GIVING HOMES, HEALTH AND HOPE TO CHILDREN AT RISK AND IN NEED.

          by: Melody Zhang, Associate Director-Children’s Hope International

    There are two main reasons I want to write this article.  It has to do with an email and one interview.   The email came from a 13-year-old girl.   She was surprised to learn that over 1000 people came to St. Louis for a CHI reunion this summer!  I then told her we have helped nearly 4000 children find homes since her adoption in August, 1992. She was the first child our agency ever helped to find a family!   I had an interview with the newspaper reporter last month.  I was stunned to read the article later saying “since 1992, Melody looked for truth for her country in America, she looked in Christianity, and at Washington University. She didn’t find it there, she kept looking.”    What?!  I did tell her that I indeed found the truth for my life.  My search for truth led me to America and led me to a mighty God.  I had a new life and I want to use it to serve Him.   And now, after living in America for over 12 years, upon His calling, I am ready to head back to China with my family!  I am in awe of His divine plan for me and for Children's Hope.     What happened to me and to CHI in the past 12 years is truly a journey of following His calling.

Children's Hope International was born out of a call to Dwyatt Gantt.  He was called to be a missionary to China in the 1981.  He didn’t know much about China but what he did know, made it sound like a “life sentence”.  But he obeyed.   For 10 years, he sent Christian teachers to Universities in China.  Some of his teachers died on their mission.  Others discovered the need of helping orphan children while serving in China.

I was then a reporter fresh out of school.  I had an assignment one day to interview a foreign expert. Mr. Gantt was recognized for his outstanding work for helping China and was invited to attend a national banquet hosted by the Premier in the Great Hall of China.  During our interview, he said he was an “egg”, like many overseas Chinese are called a “Banana”, yellow outside, white inside, he is the opposite, white outside, yellow inside!  He really loves China!  I wrote an article later titled “I have a Chinese heart” and got it published in our magazine.   During that time, Dwyatt started to research the adoption work by going to the US embassy to connect to the adoption agencies in US.  Then he asked me a question, “Do you know of any orphanage in China we can help?”  He wanted me to use my connection to reach out to the needy because many Chinese including the orphanage people were very suspicious of foreigners those days.  My first honest answer was: “probably not, because after liberation we don’t have orphans in China any more”.  He asked me to check it out.  And sure enough, I found an orphanage right in my home town, Changshu, Jiang Su province, which was next to a hospital, where my aunt worked. 

I immediately went to visit.  There, I found 20 skinny babies lying in old metal cribs on bamboo sheets. The room was filled with the sound of these crying babies and the smell of diapers piled in the corner.   This was June, 1992.  In that room, my reporter career ended.   I took a baby girl to my aunt’s home that day.  In the last crib by the door she had waved at me as I looked down at her. She had big almond eyes and a beautiful smile.
 
        Her little arms had at least 50 mosquito bites. I carried her in her huge rubber diaper to my aunt’s home and I was determined to find her the best parents she could possibly have. My aunt’s neighbor later agreed to be her foster parent until someone comes to adopt her.  I went back to Beijing to start the actual adoption work.  Two months after my visit, August 1992, the first group of US families arrived to adopt three babies from Changshu.  One of them was the girl I took home and she is the 13 year old in the beginning of this article who emailed me about the CHI picnic! So much has happened in the 12 years since her adoption.  We now have over 4500 children home from nine countries.  There were over 800 children adopted through Children’s Hope in 2004 alone.  

         Almost from the beginning we helped families donate items to orphanages during their adoption trip. But by 1995, CHI started our major humanitarian aid program when we established formal cooperation with Hu Bei provincial Civil Affairs to provide foster care for orphan children.  This work then led to the establishment of Children’s Hope International Foundation in 2000. 

         I remember our first medical team project in 1999.  A group of 10 doctors, nurses, CHI staff and volunteers went to Urumuqi and Nanchang to provide 26 children with surgeries.   We continued the medical project for the next five years by providing funds for Chinese doctors to perform the surgeries. This was a special opportunity to work with China Association of Social work, which is an organization tied close to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.  Over 600 Chinese orphan children have received surgeries though CHI’s “Give Me New Life” project.

        Our humanitarian projects spread to all the countries we serve.  We learned to work only with the people worthy of our trust to properly deliver our aid. CHI’s mission states “Home, Health and Hope for children in need all over the world”.   Wherever we go, we find children in need and attend to it: Whether it is developmental toys for orphans in Russia, cribs for an HIV orphanage in Vietnam, fresh water wells in India or medicine for children in Guatemala. 

         In 2000 Dwyatt told me his heart was telling him there is more we are going to do, beginning with a bigger goal for “Give me New Life”.  He said God wants us to help all the children in China who need a surgery.   It’s a goal for a life time!  We started slowly increasing the number of surgeries year after year. 

         It was this spring that we heard great news from Beijing, China.  Inspired by “Give Me New Life” and many other humanitarian aid projects, the Chinese government launched a great campaign called “Tomorrow Project”, aimed at providing medical treatment to every child in all the child welfare homes all over China.  The Government will fund this $74 million project. 

         The Tomorrow Project committee invites everyone who cares about Chinese orphans to contribute to this great work.  The current goal is 10,000 surgeries per year for the next three years! 

         Children’s Hope is honored to work with Tomorrow Project very closely in China.  We are ready to utilize our resources from “Give Me New Life” for this much bigger project.  As we write down our goals, 300 surgeries for next year, I thought about the goal we had in 2000:  Dwyatt’s dream of serving all the children in China in need of a surgery. 

God works in wonders! 

 I felt the call from God for me to go back to my country for this Tomorrow Project.   And for other great works we have in China.   To name a few:

1. We will open our first foster care and rehabilitation center in Beijing to provide the post surgery care for children coming to Beijing for Tomorrow Project.  There could be 300-500 children a year.   
2. CHI will start to help orphan children in private orphanages who are not currently included in the Tomorrow Project. 
3. Beijing office will start providing home study services in China. ( I am a social worker who will conduct home study for American families) 
4. We will start a rescue program to help street children in China. 
5. Starting 2005, CHI foundation will help the HIV orphans. 

I have another reason to go back to China for the next three years.  My husband and I added two more girls to our family in August.   Lan Lan and Zhen Zhen, 15 and 16-years-old are from the same orphanage as Ting Ting, who we adopted two years ago when she was 14.  Those three girls grew up together like sisters and they are now sisters in our family.  Because they both passed the age of 14, the legal age for adoption in China, legally, we are their foster family right now.  We have to be in China to be able to live together as a family.   They will be graduating from high school in three years and I hope they can then come to US to go to college.

Whenever I think about CHI and my family, I thank God for a divine plan that is better than I ever pictured for my life.  And I thank God for my dear families and friends, and the Christian role models I have in our adoption circle.  Following on their foot prints, I too want to follow God’s call for the rest of my life.    

Melody Zhang  MSW
Associate Director
Children's Hope International

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