A Very Cheerful Helper

J was about 8 months old when his orphanage asked us if we could help him. 

They wanted to confirm his diagnosis of Down Syndrome, and also suspected he had a heart defect.  J came to our Beijing home from his province and after visiting with specialists we were able to determine that he had no heart defect or other medical complications.  

He’s been in good health since then, but we are always monitoring for issues that are common in children with Down Syndrome.

Over the past eight years J has changed a lot, but one thing that has not changed is his deep curiosity about the world around him and his sunny, cheerful personality.  

His nannies agree he’s a real charmer and a fast learner. He loves to help out – any time there is a chore or a project to be done, he is right in the middle of it!  

Recently, he saw another child receiving therapy and he wanted to help.  He jumped right in and made himself useful!  We are always amazed at how much he understands and how dedicated he is to finishing a job that he starts, even when it's boring or he gets tired.

J is able to attend the special needs school inside the social welfare center, so his days are full and he’s always busy.

We are grateful to all who support us in our work.  You are helping us to make a difference for children like J, providing him with nurturing caregivers, a stimulating environment and developmentally appropriate opportunities for growth and education.  Thank you!

Made for Love - Creating Opportunities

Most of the children in our care have physical or intellectual impairments. Through our many years of working with them, we have come to realize how very important it is for adults to take initiatives and create opportunities for rich experiences for them, to organize play and to model social and cultural activities.  At the same time we must also maintain a sense of stability and security.

For a child with special needs, life can be full of challenges. As caring and supportive adults, one of the most powerful things we can do is to take the lead in creating enriching experiences that foster their growth, learning, and wellbeing. 

We do our best to provide a learning environment, both indoor and outdoors, where the children in our care have access to spontaneous interactions and learning moments. By organizing a vegetable garden, for example, we are opening up a world of new sights, sounds, scents and textures. The children get to help in the garden, feel the fresh vines of cucumbers, hear the rustle of corn leaves, and see vibrant colors in tomatoes. And when it's time to harvest we get to smell and taste the fruit of our labor!  It also creates abundant opportunities to learn concepts like “organic fertilizer”. These moments are not just enjoyable. They are crucial for their sensory, cognitive, and emotional development.  

Play is another main area where adults can make a significant impact. For the children in our care, play does not necessarily come easily or naturally. They often need help to understand how to engage with toys or how to interact playfully with peers. 

This is when adults come in for support. We teach the children play skills and communication skills by modelling, for example, building a tower with blocks, pretending to feed a doll with food made of Play-Doh. We also initiate ball-passing games with children to teach collaboration and turn taking.

Yet another key dimension that adults need to consciously lead is modeling social and cultural activities. Clear and consistent modeling can be incredibly helpful for the children we work with. Many children with intellectual impairment tend to struggle with reading social cues and social norms. By modeling simple social exchanges like greeting others, and knocking on the door before entering, adults pave the way for social development in the children. 

All of the above, of course, must be grounded in stability and security, which we provide by maintaining a routine, offering consistent support, and creating a nurturing environment as part of our job. This stability is not only useful for fostering a sense of safety, but it also helps build trust and confidence needed for the children to explore and engage with the world around them.

At the heart of it all, taking initiative as adults means being intentional in how we support the children. It’s about meeting them where they are, and helping them reach their full potential. Every experience, every play session, and every moment of connection counts. By doing this, we’re showing them that they are loved, valued, and capable.

Launchpad - Making Hua Mo 花馍

 For the young adults in our Launchpad program, discerning what vocational skills they are interested in pursuing is not an easy thing!  Of course there are careers that interest them, but these don't always line up with their strengths and abilities.  Eighteen year old YG has been pondering this question over the past months, and he has recently decided to try and improve his skills making "hua mo" 花馍 in the hopes that this might open doors to full time employment for him in the future.

What is hua mo 花馍, exactly?  We're glad you asked!  Steamed buns are a popular food in China, and hua mo are very intricately shaped and decorated steamed buns.  These can be made to represent flowers, dragons, birds, fish, people and other objects.  They are a specialty usually found in north China's, especially in Shanxi province - where YG lives.  They are especially popular at Chinese New Year and other traditional feasts and holidays.

YG began learning the art of making hua mo when he was still living in the orphanage.  Because he is dependent on his wheelchair for mobility, it was one of the few vocational training programs that he could participate in.  Here he shows us how he makes a very simple hua mo design - a rose.

He starts with a basic steamed bread recipe.  It's tricky knowing how stiff to make the dough... you don't want it too dry, or it will be tough and chewy, but you also don't want it too soft, or the intricate designs won't hold their shape.  

Then he works to cut and shape the various components of his design - in this case, the petals of the rose:

Here's a rose all ready for the steamer:

After steaming; it's ready to eat!

Hua mo can be decorated with fruit or nuts, and are often brightly colored.  YG is going to experiment with some of these embellishments in the future, and we look forward to sampling some more of his work!

Making Mama Very Proud!

 We'd like to share about seven-year-old JF, who joined one of our foster families last year in August.

When JF transferred from an outlying area to our partner orphanage in a bigger city, they asked if she might be able to join our family model of care.  

We had been told that she was diagnosed with a heart defect, but it seems that had resolved by itself.  We were unable to obtain any previous medical records and she is perfectly healthy now. 

Over the past year she has adjusted well to her foster home.  JF is a very athletic girl who loves to be on the move!  

She is also an incredibly joyful child who is always smiling.   Just being around her is enough to lift your spirits!  She is a very quick learner and is doing well in school.  Her foster mom has also noticed that she is very thoughtful and careful, paying great attention to detail in whatever she does.  

Her teachers have certainly noticed these traits as well, because she was chosen to be class monitor for her first-grade class, and recently came home with an award for her merits at school.  This made her foster mom so very proud!

We are grateful to all who support our work.  You are helping us to make a difference for children like JF, to know the love of a family and to learn values that will benefit her for the rest of her life.  

Made for Love - The Power of Play

For most of our caregivers and teachers, a crucial part of our day-to-day work is playing with the children.  Peek-a-boo, pulling turnips, wheels-on-the-bus, hide-and-seek, are just a few of our all-time favorites.

Play is a lot of fun, but it is much more than that! For young children, most of their important learning takes place in play. We try to create every possibility for the children in our care to play. Over the years, we have seen firsthand how play transforms young lives, unlocks potential and nurtures the skills they need to thrive.

Play is the most natural way that young children learn and explore. When they build a tower with blocks or solve a puzzle, they learn to problem-solve and sharpen their thinking. 

When they play ball games and giggle together outside, they learn to collaborate, to develop motor skills, and to exercise perseverance. When they spend hours digging holes in the garden or making mud pies, they are learning about nature and using their imagination and creativity. 

Language and social skills flourish during play, too, for example when children discuss what to do and negotiate rules in play (“I'll be the mommy, you be the baby.”).  When they are engaged in rough-and-tumble play, we see empathy and a sense of togetherness starting to take root. 

Through play, children discover how the world around them works and how they fit in. When a little one holds a doll tight and pretends to bathe her gently, that child is re-experiencing her everyday life of love and care while imagining what it feels like to be a caregiver, to show compassion and to be responsible. This is an essential tool for emotional development.

For children who have faced trauma and loss, play provides a safe space to process their feelings and regulate their emotions. When a child dresses up as Ultraman and shouts “Believe in the light!”, he is exploring what it feels like to be courageous, to stand up to evil, and to be resilient.

Unfortunately, play does not come naturally for many children who have suffered from early deprivation and emotional neglect. Even if they are surrounded by toys, they are very likely to just examine the toys, toss them around, or grab them from their peers’ hands, rather than concentrating on them and playing collaboratively with others. Therefore, it is critical that we as adults invite children to play with us and model for them how to play.

Playing together gives us opportunities to model important skills like concentrating, problem-solving (“How can I get my tower even taller?”), and social skills (for example, turn-taking). We also help the children to co-regulate with us. We use our imagination and get creative together, until these things begin to come naturally to them. 

Play is the foundation of learning and growth for children. We strive to give children the tools to learn, grow, and heal, and to create spaces that encourage joyful, purposeful play, so that they can become more confident, creative, and connected.

Two years with little YX!

 Little YX was abandoned within hours of her birth two years ago in June.  

She was born with congenital melanocytic nevus (CMN), which is also called a giant hairy nevus.  In YX’s case, this large black birthmark covers more than half of her torso and is also evident on parts of her scalp and extremities.  We can only guess that her family was unable to accept such a visible disfiguration and felt that had no choice but to leave her where she would be found and taken to an orphanage.

Although these lesions are benign, they have a very high risk for becoming precancerous or malignant.  Half of all children who are born with them will be diagnosed with a malignancy by age two, and nearly three quarters will receive that diagnosis by age 7.  As soon as she arrived at the orphanage the staff asked if we might be able to accept her for care.  We knew that she would benefit immensely from the nurturing, attentive care in our baby home.  

YX is receiving regular screening consults to watch for any dangerous changes to her skin.  Her caregivers are also monitoring closely to watch for any warning signs.

Little YX is now a healthy, curious toddler who loves the activities in our early learning center classes. 

While she is thriving in our care, we hope and pray that someday she will be able to join a family of her own.  

We are very grateful to all who support us in our work.  Because of you, we are able to provide love, nurturing and life-changing medical treatment to children like YX. 

Launchpad - Getting Started

 Our very first Launchpad home is in north central China.  Last year, when YJ first approached us with his doubts and concerns for the future, there were two more young men who had previously been cared for in Little Flower homes who also joined the discussion.  One more young man also from the same orphanage heard about our plans.  He was intrigued, and he asked if we could consider allowing him to join our Launchpad home as well.

After the boys discussed their plans with the orphanage leaders and received approval to proceed, our first task was to find a suitable apartment to rent.  While there are many inexpensive housing options in outlying areas, we were limited to a rather central location in the city so that the boys could easily get back and forth to their vocational center, shopping, church etc. without having to make multiple transfers on the bus or subway.  An even higher priority was finding housing that was handicapped accessible. 

 With two of the four in wheelchairs and one dependent on crutches, we knew that having to navigate stairs or narrow doorways would be a problem.  We involved the boys in the search; letting them browse the available listings and contact agents directly.  They considered many different homes before finally, we found just what we were looking for!

We had hoped to get a furnished rental, but since that didn't happen we started shopping for furniture.  The boys did some research, and it turned out that IKEA was the best option for inexpensive, durable, basic furnishings.  They worked out exactly what pieces were needed, how much it would cost, and put together a detailed list for approval by our accounting department.  We were able to get some of the large appliances and kitchen wares donated, and soon the empty apartment was filled with many flat packed boxes of furniture ready to assemble.  It was a very daunting task, and the boys had no real experience with this kind of project!

Fortunately, several kindhearted volunteers offered to supervise and assist in the furniture assembly.  After many long hours of hard work, their new home was ready!

While all of this was going on, we were also searching for a set of house parents who could help guide our young men along the path to independence.  This proved much more difficult than we expected, but we finally found Mr. Sun and Mrs. Qin (women in China do not take their husband's surname when they marry), who have a long history of helping to care for disabled children as foster parents.

This fall has been a period of adjustment, with the boys and house parents getting to know each other, each settling in to their roles and responsibilities in the family.  

The boys spend their days at a nearby vocational training center, and the house parents also volunteer there helping to prepare lunch for the students and staff.  

There have certainly been some rough patches and many conflicts; as we discussed in our last post what we are doing involves big changes and lots of hard work!  But we are all so excited to be started along the path to our goals, and we can't wait to see what the future holds!  

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