It’s been three years since we hosted the girl with the sparkly extra chromosome who was and is today one of the JOYS of our lives.
Although hosting superheroes still waiting to be matched with their forever families was one of our favorite forms of advocacy, China closed the orphan hosting program shortly after Joy returned to China in 2017, and hosting to advocate for sweet superheroes like our first host child, D.J., and our second host child, Joy, was no longer an option.
Until now.
This year, China partially re-opened the orphan hosting program that allows older and special needs children to travel to the United States for two to four weeks for an “international camp” or “field trip,” stay with a host family who loves on them and advocates for them and then return to China with updated photos, updated files, a brand new team of cheerleader-advocates and, in addition to what may be the only experience outside orphanage walls they’ll ever be privileged to have, the very best chance of being adopted.
Anywhere between 75 to 95 percent (depending on which agency you speak to) of children who come to the United States for hosting are adopted, and children like Joy, who otherwise might not have the privilege of getting files even assembled for them, are, with a family pursuing them, given the chance at a second life.
This winter, several agencies around the country are bringing these brilliant, beautiful treasures from Chinese orphanages and institutions to American host homes. And this winter, we get the privilege of being one of those homes.
Meet Harry, our next host child. 😍😍😍
This 8-year-old superhero was born in September 2011 and found abandoned as a newborn. He has the same superpower as Superhero 4, cerebral palsy, and club foot.
And he is just primed to spread his cape and fly.
In a 2019 report, Harry was able to feed and dress himself, imitate, memorize classic poems and stand and walk while holding on to something. His caretakers described him as an outgoing boy who likes playing with other children, building with blocks and drawing pictures. They also said he enjoys interacting with people, asking questions, singing songs and telling stories.
The only difference between this spirited little guy and ours?
This little guy is still waiting for a forever family to cheer him on through the victories in this life.
On January 6, our team will drive to D.C. to greet a plane full of superheroes who, like Harry, are still waiting for their forever families to find them.
Some are being hosted by families who plan to adopt them. Others, like the 8-year-old superhero who will be coming back to our home, are being hosted by families who are counting down the days until they can play with them, love on them, advocate for them and tell their story.
After two weeks “on vacation” in our home, this sweet superhero will return to China, where he will wait for a family to begin and complete the process to adopt him.
And in the meantime, we will share his photos. We will share his heart. We will tell his story until one bold and courageous family steps forward to change it.
And we won’t stop until they do.
So rest up and rev up. Be sure to like and follow the Of Capes and Combat Boots Facebook page, where we will be posting pictures, videos, details and stories to help little H find the forever family he deserves in this life. And then share, share, share, share, share.
It is because of Orphan Warriors like you who shared our previous host children’s stories on social media that they were able to FIND the forever families that are today, just part of ours.
Although it’s not a perfect system (see our FAQs from our first hosting experience three years ago HERE and my Facebook comments on orphan hosting pasted below), we have seen how orphan hosting can change the orphan story, one deserving superhero at a time.
So Orphan Warriors, armor up.
Because we’re going to battle for the ONE.
One of H1S.
“If you can’t feed a hundred, then just feed one.” ~ Mother Teresa
WHY HOSTING?
Of Capes and Combat Boots Facebook Post from October 8, 2019
Now that China has re-opened the Orphan Hosting program, we’ve been inundated with messages about our thoughts on orphan hosting and if a program like this really is in the best interests of these children.
I’ll be 100 percent straight up: Orphan hosting is not a perfect system, and it’s not a perfect solution.
Although children are told they are coming to the United States for a vacation, not an adoption, older children especially ask the hard questions while here and wonder if this is their chance.
Host children form intimate bonds with their host families that, if not continued, could be heartbreaking (or later, confusing) for kiddos to overcome.
And, at the end of the experience, after tasting a life of freedom and resources and blessings and love, these deserving superheroes return to institutions and foster homes where, even if they are matched, they wait months for their forever families to complete the adoption process.
Although host families are not even permitted to use the word “adoption” in front of these kiddos (this is pitched strictly as a week- or month-long international camp experience for these kids), I’ve seen situations where orphanage workers have, which sent confusing and conflicting messages to kiddos who wondered why their host families didn’t “want” them.
BUT.
During both of our hosting sessions, 75 to 85 percent of the children hosted found forever families while staying in the United States. (Only about half of these were with the families who had hosted them.)
The updated medical information and photos and stories of these children who are so much more than 2D images and statistics in an institution turned these FILES into FACES — and many of those faces, if not during hosting, with updated and thorough files, FOLLOWING hosting then found homes.
And through hosting, children who were thought to be “unadoptable” earned the right to have an adoption file created, because children once seen as invaluable transformed from orphans into sons and daughters right before their home country’s eyes. (If Joy’s family had not moved forward to pursue her, her orphanage would not even have prepared her file — which means, as a person sporting a sparkly extra chromosome, when she aged out of the international adoption system, she would have likely moved from one institution to another. Or worse — forever lived without resources, family, acceptance or LOVE on the fringes of a society that is still learning how to embrace special needs as superpowers in disguise. I just can’t. 😢)
Ultimately, hosting effectively led to forever families for some of the oldest and hardest to place children waiting in orphanages for their forever to begin. And children growing up inside families instead of institutions shouldn’t just be a privilege in this life; it should be a right.
Hosting was the journey that got these children there.
But our family hasn’t just experienced the beauty of hosting during the month-long experience where a child from China lived and stayed inside our home; we’ve experienced the beauty long after.
D.J. came home to his forever family in March 2017, and Joy came to hers in March 2018.
And when the children we call our “forever nephew” and “forever niece” joined THEIR forever families, we simultaneously increased the size of ours. 💕
We chat and text with D.J. and Joy’s family weekly, and their mamas have become some of our very closest friends. We’ve seen D.J. twice on road trips through Kentucky, and we get together with Joy’s family (who only lives four hours away) every two or three months. Rebecca 'Thomas' Harder flew to our state so we could run a half marathon to raise money for another host child, and Angela Kreh and her crew once literally surprised us with a fancy fondue pot dinner in the comfort of our own home. 😍
Our children call each other “cousins,” and our families have become the dearest of friends.
What’s more, we’ve become extended family and community for one another. ❤️
Parenting is hard.
Adoptive parenting can be even harder.
And working through the histories of children from hard places is not for the faint of heart.
With hosting, children come with built-in aunties and advocates who might not get the privilege of calling themselves “Mom” or “Dad” but love these children madly as if they were their own.
That means that, the second this child comes home, he and his new family have a built-in extended network of people who will be fighting for them, praying for them, listening to them, encouraging them.
When life is hard and transition can be brutal, new adoptive mamas have an auntie who not only knows the child but loves the child just the same. They have a person to call, a person to pray, a person to advocate, a person to fight. 💪
And when they celebrate victories and milestones, they have an entire other family FROM DAY ONE cheering in triumph in their corner (or marching through their town on an annual Buddy Walk that has since become a Kreh-Cuthrell tradition). 🎉
Although we had to set protective appropriate boundaries with our host children when we reunited with them again, both children understand that we are Ayi and Shu Shu (“aunt” and “uncle” in Chinese), and that it is one of our greatest privileges of our lives to pray for them and watch them thrive inside their new families. ❤️
No, coming to the United States for a “camp” first and then waiting in an institution or foster home for a year until forever families could complete the paperwork to run to them was not ideal.
But today, the life of an older superhero with a missing hand and a sweet and sassy girl with a sparkly extra chromosome ARE. Because those lives are now lived out inside the unconditional love, laughter and acceptance of FAMILY. 💕
FAMILY changes EVERYTHING.