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