Reflections on China Orphanage Exploratory Trip

I was blessed in my first short term missions trip to two well-run orphanages/foster homes outside Beijing, along with a team of four others. We were "Team JAMES," as the first letter of each of our name spelled, "James." We were: Jose, Angela, Mary, Elissa and Susan. While JAMS flew to Beijing on January 1st, I joined them on the 5th.

The two special needs foster homes we visited were: Shepherd's Field Children's Village (SFCV) and New Day Creations Foster Home. While at SFCV, I had the opportunity to ask Dr. Bill Moody, the chief pediatrician there, my burning questions: "How do these (over 100) children get attached to the nannies who care for them? What happens when a nanny has to leave SFCV? How do these children have enough secure attachment when there are so many care-takers and having to share their attention with so many other children?"

It turns out that there are five homes on SFCV campus, each one houses around 20-22 children. Seven nannies are on duty for each of the two 12 hour tours, daily. So the care-taking ratio is one nanny to three children. These nannies all work as a team (of seven), together, they love and care for these children. So, while the turn over rate is very low at SFCV, when a nanny does leave, the children are still attached to the other nannies. Each child then has contact with a total of 14 nannies who care for him/her.

I fell in love with one of the children in SFCV, Noel. She is a six years old girl who has Cerebral Palsy with Spasms. I met her on Thursday, January 7th, when I was playing Legos with another child. Noel dragged herself across the floor with her one good arm, while looking like she's having a seizure (spasms). She was a resilient, independent and very happy girl. As I sat on the floor, I so enjoyed putting her on my lap and squeezing her! The last morning we were at SFCV, I went to her home: House of Love, to play with her. She was playing Legos with other children. Since Noel was very "frail," - as in, not having much physical strength - other kids were grabbing the Lego blocks from her. I fought to get her blocks back from the other kids, yelling at the other kids, "It's Noel's! It's Noel's!" I then horded some blocks for Noel so she can complete her project, and fought off other kids from taking the blocks from the stash I saved for her.


Thinking back on the event, it's pretty hilarious that as a 49 year old woman, I was fighting with the other little children in order to protect MY Noel.


After these two weeks visit at two separate foster homes, my present thoughts in regards to our Community Home are: Maybe we can have all the adults who are interested in being part of this Community Home, to be certified as Foster Parents. This way, each of the foster parent would be raising their (natural and foster) children together in our community, with the help of all the other adults in our community home to co-raise all of the children. This way, each foster child would have his/her own set of foster parent, while also having attachments with other adult/parent/care-takers. If a member of our community has to leave the community, we can petition to have the foster child to continue to stay with us, then another adult in our community would step up to become the foster parent for this child. This would prevent the child from having to get moved around from foster home to foster home. This child would also already have a relationship with this new foster parent, since this new foster parent has been part of the child's life at our community home.


Since I'd want us to be able to raise our 40 children permanently, the stipulation would be that their parents' parental rights have been terminated before we would take on the child. This way, we wouldn't "lose" them after having gotten attached to them. We'd raise them and send them to college and "be" their family for the rest of their lives...thus the idea of raising 40 children together as a "Community Home/Family."


I'd love to hear others' (as in, you, the reader's) thoughts on this idea!