The Coulson Family is headed to the Dominican Republic with Rise Up Ministries (https://www.riseupmin.org/) in the spring. We would be forever grateful for a donation to help with our mission journey. If you are willing and able to help, we have two opportunities available. We have a Go Fund Me account (https://gofund.me/0f5540d2) or we have a t-shirt we are selling that is designed by Fund the Nations. See the t-shirt design and more details below!

Short Sleeve Shirt – $20 plus $5 extra if we have to ship it to you.

Orders are due by JANUARY 31st.

The shirt is a short sleeve and dark heather gray. It is a soft shirt with a slimmer fit, so if you are between two sizes pick the larger size.

Youth Medium to Youth Extra Large sizes are available.

Adult Extra Small to Adult 4XL sizes are available.

To order email Brad at BradCoulson@gmail.com or text him at 814-221-8390.

To pay you can go to PayPal and use Brad’s email or you can mail it to us.

Thank you so much! We are excited to take Clara and Dana to the Dominican so they can see God working in a new place. I am sure we will have many exciting stories to share!

Brad, Clara, Dana and I are excited to travel to the Dominican Republic this spring with Rise Up Ministries (www.riseupmin.org). We are excited to see God working in a different part of the world. Clara has been diligent in learning Spanish this year. We will be helping with the construction of a pastor’s house and Bible school.

If you could, please be in prayer for us as we prepare for this journey. Also, be in prayer for Nora as she stays home to help with all the critters.

We will have opportunities coming soon to help with fundraising. Check back for a t-shirt design and a go fund me link. We would be forever grateful for any donation to help with our travel costs.

Blessings!

Linda and family

During the school year, I presented a slide show of pictures from our China trip to a few classrooms in Brookville and C-L. The kids had many questions at the end of the presentation and a lot of the kids were wondering what were Nora’s favorite things. Here is an update on a few of her favorite things…

Food! Nora loves food. She is getting more picky with her eating but she still eats large quantities. She gained 3 pounds and grew an inch in two months! All of this growing requires a lot of eating. She loves oatmeal and wants it for breakfast each day. She also likes, waffles, pancakes, spaghetti, soup, noodles of any kind, rice, chicken, peanut butter, beans (not green), milk, sweet potatoes, ice cream (she calls it I’ceam ceam), cake, ice cream cake, yogurt, and nuts. She especially loves nuts. If we are eating something that she is not a big fan of we can usually coax her into eating a bit with nuts as a reward for trying a few bites.

She also likes sunflower seeds. This is her potty training reward. She knows if she goes to the bathroom in the potty she gets a handful of “seeds!”

She is not a fan of fruit. She will eat pieces of apple and watermelon but that is about all she will eat in the fruit department.

The school kids would ask what her favorite color is. She really doesn’t seem to understand color words yet. She can repeat the color words very clearly, especially yellow and purple but she doesn’t have a favorite color yet.

She loves to dance. She loves music. If she hears a beat she wants to clap or tap or nod her head. Her favorite songs to sing are Wheels on the Bus and Old MacDonald. She likes to hum Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Her favorite movie is Moana. She also likes Trolls but those are the only two movies she has seen with us. We tried Tangled and Frozen but she doesn’t follow the story line and won’t watch them. When she was first home she would pull us to the tv saying Moana! Moana!

Her favorite animals are cows and cats. She also likes dogs now. She calls all dogs Tucker. She will stand by the door with her arm over Tucker’s shoulders and talk to him about the deer in the field while he is barking at them.

Nora loves books. At first it didn’t seem like she knew what a book was. We would read some to her but she couldn’t understand enough English words to understand the story. Then she realized the pictures were part of a story. Now she loves books. We read many books every day. Her first favorite book was The Little Blue Truck. This was the only book she wanted to read. Then it was on to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. She always wanted to see when the letters fell down from the tree. Now she loves Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See. Other favorites are Biscuit books, Bunny’s Noisy Book, Blackberry Mouse, Cookie’s Week and There’s a Mouse About the House.

Nora also loves shoes. She likes her little black dress shoes so she can pretend that she is tap dancing. But she loves trying on shoes even if they are adult sizes. There are always mismatched shoes randomly placed around the house that she has been wearing.

Clara also painted Nora’s toenails blue. Nora loves this and she will just randomly take off her shoes to show people her blue toenails. We were in the yard feeding the chickens and she decided to take off her boot to show me her toenails! She calls her fingernails toenails also. I tell her they are fingernails but then she calls them finger-toe-nails. 🙂

Nora’s favorite place to be is outside. She loves running as fast as she can go and she loves swinging. But her all time favorite thing is the trampoline. She loves jumping with the girls and doing tumbling tricks. She is mastering somersaults. She tries to attempt cartwheels but these are beyond her ability at this point!

And last but not least, Nora’s favorite word it “No!” Typical of a two year old, if you ask her a question her immediate response it “No!” even if she means yes. Her next favorite thing to say is, “Nora does it!” She wants to do everything the big girls do and she wants to do it by herself. She is a two year old going on 14!

Nora has been learning so much. It is really amazing how fast she picks things up. She is very observant and she mimics everything we do. I’ve heard kids do what we do, not what we say. This is very true. Kids model much more what they see in us than what we say. Here are some cute things we have caught Nora doing.

The other day, I saw her push her dresser drawer closed with her foot. I thought this was quite a funny thing for her to do, but then I realized that I do this when I am in a hurry. I’ll push cupboards and drawers closed with my foot. So, that is what Nora does!

Nora loves to help. We taught her to say help me because she was whining and fussing when she couldn’t do something. Saying help me please is much nicer. But she has taken this and uses it for when she wants to help you. So if she says, “help me” you have to determine whether she wants help or if she wants to be the helper.

She loves to fill the dog dish with food and water. She loves to help sweep the floor. She stirs things while we are making food. She delivers clothes to bedrooms in her little pink grocery cart. She likes to give food to the chickens and she loves to collect eggs. Though her helping usually turns into a bigger mess, especially with the eggs. I am not sure if she has made it back to the house yet without breaking one.

Nora has watched us put in contacts. Now she thinks she needs contact solution on her finger. After I put a little on her finger, she pulls at her eyes and pretends to put contacts in her eyes.

Nora also loves looking at pictures of people either in photographs or in books. She will mimic their facial expressions and how their hands are placed. She has a story with a little frog winking. She is so cute trying to wink like the frog.

Brad’s Dad and Mom had a photographer take pictures of the Coulson crew. After the pictures were over, Nora continued to line everyone up to take “pictures”of them with a calculator as her camera.

I’ve mentioned before that she loves music and loves to dance. Anytime we play kid music in the car she will try to sing along and then she yells each of our names if we are not singing along too!

One of Dana’s dances this year for the recital was Singing in the Rain. She wore a little yellow rain coat and danced in her tap shoes with an umbrella. Well Nora watched all of this and now she thinks that every time she tap dances she needs an umbrella. So she puts on her little black dress shoes and runs around the house yelling umbrella, umbrella until someone gets her an umbrella to dance with.

I wasn’t sure how the dance recital would go with Nora. I knew that she loved to dance but I wasn’t sure how she would do sitting quietly for two hours for multiple days watching dancers. She surprised me! She loved the recitals and during the Friday night show she watched each and every dance. I was trying to point out Dana on stage. (Which was difficult because Nora doesn’t know the words left, right, in front, behind, in the middle or on the end) While I was pointing Dana out to her she turned around and put her finger to her lips and shhhhed me. I guess I was talking to much!

In another dance a girl named Isabella ran across the other girls’ backs and jumped into another dancer’s arms. Nora watched every move and was afraid Isabella fell. She sat up as straight as she could to see around the people in front of her so she could see if Isabella was ok.

Twice she jumped out of my lap and tried to dance in the aisle!

Nora also loves cows. They are one of her favorite animals next to cats. The older girls did a dance in cow costumes. So, you can imagine dancing cows were just beyond awesome to Nora! After the recital the big girls were getting their pictures taken. And of course Nora wanted her picture with the cow! Getting your picture taken with a dancing cow could not get any better!

Another fun observation Nora made was when Clara and Dana did a cheers with their water glasses. Nora caught on to this quickly. But she thinks that if you have the same thing as another person that you should always tap it and say cheers. For example if two people have plates of spaghetti then that warrants a cheers. Spoons, oatmeal, crayons, cookies, watermelon, toothbrushes and even hymn books at church bring on hearty cheers!

Our lesson for the week is to be careful what you do because little eyes are always watching.

When Nora came home she was terrified of Tucker our dog. He is part Australian Shepherd and part Poodle which means he has a ton of energy, sheds a little less than a shepherd, and likes to herd everyone into the same place. He is almost 3 years old and has settled down a bit, but he is still very curious and wants to be in your face most of the time. For Nora who had never experienced animals of any kind this very happy mid-sized beast was a little much for her. For the first week or so she would scream if he came in the same room as her. I tried my best to keep them apart but with an open house floor plan it was challenging. There was a turning point after about a week in which she would tolerate him in the same room but did not want him touching, licking or sniffing her. Fast forward five weeks later and they are becoming best buddies. She walks him, yells at him, feeds treats to him, plays vet with him and is always announcing everything he does.

What pets have taught Nora so far…

First sentence – No Tucker no!

Verbs – She knows and can tell you just about everything Tucker does. Run, run, run, walk, jump, wag, wag, wag, lick (she acts this one out rather than saying lick), shake (she also likes to act this out), scratch, sit, wait, roll, roll, roll, pant (she acts this out), wrestle, bite, drink, eat, sleep and poop.

Body Parts – She can identify and say eyes, noes, ears, toes, back, hair, tongue, legs and tail.

Onomatopoeia – Animals in general have taught Nora so many sound words. Bark, meow, moo, cluck, cheep, oink, neigh, quack and buzz.

Patience – Waiting is hard. It is hard for anyone but as a two year old waiting can be extremely difficult. I am trying to teach Nora to wait at different times during the day. Waiting for me at the bottom of the steps is important. Waiting for dinner to be ready is also very hard. Another adoptive parent told me a really good point the other day, that their meals were prepared for them in a separate place and brought to them at the same time every day. Nora doesn’t realize that food needs to be prepared, cooked and then you have to wait for it to cool off. So meal times can be frustrating because they are not instantly ready. The word wait is hard to explain to a two year old who doesn’t know English. It usually goes like this. (Nora hanging off my leg in the kitchen whining because she is hungry and me saying Nora you need to wait and be patient, supper is almost ready!) Pre dinner time is getting better though and I am giving Tucker credit here. We give him little treats and I say… sit, wait, ready, set, go and then he is allowed to go get the treat. Nora has picked up on this and knows what wait means. She will tell Tucker (while holding up her pointer finger) Wait Tucker Wait!

Gentleness – Nora has learned to pet the animals gently. We say nice nice or be kind and this has transferred to other parts of our day when we need to be more gently.

Her first joke – She is infatuated with Tucker’s tail. I don’t know if it is just at eye level or if she has never noticed one in pictures before but she points out his tail at least a hundred times a day. She points out tails in books and on all animals that we see. She tries to convince me that she has a tail and will tap her chest and say, “Nora tail!” while pointing to her bottom. I laugh and say, “No! Nora doesn’t have a tail!” and then she says, “Mama tail!” No! I say, “Mama doesn’t have a tail!” Then she will joke with anyone else who is home saying they have a tail. It is so cute and she cracks up. She understands that she is joking with us and being silly.

Her first big story – We went for a walk with our neighbor one day and they have a farm with lots of animals. Tucker came with us and as we were walking back the lane one of the barn cats was coming toward us. Tucker was on a leash and was all excited to see a cat! He started getting closer to the cat and all of the sudden the cat jumped on Tucker’s face and started scratching him! Tucker jumped back and yelped. The cat took up a hot pursuit and chased us to the van! Tucker jumped in as the cat was right on my heals trying to attack him again! Nora was walking close by and didn’t seem to see the whole encounter but I told the story to Clara and Dana when they got home and by the time Brad came home she was ready to tell him what happened. It went something like this. Bubba Bubba! Tucker jibberish really fast jibberish Meeeooowwww! Meeoowww! More jibberish is a fast excited voice. Wimper Wimper (Tucker being scared). Tucker Wimper. And that was how Nora told her first story! (We also had to act out the Tucker and barn cat scene. I was Tucker and Nora was the barn cat. She jumped on my back and pretended to scratch me while yelling Meeoowww!) It was quite an exciting day!

Her second big story – Tucker is not the only pet that has taught Nora a few things. We got baby chickens a few weeks ago and they were in the house for a while. Nora liked to watch them and again be an announcer for everything they did. She learned about beaks, wings, flying and pecking. One day she stuck her finger in the pen and one pecked her! She was so surprised and started crying. That was the next big story. Each time someone came in the door she held up her finger and then with words and sign language motions said peck peck peck and then she would fake cry and make whining sounds and hold up her finger again.

Follow the leader – Nora did love the cats from day one. Of course she points out their tails any chance she gets and she loves crawling around on the floor following them behind chairs, under tables and behind the couch.

Swimming – Our fish has taught Nora about swimming. She has learned to feed him and of course points out his tail!

Responsibility – This is a stretch but she has been helping feed the big chickens and finding eggs.

Pets have taught Nora a lot in just 5 weeks! Now if we can just train her to clean out the chicken coop we will be in business!

Brad has a long drive to work and he also loves random facts and uncommon but interesting things. He listened to a podcast on Dragon Babies. The Chinese culture loves to celebrate the Chinese New Year and each year has a zodiac animal assigned to it. As the Chinese story goes there was a great race and 12 animals finished. The animals were rewarded by being named each year of the Chinese calendar. You can look up what year you were born and see what animal that has been assigned to that year. Each animal has different qualities.

The dragon is one of the animals and it is seen as a powerful creature. The Chinese people see it as the most desirable of the zodiac animals because it is associated with strength and intellect. People born in this year are said to not be afraid of difficulties and are thought to be more successful.

During the podcast, Brad learned that people in China like to plan to have their child during the year of the dragon. Nurses and doctors know that the year of the dragon will be a very busy baby year. Schools also see very large class sizes when the year of the dragon babies come through.

Studies were done on people who were born during the year of the dragon to see if they really were more successful compared to people born in other zodiac signs. The initial study looked at financial wealth and level of education. And oddly enough, dragon babies did achieve more in these areas.

Then they dug a little deeper to try to explain these results. They started looking at dragon baby IQ’s. There was no significant difference between dragon baby IQ’s and other baby IQ’s.

The researchers concluded that dragon baby children weren’t any different than other children, but because they had higher expectations and more encouragement throughout their lives they were able to achieve more.

The year of the dragon does not come around again until 2024, but by encouraging the children in our lives and believing in them helps them all grow up to be dragon babies.

I have wanted to post some words that Nora knows. The pediatrician said we will be amazed at how fast she learns English. Well we are amazed! This weekend we turned a corner. Nora carried her boots over to Brad and sat down to put them on. Brad looks at me and said I think she wants to go o-u-t (He spelled out so she couldn’t understand him because we were sure she would throw a fit if she heard the word out and didn’t get to go outside!) We are already spelling words to try and outsmart her.

We have had Nora for one month. She has been home for three weeks already. We mainly speak English to her. We know a few Mandarin words, mostly commands for her, but we have stopped speaking to her in Chinese since she seems to understand us so well.

At this point, these are some words she can say. I am sure I am missing some…

Nora, Clara, Dana, Mama, Buba (She still calls Brad Bubba, the Mandarin word for Dad.), Tucker, Isla, more, up, bottle, bubble, baby, ball, bump, nose, water (for drinking, in her bath and in puddles), tail (She is super curious about Tucker’s tail and points to it all the time.), apple, rain, hello, hi, no, bye, yum, run run run, shake shake shake, ready go, jump, open, yeah, uh oh, and all done. She says ishy for fishy, poon for spoon, hota for hot. She also says in a sing song voice, Clara where are you? Dana where are you? Buba where are you? Mama where are you? and Isla where are you? She seems to understand that we are looking for these people or they are not home and we are wondering where they are. Friday I said, Nora where are you? And she yelled HI!

She mimics these words pretty clearly… noodle, wait, outside, down, hot, hat, cold, please, thank you, Gram, Papa, Nana, eyes, mouth, ear, toes, hair, sweet potatoes, cracker, shoes, close, chew, bowl, drink and hold hand.

She loves onomatopoeia. She says moo for cow, quack for duck, cheep for chick, baack baack for chicken, meow for cat, beep for car, oink for pig, brum brum for truck, bus or lawn mower, and peee you and holds her nose for stinky.

She rolls her hands if she wants you to sing wheels on the bus. She rubs her cheek for the baby crying verse and holds her finger up to her mouth for the mom says shhh verse. She says ei ei o if she wants you to sing Old MacDonald. She sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. It is so cute. She doesn’t say the words but she says jibberish that sounds like the tune and similar to the words to the song.

She thinks a frog is a fish. She make a noise with her lips for fish.

She does some sign language and some made up signs for swim, fly, rain, butterfly, wind, what? or Where?, zipper, sleeping, splash, eating, more and hugs. She gives high five, thumbs up and fist bumps.

She understands quite a lot. One day she took some garbage and walked to the garbage can and threw it away! We hadn’t even showed her or told her how to do that. She knows which shoes goes to which person and will bring them to you if she wants to go outside. If she wants to keep eating she refuses to let you unbuckle her chair.

She shakes her head no a lot! 🙂

She mimics the dog in every way. If he shakes, she shakes. If he pants, she pants. If he sneezes, she pretends to sneeze. If he is eating, she says yum yum and pretends to eat. If he barks, she needs to see what is going on. If is tail is wagging, she is quick to point it out or grab it! She says run run run if he is running in the yard. She also likes to boss him around. She says all done Tucker, hi Tucker, wait Tucker and her favorite… no Tucker no!

She understands our routines and seems to understand what bath time means, time to go brush your teeth, let’s change your diaper, go get your shoes, go get in your chair to eat, go upstairs, go downstairs, time for bed, time for nap, time to eat, go get your dish, do you want a drink, let’s go outside, let’s go inside, let’s get in the car, steps, walk, run, hold hands, stop crying, splash, ready set go, dance, high five, fist bump, thumbs up, hugs, wait (which she sometimes listens to and sometimes not 🙂 and no.

It is just a joy to see her exploring and learning. She does have hydrocephalus (I’ll write more on that another day) and we weren’t sure how much she could learn so it is a huge deal to us when she is learning so much so quickly. This is a beautiful miracle from God that we are blessed to get the chance to see.

I always have some kind of story to tell my kids at school. Usually it involves some kind of wildlife critters that visit our yard. My second graders have been closely following our blog. So, this one goes out to them. 🙂

Nora loves it outside. If anyone goes out the door and she doesn’t go with them she throws a fit. (Boys and girls…sometimes she can be a bit like LuLu and the Brontosaurus if she doesn’t get her way!)

So, we usually take a walk every day. One day we were following Tucker on a trail around the field. It had rained the day before and there were some puddles on the path.

A side note to the story: Nora doesn’t like mud. Clara and Dana love mud puddles and keep trying to get her to walk in them and splash through them but Nora is not sold on the idea. She does put on her boots and the big girls have coaxed her through some water, but she doesn’t go willingly. And if she gets too muddy it usually ends up in tears.

Anyway, back to the story… We were walking along and she pointed out a few puddles and she yelled water, as Tucker splashed through them. Then, Nora got a little too close and slipped in the mud! She fell in the puddle and got her pants all muddy. Of course we had a few tears! Then, she recovered and we kept going. She found a rock and wanted to pick it up and throw it. She does love to throw rocks. (This is something else the girls taught her.) So, she picks this rock up and tosses it into the dirt in plowed field. The rock must have cut her finger because it started bleeding. She held her finger up and blood was running all down her hand and was getting all over her coat sleeve. I bent down to see what she did, turned my eyes away for a moment and I bet you can guess what happened next… Tucker dashed into the woods after a deer. He has a certain deer bark. If he spots a deer he yips and takes off! No deer are allowed in his field! I called for him but he was long gone. Tucker also has this crazy way of knowing that he is getting his hair trimmed and always likes to disappear right before he needs his hair cut. I had just made him an appointment at the Fuzzy House! He must have heard me talking on the phone!

I picked up Nora and decided we better get back to the house for a band-aid. Nora was yelling for Tucker and didn’t want to go back to the house. So she was squirming all around. We were pretty far away from home by this point and I thought the fastest way back was to walk through the plowed field straight to the house instead of following the trail around the field. While Nora was wiggling all around she rubbed blood all over my coat as well as hers. Her shoes were covered in mud and got my jeans all muddy. It had just rained so the plowed field was quite muddy. I was in my tennis shoes so by the time I got home my shoes were caked with mud too! So we were bloody, muddy and Tucker was lost! What a day!

In the end, Tucker came home, Nora got a band-aid, and I did laundry. Our walk didn’t really turn out the way I had planned but we all made it home safe and sound. The End

On Good Friday we took Nora into the hospital to have her blood drawn. The doctor wanted to check to see what immunizations she has and to recheck for hepatitis, AIDS, and TB. She needed 18 vials taken. She was crying and crying. Afterward we went to Tractor Supply and picked out 8 new baby chicks so Nora soon forgot the hospital. She likes watching the chicks (which we put in Tucker’s dog kennel until they have some feathers to go outside). But Nora does not like if they touch her! One jumped on her foot and she cried! She says, peep peep and tells Tucker, No Tucker No! if he gets too close to the pen.

Our guides, van drivers and accommodations were just wonderful in China and Hong Kong. We had a guide in each city we visited. They would pick us up at the airports and drive with us almost everywhere. Grace was our guide in Beijing. She gave us brochures of the city, traveled with us to the Great Wall and was a wealth of knowledge about China’s history and the adoption process. She loved the girls and gave Dana an early birthday present. It was a little bell that had the Great Wall painted on it. She gave Clara a bracelet that had a tiny gourd on it which means good luck and she gave us a tiny Chinese flag for Nora. She explained that the stars on the flag mean different things. The large star is for the Chinese Republic Founding Father Mao. The smaller starts are for the workers (laborers), farmers, soldiers and knowledge (doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors).

Our next guide was Sherry in the city of Xi’an. She helped us pick up Nora. Sherry really took care of a lot of paperwork for us. She knew everything to do for Nora’s passport. She helped us buy baby supplies. She knew the routines of the orphanage and was able to tell us Nora’s schedule and what she should eat. Sherry took us for a tour of the orphanage and for a tour of the Terracotta Soldiers. She drew us a great map of the city so we could walk around and find food, parks and shopping areas.

Our final guide was Cathy in the city of Guangzhou. She was wonderful in helping us translate things that Nora was saying. She gave us some short Chinese words that would help us communicate or reprimand Nora. For example, boo means don’t in Mandarin. This was an easy way for us to stop Nora in her tracks if said in the right tone. We also realized that playing peek a boo with Nora had a different meaning for her! Cathy helped us with tons of paperwork too. She traveled to many appointments including doctors, x-rays and the US consulate.

Our van drivers were amazing and would talk to Nora and our driver in Guangzhou came into the Zoo/Safari and helped us buy our tickets. (We later found out from our guide Cathy that our driver argued with the zoo ticket taker because they wanted to charge Clara for an adult because she was right at the line to be charged for an adult. He said that Clara had her shoes on and that was why she was that tall. So he got us a discount and we didn’t even know (He could only speak Mandarin so we didn’t know what was going on until Cathy told us the next day.)

Our hotels were great. We had a jointing rooms in Xi’an and Guangzhou. This was great because Nora went to bed at 8 pm and we could migrate to the other room and watch tv (Discovery in Xi’an and National Geographic in Guangzhou were the only two channels in English other than the news.) or work on the blog or journal. The girls worked hard at writing down all their experiences while in China.

Dana and Clara loved their own room. They played lava monster by jumping from bed to bed to couch to pillows trying not to touch the floor. Nora loved the windows. The windows in Xi’an had a window seat that she could walk across. In Guangzhou she loved looking for birds and people out the window. There were windows in the orphanage but they were up high and she wouldn’t have been able to see out of them. The hotel breakfast buffets were delicious. We got to try all kinds of new food. Everyone liked trying new fruits and freshly squeezed fruit juices each morning. We were reminiscing today about our yummy breakfasts in China and how we miss them. One hotel even had heated mirrors so they didn’t fog up in the bathrooms!

The hotel staff was great. In Xi’an when the cleaning ladies found out we had adopted, they were so excited. That evening they came knocking on our door and gave us a pink teddy bear for Nora. Then the next evening they brought five packages of M&M’s, an extra one for Nora. 🙂

In China, people would see us walking and they would say, “Big family! Big family!” In 2016 China allowed families to have two children, before that families were only allowed one child. So, seeing us with three kids was a big family. Our guide said it is difficult for families to support two children on their incomes. So even though two children are permitted it is challenging to raise two.

It is illegal to abandon children in China. But because of the limit of children placed upon families many children are left. Children who are sick, in need of surgery or have special needs are often abandoned. Health care is very expensive for people in China and if a newborn needs extra care it is a huge concern for the family. If the child needs a surgery the family doesn’t know how they will find the provision for the first surgery and there is always a fear of additional surgeries needed.

The orphanage realized there was a big need for a safe place to drop off babies. Even though it is illegal, people would drop off babies in the night at the front gates and the little ones would be outside all night until someone found them in the morning. So, the orphanage built a little safe house that has a crib in it and an alarm system. If the door is opened an alarm buzzes three times in the orphanage. The three buzzes gives the mother a little more time to change her mind. Then someone from the orphanage goes to the little house to get the baby.