Soon after Tony and I were married, we found out that it would be difficult for us to have biological children. Tony wanted to look into adoption. I, however, wanted to try for biological children. We tried IVF with donated eggs…twice. No luck.

Eventually, we decided that we really just wanted to be parents. First we looked into domestic adoption, received an approved home study and waited. Three years (and no requests to meet us) later, we decided to look into international adoption. We attended an information meeting held by our local agency, and after reading about the various country programs, and talking to friends who adopted from China, we decided China was the country for us.

During the paperwork process, we kept hearing about (and being reminded about) the lengthening wait times for a child in the standard process. In our mid-40s, we knew that we would not be able to wait the 3 or 4 years after our dossier arrived in China for a referral. That’s when we decided to look into adopting a child with special needs. We knew, however, that we wanted a child as healthy as possible, rather than one with a more acute medical condition.

Soon after we were logged-in, (October 2008), we sat in on Holt’s China Child of Promise (CCOP) webinar to learn more about the program and process. Because a referral through this program was a much faster process, and the children available were more within our comfort zone, we felt that this program was a good fit for us. We viewed the minor/correctable needs checklist and did some research on the conditions. In November 2008, we sent in our checklist, and had a daughter six days later! Tony said: “I knew the wait was shorter, but I figured it would be six months, not six DAYS!”

A little over four months later, we met Meighan and have been home for a year. It was a “match made in heaven,” and we couldn’t be happier. Meighan was born with a very minor cleft lip, repaired when she was 6 months old. Now, at 2 ½, she has very good fine and gross motor skills, smiles and laughs readily, loves to run, blow bubbles, be tickled, and do just about anything outside. She also loves music and dancing.

As far as her lip goes, doctors say it’s a good repair, and I doubt she’ll need more work on it.  Meighan came to us as a “special needs” child, but she’s as healthy as any kid.

Children with correctable, manageable conditions are waiting for families in China right now. Holt’s China program matches these children with families very quickly.  Join Holt’s China Child of Promise Webinar to learn more about this expedited process and the beautiful children in this program.

Click here to view the minor/correctable conditions checklist

by Jennifer Smith

After the birth of our third child in 2003, we decided that our family was complete. We were content and didn’t plan to have any more children; however, God had other plans. During the summer of 2006 we began to think about adding to our family, discussed adoption and prayed for God’s guidance. We both felt a tugging towards adoption, but we wanted to make sure it was the right path for our family.  We were looking for some sort of big sign, and we got exactly that when we attended Winter Jam in 2007 in Mobile. It was our first time to attend a Winter Jam concert, so imagine our surprise when we discovered that Holt International sponsored it. As a video presentation of orphanages in China played, we watched as tears rolled down our cheeks. When it was over, we looked at each other and said: “We’re adopting. We’re going to China.”  We requested an application packet from Holt the next week.

Like most people, we experienced both miracles and challenges during our adoption journey, but we just forged ahead and claimed 2 Corinthians 5:7 as our adoption verse. It states: “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” That verse came to mean so much to us during both the joyful and difficult times of our adoption journey.

We started out in the standard process but then expanded our options to include China Child of Promise.  After only a few weeks in this program, we received our referral for a beautiful little girl named Shang Nan. She was listed as having vision problems. We read over the information and looked at her pictures, and we knew that she was the one. We fell in love with her instantly.

Rinnah Shangnan is doing very well now. She’s had an eye examination, and it was confirmed that she is completely blind in her right eye. She wears glasses now, and we can tell that using them is definitely helping her.  She is trying to stand up now and even does somersaults! She is a good-natured and happy little girl.

Before we met Rinnah Shangnan, we anticipated that attachment would be her biggest challenge; however, she has attached and bonded remarkably well. Now our biggest challenge is helping her with the vision problem and developmental delays. She has regularly scheduled appointments with a vision therapist, as well as both a physical and an occupational therapist. Rinnah Shangnan has made a great deal of progress already, but we’ve still got a long way to go.

To those of you in process now, just remember that waiting provides you the opportunity to grow and to prepare for the changes and the challenges ahead. Even then, you will experience surprises along the way. Some things you just can’t prepare for, but when you hold your child for the first time, the difficulty of waiting just fades away. The love that you feel is indescribable. We are so blessed to have Rinnah Shangan in our family, and we continue our journey – walking by faith each day.

Learn more about the China Child of Promise option….

by Cris Nelson

One year since God brought a beautiful little girl into our lives. In some ways, it has been more difficult than I ever thought it would be, but it has also been just as rewarding. Here is our story….

The Story of Jing Jing: On a cold January day in 2007, a police officer walked his beat in the Chinese province of Shaanxi and came across a basket on a bridge. Inside the basket he found a little girl with a cleft lip and palate. Given the cold weather conditions, you could rightly assume that if the police officer had discovered the baby even an hour later, the baby probably would not have survived. It is not a coincidence, we believe, that the officer happened to be walking by at just the right moment.

An adoption missionary at our church once talked about taking a child dealt a bad hand and putting some “aces” in their hand. Kelly and I knew that was what we wanted to do. Bringing an orphaned child with a medical need to the United States is like a miracle for them, and we are humbled by the opportunity to love her. We named her Hope, because of the hope she has for a new life, and because of our family’s hope in Christ Jesus. (Hebrews 11:1)

We Loved China: Our family absolutely loved China! The Chinese people were so wonderful to us, and experiencing one of the oldest cultures in the world was truly amazing.  Most importantly, we wanted to see and understand the culture of our new family.

Difficult….at first: The first months home were really difficult. Hope had been moved around and had developed severe separation anxiety. In her 2-year-old mind, her caregivers had abandoned her. Hope bonded with Kelly right away, so that was the good news. The bad news was that Hope had complete emotional meltdowns if separated from Kelly for even a moment. This made it really hard for Kelly to accomplish simple things like showering or even sleeping. Hope would wake up every hour to check if Kelly was still there. Once Kelly reassured Hope that she wasn’t going anywhere, Hope would go back to sleep. Fortunately, Kelly was up to the challenge and really gave herself unselfishly to Hope during this difficult time.

Phobias: Hope came to us with a number of fears and phobias. At first we were amazed that she could eat more than our three other children combined, which is especially puzzling given that she has an open cleft palate. We learned that many orphaned children are prone to overeating. For the first six months, Hope couldn’t sleep unless we fed her before bedtime and had food by her bed.

Fast Forward: While we were waiting for Hope to come home, we received reports from China stating that Hope didn’t like to smile or play with other children. None of the photos we received had Hope smiling. This kind of worried us. But fast forward one year, and Hope is like a different person. She grows more confident each day, and smiles and laughs all the time.

Surgery: Hope underwent cleft palate surgery in September. Due to her fears of starvation, she had a really tough time being on the liquid diet required and lapsed back into her old behavior. Once she got back to solid foods she snapped out of it. She will have a few more surgeries in the next few years and will need a lot of speech therapy. She will have some speech delays, but we are confident she will get caught up. Hope shows improvement every day.

New Creation: Seeing Hope laugh and play with our three other children: Hannah, Thomas and Rachel, we are humbled to think about how Hope’s life has changed. She has blossomed in the past year and is no longer the child who would not smile or play with other children. One of my favorite bible verse passages is when Jesus says: “Behold, I make all things new.” God is, in fact, making a new creation of our little girl! And in the end, the love we give is surpassed by the love we receive!

Happy One-Year Anniversary!

Last year Holt matched many children with families through the China Child of Promise option, and many of these families are already home and in process for another child from China!

Although this program has proven to be a huge success, many children are still waiting, and we don’t have enough families joining this option.

If you know anyone who may consider opening their homes and hearts to a child with a minor to moderate, treatable medical condition such as cleft/lip palate, minor heart conditions, or adopting a boy with a minor condition, please inform them about this program.

Joining this program does not exclude you from the standard waiting process; it simply expands your options and gives you the chance to be matched with a child much quicker.

If you are waiting exclusively in the standard process, you might join one of our Webinars to learn more about the children available through the Child of Promise option. Also, take a look at Holt’s minor/correctable conditions checklist of conditions, which you can fill out at any time, checking the boxes of the conditions you feel are within your capacity.

This year many families who were waiting in the standard process have found the China Child of Promise option to be very gratifying! You can see the benefits of this program by reading the China Child of Promise family stories below and viewing the online photo gallery of the children who have been matched with families.

This handsome young man enjoys drawing and does well in school.  He came into care as a newborn, and his cleft lip and palate were treated surgically in 2005.  Hunter has had extensive speech therapy, but his speech is still unclear at times.  Well liked by his peers, Hunter was the first child to raise his hand and introduce himself at camp.  He needs a family experienced in parenting past his age and who can provide him with the medical care or therapies he may require.

Adopting a Waiting Child
Sometimes children have healthcare needs or other special challenges that make it more difficult to find adoptive families. They may be part of a sibling group, or no longer infants or toddlers. We call these our waiting children, and they deserve to have families of their own.
Learn more about the Waiting Child Program.

I married a wonderful woman and had three handsome, smart and thoughtful sons who were truly blessings from heaven. We started attending a local church, and we both accepted the Lord and put our trust in Him. Thus began the tale of the adoption of our daughters from China who needed homes of their own…. We adopted Faith, Hope, Grace, Joy and most recently Jewel, who was 13 when she came home to us. We have had very similar, yet distinct, experiences early on with each of our children.

When we traveled to receive Faith, who was 15 months old at the time, I had no idea what to expect. When the caregivers brought her out, she cried and cried and continued to stay in a glazed state for several days. My wife and I often prayed for guidance in this matter and to help our daughters adjust, we eventually quit our jobs and moved to the mountains where we worked from home and were able to spend more quality time with our children.

We felt called to look into adopting another child from China and adopted Hope when she was five years old. Her room at the orphanage was eight by five feet, with a small bed on the cement floor and a Red Cross blanket. That was all there was. The workers do wonders with what they have and truly have a heart to help children, but they just don’t have enough resources.

Hope was quiet at first but then she became tense and cried, screamed and wanted nothing to do with us. This attitude towards us continued for quite some time after our return home. However, there was less consternation for us, as we knew that this too would pass. Once our children came home and began to get adjusted to new adults in their lives and the fact that we would care for them no matter what, each one began to bloom in their own special and wondrous ways.

Faith is my little dancer, so elegant, beautiful and graceful. Gracie is my little, happy one, always laughing and playing tricks on me. Her laugh is infectious-I love her more than I can ever explain. Gracie’s heart condition has been repaired, a simple operation here but not possible for her birth parents, to whom I am forever grateful for their selflessness and bravery at helping their daughter have a better chance at life.

Joy has been unbelievably resilient. She learned to speak English in a matter of a few months, and translates from Mandarin to English to help us with our new daughter, Jewel. Yes, after much prayer and financial help from family, friends and strangers, there was another calling to adopt….

Jewel is 14 and almost completely deaf. She speaks Mandarin and is learning English day by day. And, like all my children, she is a treasure that I cannot imagine living without.

When we traveled to receive Jewel, she grieved and cried from the depths of her soul. At one point I had to leave the room, find a quiet place to pray and ask God if this truly was His will. I immediately was answered with: “Have faith in Me – it is not about you now, it is about her.”

At first I could not see myself with this many children or any children for that matter, and now I cannot fathom being without them. They are my family, and I am their Daddy. I could not fully live without them. Yes the boys get irritated sometimes, but what a lesson for them to see their parents doing the right thing for a child with no place to call home or anyone to love and care for them.

I get many questions, mostly from men, regarding adoption and specifically adopting older children. Yes, it costs money but that is typically spread out over many months. It would cost you much, much more, in terms of a rich life, not to have these loving children in your life.

Many times men worry over special needs more than prospective adoptive mothers. I can tell you from my experience that it’s no different than having biological children; it is all in God’s hands. Even with all the day-to-day activities, there always seems to be time to care for the needs of the children, and what could be more fulfilling?

People often say to us, how lucky these girls are and I say to them, no we are so very blessed to have them in our lives. There is no longer a void in our lives or our hearts – only a peace that goes beyond our understanding.

by Brad Burns

We wanted to add another son to our family and, through Holt’s Child of Promise program, we brought Will home just one year and one day after we signed the papers to begin our home study!

When we started to discuss adding a final child to our family, we realized that we had several prerequisites that made it challenging to locate a program that fit all of them. We wanted a son–that was the easy one. We also wanted our child to come home at under 2 years old, and the clincher was that we wanted him to be about 18 months younger than our youngest child at the time. This meant that we would need to complete an adoption in about a year. How in the world could this happen when adoption time-lines are increasing in so many programs?

Answer: Holt’s Child of Promise program. After talking to Holt’s China staff, we became very excited about the potential addition to our family of a child with a minor to moderate need. When a staff member asked me if we were open to either gender, my heart sank….”No, we are only open to a son,” I replied. The excitement and joy in his voice reassured me immediately as he exclaimed, “Really? You want a son? This is great! We have so many boys that need families! Your referral will come very quickly!”

Let me jump to the present! Will is such an amazing little guy! He makes us laugh each day as he imitates what we do, runs around the house after his siblings, and tries to say new words. His smile and giggle bring joy to each of our hearts. He fits right into our family, and although he has only been home for seven weeks, it feels like he has been with us from the start.

If you are frustrated by waiting in the China standard program or contemplating adding another child to your family, I urge you to download the “Minor/Correctable conditions” checklist from Holt’s website and take it to a pediatrician to review. We were very surprised to learn how many children that would be considered “healthy” by American standards are waiting for families in the “minor/correctable needs” program in China. In our situation, our pediatrician thinks that the hole in Will’s heart that labeled him “special needs” healed before the adoption was completed. Holt’s China Child of Promise program was the best decision we could have made…it brought us our amazing son!

by: Elizabeth

Cheryl had wanted to adopt a daughter from China since at least 2004, and she had an ally in our daughter, Leah, who had been praying for a little sister for quite some time. They finally got me onboard, and we got started on the long road of adoption again. When we received and scanned over the big red book that explained Holt’s China adoption process we were a little overwhelmed. Adopting from China looked a lot more difficult than adopting from Korea.

We started in the standard China program but also decided to be in the Waiting Child program simultaneously. It proved to be a good choice. If we had only been in the standard program, we would still be waiting (possibly years) longer for just a child referral. So our road wasn’t as long as it might have been.

We traveled to China to receive Jenna in 2007 when she was 3 years old. Born with a cleft palate and large birthmark on the right side of her face and neck, Jenna had been abandoned in Shennong Park when she was 1 month old. The cleft palate had already been surgically repaired in China before we received her.

Soon after we brought Jenna home we took her to see several specialists at the University of Iowa Otolaryngology department where they checked her repaired cleft palate, speech and hearing. They determined that she had ear infections and that her hearing was damaged possibly from the frequency of these infections throughout her young life. They recommended at least a couple of hours a week of speech therapy with a specialist.

In the time since, Jenna has had 1 – 2 hours each week of speech therapy. Jenna is on her 3rd set of ear tubes, which have eliminated her ear infections and helped somewhat with her speech. Her speech therapist once demonstrated to me how Jenna’s soft palate doesn’t have the normal range of motion that a normal one has. As a result it takes Jenna more effort to make certain sounds and she tends to speak nasally due to air leakage out of her nostrils. Jenna may require more palate surgery soon, but in the meantime we are continuing with her speech therapy.

Cheryl and I absolutely adore Jenna. She is so full of joy and love. Jenna is very sweet and generous. She loves to play, have fun and laugh and we just know that she loves to be a part of our family. We thank God each day that we get the privilege of being her parents.

Each child that we have adopted from Holt’s Waiting Child program has enriched our family beyond measure. I would highly recommend adopting a child through Holt’s Child of Promise program or Waiting Child program. The Holt China program helped match us with the child who was right for our family, and they helped us through the whole process every step of the way – through all the paperwork, with our dossier, throughout our wonderful experience of traveling to China to receive our daughter, and with our post-placement obligations.

Going through such an adoption process seemed overwhelming at the start, but we just did it step by step. No one step was too difficult. Eventually all of the steps are complete and looking back it doesn’t seem so hard after all. The reward is a precious, beautiful gift from God who loves us as much as we love her.

By Brett Foley

by Kim Esser

My husband and I went to an informational meeting on adoption in our hometown in 2006. We have three wonderful kids but were open to adding to the family through adoption. After the meeting we immediately started in on the paperwork.

As the one-year anniversary of our log-in date approached we saw the wait time increase triple fold. What were we to do? Stay in the process? Drop out? Switch to special needs?

In the end, we decided to go the China Child of Promise route. My husband and I filled out a minor/correctable needs checklist and then compared our lists, deciding on needs that we thought we could handle. We filed the paperwork in late August 2008 and three weeks later we had our referral! She was a beautiful little girl, about to turn one that week, and she was missing some fingers on her left hand…that was it!

We immediately said, “Yes! This is our child!” and started the process to bring Seren SuPing home. It seemed like everything then took the long route but in reality we were on our way to China in February 2009 to bring home our girl!

Seren SuPing has added so much joy to our family,and we can’t imagine life without her. If you are a family trying to decide if the Child of Promise program is right for you, take that leap of faith. In reality, you are the ones in control because you decide what “special needs” you are open to. There was never any pressure from Holt, and they never tried to persuade us into needs that we weren’t open to.

Holt wants you to feel comfortable with what you decide upon and only wants what is best for the children. I look at our new daughter and can’t imagine not having her. She fits our family perfectly and has made us all appreciate what we have and what we do as a family.

by Dannah Gresh

I am an adoptive mother struggling to reach into the recesses of a broken heart—that of my precious fifteen-year-old daughter, Autumn. She is in her bedroom writing too. She is having a bad day. Having been adopted at the age of thirteen, she misses China today. I encourage her to write her emotions in the pages of a journal. Some of her thoughts are too private. She writes those in Chinese so I cannot read them. I feel as if those Chinese characters represent an ancient code within her that I have to crack to find her healing. I’m fairly certain it is going to take me a lifetime to read her.

In 2004 God opened our family to the idea of adoption. We were on a mission trip in Zambia and fell in love with more than one orphaned child. We prayed: “God, if you want us to adopt, we are willing. Drop a child into our lap and make it clear.” He did, and when He did our hearts had been marinating in the call for two years.

In 2006 my husband’s best friend Troy VanLiere called him. He’d just come from China where he and his wife, Donna had adopted two girls a few years earlier. He sent a photo of Autumn to my husband’s laptop

Troy explained: “All she wants is a mom and dad, but in eleven months she’ll age-out and won’t be adoptable. What should I do?” Before we knew it, we realized that God was dropping a child into our laps…and she was thirteen.

Adopting an older child from another country is a drastically unique experience. The school systems don’t really know how to advise you educationally. Even the very experienced child psychologist who works with us doesn’t have any similar case studies, and so doesn’t always know how to advise me.

Once Autumn shut down emotionally to Lexi, her teenaged sister, and we couldn’t figure out why. After three months, we finally learned that it stemmed from a moment of sibling rivalry in which I intervened. After giving the girls time to figure it out, I quipped: “That’s enough. This isn’t working!” Lexi correctly interpreted it to mean: “If we don’t negotiate a plan here, mom will!” Autumn thought it meant I was taking her back to China, and so chose to not interface with Lexi in an attempt to stay. It’s complicated and if you aren’t willing to roll up your sleeves and stay in the game, don’t consider it. On difficult days, you’ll have to believe without a doubt that this was a calling for you and your family.

How can you know if it is? First, know that you love the stage of development you’re adopting whether that is teen, tween or kindergarten. We have loved parenting teens more than any other stage of development. We work with teens and have experience in addressing at-risk behaviors, healing emotional trauma and hanging out with them. To us, adopting Autumn-with her attachment issues, mother-traumas and learning challenges- seemed like a much better plan than baby bottles and diapers. We realized that we wanted a teenager.

Second, get the advice of several families who have adopted children your age. We dug hard and found a handful of families who had adopted teens, and even after their worst-case scenarios we still wanted to adopt a teenager. In fact, we loved the stories of success they shared and couldn’t wait to live out that story in our lives.

Third, make sure you have a support network around you. The first year is world-changing. You are changing the structure of your family, teaching a child English, learning to cook food they like, helping them make friends, figuring out what their emotional wounds are, and adding the extra costs and time for special needs. Before we made our final decision, we went to our children, our parents, and our staff. We got their feedback. They were willing to support us in this. And, they did.

It took us about two weeks to solidify the decision that adopting an older child was a good one for our family. If you think that was a reckless timeline, consider that we had only eleven months to get her out of China. On her fourteenth birthday-no matter how far along in the process we were-she’d become ineligible. We had to act quickly.

At the time adoptions through China were taking twenty-four months. There were miracles along the way. At one point, USCIS communicated to us that they needed 10-15 weeks for a piece of paper. We only had two or we’d miss our deadline. So, we asked people to pray. Soon, we got a call from USCIS that they wanted us at their state facility within twenty-four hours to finger print us.

Another time, we realized that we needed $25,000 and fast. A family friend gave us $12,000 and we were on our own for the rest. We prayed because we couldn’t see a solution. That week my accountant called and said I’d been reporting my author’s royalties incorrectly for a few years. The IRS owed me $13,060.00.

On days like today when Autumn hurts, I am certain of one thing. God has given me Autumn. I believe that is why he allowed miracles to surround the process of her adoption. More than that, I think I know why God has given her to me: I’m learning about me. I’m learning how selfish I am, and that I need less of me. I’m learning how much I like to be in control, and that I need to yield. I’m learning how much I feel like I need a plan with all the details, and that life is written best when we go day-by-day. I’m learning that God has given me Autumn so that she can be healed, and he has given Autumn to me so that I can be healed.

As I finish writing this, Autumn has finished her journaling. She came into my office a few moments ago and showed it to me. It is in Chinese and is for her heart only. But, she’s brought it for me to gaze upon, as if inviting me to figure it out. Leaving it on my desk, she’s now curled up on the little sofa in my office. She just wants to be close. That’s all I know for today, and I’m pretty sure it’s all I need to know.