Update December 2005 

Dear Friends and Supporters,

The festive season is upon us. We at Hope Foster Home wish you all blessings, peace safe travel for those travelling to be with their families.  Please remember the poor, the suffering, those who grieve and especially the young children in need all over the world at this time

I am sending out this newsletter early for a special reason.  Our new baby Fu Chen Chen whom we suspect has Biliary Atresia, (she is born without the system in her liver to expel bile into her intestines). She is severely jaundiced. A surgical bypass (Kasai procedure) could be possible for her but time is of the essence. To be successful, this procedure needs to be done within 60 days of birth. She is now 31 days old. We are desperately trying to find a surgeon skilled in this procedure, who would be willing to come to China to operate. If anyone has any contacts for such a surgeon, please let me know ASAP. Chen Chen has very few options and will die of liver failure if we do not succeed.
 

Fu Chen Chen We have an opportunity to open another Palliative care unit in Luoyang , also in Henan Province and we would like to make it our project for 2006. The number of severely ill children there is great. There are 5 times more children there than we have in Jiaozuo and the floor that the Orphanage is offering us is 3 times the size. Rob will go there in the next few weeks to estimate the cost of setting up this unit and we will be asking for financial support to do this.  Going by what we have experienced in Jiaozuo, many, many young lives can be saved. If you are able to, please stand alongside us with this project.

Foster Home Shunyi, Beijing

The babies  

Sadly we lost Alice Fu Zheng. We sincerely thank the doctors and staff of Beijing United hospital for the excellent care and their valiant efforts to try to save Alice’s life. Her name has been written on our memorial wall. Her suffering is over. 11 children, from different orphanages in China, arrived in Shanghai United Hospital for Neurosurgery done by UCLA surgeon Dr J. Lazareff and his anaesthesiologist Dr B. Van de Wiele. 3 children were rejected for various reasons and 8 had very successful surgery. We are grateful to Drs. Lazareff and Van de Wiele for willing to come to China yet again to be of service to these children. We are also grateful to the staff of Shanghai United hospital for this wonderful opportunity and for the excellent care they provided for the children. Luke Fu Liu Liu from our Home was one of the children. We were also able, through the generosity of sponsors who responded to our appeal for funds last month, to get surgery for Lu Hua Li, Lu Xia Shan and Lu Ya Chao 3 children from Hefei Orphanage.
 

Alice

Luke

Lu Hua Li

Lu Xia Shan

Lu Ya Chao

We also had 2 children operated on in Suzhou University hospital by a team from, HK. Fu Jin Jin and Dang Xing Yang   are recovering nicely and should be home next week. Our sincere thanks to Drs, John N, CP Y, Henry A and Steven H. for their expertise and willingness to help our kids.

This same team and more, from Matilda Hospital in HK did much needed assessments on 4 of our children with bladder and neurological problems.
 

 We have 3 new babies, transferred from our Jiaozuo Palliative Care unit, Fu Chen Chen,( above)                               

Fu Hai Ming ( Exposed bladder)

Fu Hai Xing(Imperforate Anus)

We have had to open up our Isolation Unit and employ more nannies to cope with all the new babies. Rob and I have strongly resisted the attempts of our staff to put the babies in our bed. Volunteers. We said a sad farewell to Christina, our nurse who has been with us for 2.5 years. She only intended to come for 3 months but I guess the kids got to her. We have appreciated her help very much and we hope that she will return one day. We currently have Becca and Daina from the US at the PCU in Jiaozuo and Anna and Caitlyn from Australia helping here in Beijing

Love Without Boundaries Shunyi Outreach Foster Program.

We have had to remove Dang Jian Hong from his foster home in the village. Despite patient encouragement, our staff has found that the family is not meeting our expectations. All the other children are doing very well and the families are taking excellent care of them.

HFH Special Care Unit , Henan Province:

At this time there have not been any new babies admitted to this unit. All 10 beds are full.

LWB Special Care Unit

All the rooms in the Unit have been sponsored. Thank you all very much. The heating has been put in and the electrician is working on the wiring.

Our Most Sincere Thanks To;

1)       Harvard China Care and China Care Foundation for funding the 2 surgeries in Suzhou.

2)      Ray and Stacy R,  and A Mother’s Love for funding the surgeries for the 3  Hefei children in Shanghai

3)      Dulwich College students who sent Shoe Box gifts to our children. There were so many that we have shared the gifts with the Beijing Sun Village, a home for children whose parents are in prison.

4)     BICF West who brought Christmas presents for our kids.

5)     All those from Capital Community Church and many other visitors to our Home who have taken our “Children’s Hearts” off our Christmas tree and given in place, a financial gift that will help support each child’s food requirements for a month.

6)     BICF Women’s Ministry who raised funds for us at a recent luncheon.

Our Needs:

Other than those already mentioned above, we have need for the following:

1)       Colostomy bags ( any size)

2)     Oral Replacement salts

3)     Soy Formula

4)     Non-slip children’s socks (the ones with little rubber dots or patterns on the soles) for ages 1 year to 6 years. Their feet are cold but because our floors are so clean and shiny (thanks to our excellent cleaning ladies) ordinary socks cause the toddlers to slip and fall.

With gratitude

Joyce and Robin Hill