The lucky country

OUR BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN!!

You never really realise how truely lucky you are until you see certain things or have certain moments that make you look at your life and see what you have right in front of you and all the precious little moments that we take for granted every single day!

Life runs along so quickly, often too quickly! I know sometimes as much as I love my life, I always feel like I need to slow down and just stop and play with my kids or just to sit in my back yard and watch them run around and giggle is precious.

As some of you might know Kate, myself and my Mum are off to China next month. It began as a business trip but just this week we have found something very special that I think will change my life forever! JinJiang orphanage is in The southern Chinese Province of Fujian. I came across it while trying to locate how far "JinJiang" was from the airport we were flying into in Xiamen. My heart just about broke when I started reading. I know that there are many places like this out there, but if we can all just try and help someone in this world maybe some of these children will suffer a little less and perhaps find some simple happiness in their lives that we take for granted every single day.

I had no idea how common cleft palate was in the orphanages! What would usually be a straight forward procedure to fix in these orphanages could be a death sentence. See the segment below from The Fujian Kids website:

Approximately 27,000 children with cleft lip and/or palate children are born annually to Chinese families. Most of these children will end up in orphanages.

Once in the orphanages, many of the cleft children have a difficult time. Often, these babies have difficulty getting nourishment because their ability to suck is impaired. As a result, they are in a perpetually weakened state and highly susceptible to disease. Some die of starvation. Special feeding equipment can save the lives of these children, but these nursers are not available in China.

Cleft Palate Nursers

FujianKids is helping provide cleft palate nursers to babies in orphanages throughout China. Please consider taking some with you to China when you travel. (Sorry, we can only provide these nursers to families in the U.S.) Nursers come with instructions in Chinese and labels that clearly indicate the nursers are for use by cleft-affected babies..

The nursers weigh almost nothing, but they do take up a little space in your luggage. For example, a box of 6 Enfamil nursers measures 6" x 6" x 6", but the nursers can be taken out of the box and distributed where space is available in your suitcase. If several families traveling together are adopting from the same orphanage, they can bring extras to give to their agency representative. The representative can then give the extra nursers to other orphanages that need them.

I learnt by buying these special feeding tools we could save many of these children's lives. We have posted on our face book page that we are accepting any help that Three Little Trees fans can afford or give up. I cant believe that spending as little as $20 could save children like these.

Kate and I are going to take over a couple of extra suit cases of clothes and bedding for them as these are basics that are always required and we have already had many generous offers of donations.

Most of all I am just looking forward to giving them some love and cuddles and learning from them, because I know throughout my whole fortunate life I have not seen anything that I know will inspire and open my eyes to the needs of others like this experience will.

xxx

THE ORPHANAGE

CHINA'S FORGOTTEN BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN