonderful support that I have received. There are some generous help from people in Nashville which is fast getting to be one of my favorite places to hear from and from Vegas where we just teamed up with a great foundation. I am also waiting on news about going to Oklahoma and giving a presentation about what we do. I am trying to make some arrangements now since I just heard about this a few days ago. I welcome the chance to tell people about Starfish and the miracles that happen here and how passionate I am about helping the most vulnerable and medically fragile orphans. The other pleasure is going to be: Seeing some of the Starfish Alum. I am so excited about that. There are 16 babies living in the US and I know some of the parents are going to make an effort to see me. I am going to be in Boise to see Flower's sister River, become a part of her family forever. I feel so honored to have been asked to attend and for the family finding a day that worked for me too. I am also going to be at Norma's second birthday party and baby Amanda's family are possibly coming too and so are Charlie's family.

Here is what I have planned. Please know, that it could change at any time because I will be flying standby on ALL of the flights, so nothing is written in stone.

June 29 arrive in Newark Julia
July 1st Neptune NJ Patrick, Cindy and Baby Norma
July 5th Nashville, TN Jeannie
July 12 or 13 Tulsa OK (This I am not sure about)
July14 Las Vegas Weina
July17 Boise ID KG, Angee, Flower and River
July 22 back to Newark and back to China on the 23rd

Here is my telephone number and if there is anyway that you can get to the places I am going to be, please let me know.

1.561.706.7105

I am also happy to tell you and this is not even at the last minute, but months in advance, that I will be back in the US in October for some more speaking engagements. This time I will be on the West coast. So maybe I will take some requests if you want me to come and talk about all things Starfish. So my desire to travel is coming back and I am getting to couple this with something I care so deeply about, these babies whom I consider as my own and for whom I will give everything I am capable of.

The only really sad thing for me: I am going to miss our little man Sean's adoption. He is being adopted on July 12th and I will not be here to help him through this very important day in his life. Words cannot explain what he looked like when he first came and to see our Wiggle loving boy bouncing around now is one of my best stories. I loved the miracle of him and I will hold that experience dear to my heart forever. By the way, we have added more babies after APM offered more help to sponsor of five babies. Thank you so much to all those French ladies. I love that they are so involved with us and that Sean is going to pay back to France by being adopted there. I cannot imagine that little mouth speaking French!!! How lucky his family is going to have him. The cutest story: He loves Lily to pieces and has been talking about getting on a plane to go and find her. I know Donna and Mark would take him in a Chinese second, somehow a New York minute sounds too long.

There have been a lot of rumour of matchings and we are waiting to get some official word, so hopefully there will some children who will soon have families to call their own.


Life, Love and Laughter,
Amanda
Starfish Children's Services
US Tax Number: 20-4682916
Xian China
At Starfish, we have taken care of 92 children to date, arranged more than 50 surgeries and had 20 international adoptions, so our little starfishes live all over the globe: the US (latest adoption to North Carolina), Netherlands, Norway and Spain. We currently have 51 babies under the age of 3 at two foster homes.
www.thestarfishfosterhome.org
http://chinesestarfish.blogspot.com
http://chinesestarfishcleft.blogspot.com
chinese.starfishthrower@gmail.com

Friday, June 19, 2009

All Three Babies Awaiting Surgery



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Nick


Nick Pre Op


Nick Post Op


Having FUN in the hospital
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Clara and Stella


Clara Pre op


Clara Post Op


Stella

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Three Cleft Lip Surgeries

Before I tell you of the latest happenings at Starfish, I want to send out my most sincere congratulations to Robin and Dr Joyce Hill and Hope Foster Home. Dr Hill and her husband have been doing orphan care for 15 years and she is being honored by the Queen of England for her work in China.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/06/08/2592326.htm

First, I have to thank Operation Smile for all their help in getting the surgeries done for the three babies: Nick, Clara and Stella. OpSmile now has a permanent clinic in Hangzhou and they took such great care of our three babies. My most grateful thanks to Rachel, Ruth and Mary who went on a big adventure and took the three babies for this important part of their healing. We loved getting them back with their lips repaired. The stitches will come out on Friday (which is today yes it has taken me four days to write this). I have selected my favorite pictures of the trip. Thank you so much to everyone involved.

On a side note, Antonia has won the battle of the bulge, very decisively I might add. She shot past the 10kg and is now at 10.5kg (23 pounds). I just love the thunder thighs on her. Tim is now second and Bryan not too far behind. Clara, Stella and Nick also have a lot of baby fat, which I love to see. Nick is now downing 10 oz bottles. Jasmine, Karl and Tina are yet to get to the stage but they are doing well. The older babies moved into their new bedroom and are now sleeping on their own. We wanted to give each one of them their own crib but neither Bryan or Tim would hear anything of it. They both cried and cried and no matter how much we tried to console them they did not calm down and fall asleep until they were both in the same crib. The two of them are so attached to each other. You can often hear them laughing when they just play together.

Life, Love and Laughter,
Amanda