G'Day From Downunder

Get the champers out we have things to talk about.

I am often asked how do you come up with stories and my usual reply is, you do not have to look for them they find you just as this one did.

Last week I returned from Hong Kong where I was attending a financial conference; while there I was looking forward to checking out the local Irish watering holes for you but that story now has to take a back seat until my next report.

All because I was brought to tears by a fascinating humanitarian story, that also brought tears to the three hundred plus audience at the conference.

Hand on heart I swear there was not a dry eye in the house.

Donald White, like me, is a financial adviser based in Stuart Florida USA.

It is obvious that Don is a man of extraordinary kindness and compassion for his fellow man.

He spoke of the wonderful new world of opportunities that China was creating for its people but that there were also issues that were overlooked, such as the overwhelming poverty that is ignored there.

Almost one billion Chinese people live on less than five hundred dollars a year.

Of the children born in rural China with cleft palates, 80% to 90% of those children are left to DIE.

God how those words hit me? Because those children are deformed, they are abandoned, taken to orphanages or in many cases left outside public places.

Don then went on to tell the amazing story of two of those little children that he and his wife, Grace, adopted.

In his own words, here is Don's story:

Grace and I went on a mission trip to China in January, 2004 with the goal of helping build a playground at a foster care centre just south of Beijing at a home called "Shepherd's Field" operated by the Philip Hayden Foundation.

There is a growing trend towards allowing foreign groups to raise funds, especially for special needs kids, outside of the traditional orphanage in group foster care.

While we were there both Grace and I were just smitten by these children and when we returned to the US we decided to pursue adopting from China.

As we got involved in the process, I said to Grace that we ought to pursue adopting two children, rather than just one since we both felt the need for the child to have siblings and besides that at 49 and 48 we are not getting any younger!

So we applied for 2 children. Almost immediately everyone told us this was a waste of time because China does not approve two children simultaneously unless they are twins or siblings and those are very rare.

Further, they told us, the cost (about $14,000/child) was the same per child whether you adopted one or a dozen.

But I felt strongly we needed to go for two, but the truth is all this negative talk was a bit discouraging.

Just a couple of days after sending in our initial application I received a phone call from a company that I do business with and they told me I had earned a bonus for some work I had done several years ago.

Although I knew I earned something I was not sure how much, so I asked them what I was due.

They told me I was owed just a little over $28,000 and they were going to send it to me by week's end.

At that point I knew we were going to get two children, and believe it or not I was convinced it would be twins, because God does not provide the exact amount you need without providing a way to use those funds.

Over the next several months we began the paperwork trail and by June had everything done with the exception of the approval from the US Government.

In early August, we received a call from the local government representative and the lady asked if I was the Don White that did the radio show on the local station in West Palm Beach.

I told her I was and she told me she was assigned our file and she was a regular listener, blah, blah, blah!

However, she said the main reason she called was she noticed we were applying for two children and that since China does not normally allow multiple adoptions she was not sure why I had applied for two children.

I then told her about our experience and the funding and she said, "Well I think this was meant to be and I am going to go ahead and approve you for two visas with one caveat - you must bring by the kid(s) to see me once you get home." How cool is that?

So with US government approval in hand we packaged up our dossier and on August 20th we sent it to China to begin waiting to be referred a child.

On August 27th we received a call from the adoption agency and Jill Baker, our contact at A Helping Hand Adoption Agency said, "We just received our list of available children and on top of the list are a set of twin girls that were born September 12, 2003.

"They both have hair lips and cleft palates. The lips have been repaired but the palates still need to be done.

"They are available and since you are the only people we have that are approved for two children, we want you to have the opportunity to adopt them before anyone else."

Both Grace and I were shocked. We thought it would take months, maybe years, to get a referral and now here we were a week after finishing our dossier being asked to adopt these two precious packages.

My immediate response was I'm in! But Grace, as is her nature, was more reserved. Would we be able to handle twins? How big a deal is the cleft lip and palate? Are they too young? (We thought we might be adopting toddlers, not infants)

Have we lost our minds? There were many more questions and not many answers. So that weekend Grace got on the Internet and within 24 hours she had the entire life history of both girls. Here's what she found:

They were abandoned at 3 days old in Jiaozuo in Henan province (about 600 miles southwest of Beijing).

The orphanage director realized their small orphanage in Jiaozuo was not set up to handle two cleft babies and asked Dr. Joyce Hill, an Australian doctor that gave up her practice six years previous to come to China and direct Hope Foster Home in Beijing, if she would foster the twins.

Another Australian lady working as an orphanage volunteer in Jiaozuo delivered the twins to Hope Foster Home when they were only 12 days old along with several other fortunate ones.

Grace actually corresponded with this lady the day after the twins were referred to us. The Internet is remarkable.

That Sunday we contacted Hope Foster Home (www.Hopefosterhome.com) and spoke with Dr. Hill.

She told us HFH is a foster home that can handle about 25 kids.

When Joyce took in the twins she said they weighed less than 2 kg and a year later they were about 10 kg and may need to go on a bit of a diet!

Indeed, Dr. Hill told us her daughter calls HFH "the fat baby farm".

When the twins were seven months old, Dr. Hill heard two American surgeons were coming to China with a group called "Love without Boundaries (LWB)" to repair cleft lips and cleft palates but they would be in south China exclusively.

Without any guarantees they would even be able to treat the girls she drove 2500 km (each way) to Guangzhou province.

When the surgeons saw them they were amazed.

Unlike all the other children they were treating, these children were healthy, were normal weight and most of all they were happy.

The surgeons (Dr. John Padilla a plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills, CA and Dr. Lisa

David, a cranial facial surgeon from Wake Forest Medical Centre in NC) literally fell in love with them.

Within days of finding out about the girls, I had the pleasure of speaking to both surgeons as well as the head of LWB.

Indeed, Dr. David said she was trying to figure out a way she could hide them in her luggage!

She is also the one who informed us about the rarity of their clefts.

Tragically, Dr. Padilla died in a plane crash on November 10, 2004 and never was able to see the wonderful life change he made in our two girls lives.

Although I never met him, except on the phone, I will never forget him and will look forward to shaking his hand and thanking him face to face when my days on earth are done.

We decided to call the girls Reagan and Sydney and keep their Chinese names (Yaqui and Yayun) as middle names.

The names have very special meaning to Grace and me.

First, when Grace and I were in China in June, 2004, President Reagan passed away.

I was told that it was Mr. Reagan that opened the door for Chinese American adoption in its present form.

Prior to the Reagan era, Chinese American adoption was virtually nonexistent.

So we made the decision even before knowing we were getting the twins to name our first child Reagan in honour of the President.

The second name was actually done for us. Both girls had received English names at Hope Foster Home - Carly and Sydney.

We decided to keep Sydney's name to remind us of the Australian connection (the orphanage volunteer and Dr. Hill are both from Australia) that put them into our arms.

Once they were in the US we brought them to Miami Children's Hospital to work with the cleft lip and palate teams they have developed.

We have spoken with numerous professionals, including Dr. David and Dr. Padilla, and they have all recommended working with a specialized cleft team and Miami Children's is one of the best in the country.

What a Christmas present we were given in 2004!

We could not wait to get back to China and to think this would have never happened had we not been asked by our friends at the MDRT Foundation to go to China to build a playground for orphans!

Later on that evening after Don's story tore our hearts out, Don and Grace brought Reagan (Yayun) and Sydney (Yaqiu), who have had several corrective operations and who have now grown into two beautiful young adolescents to the dinner speeches.

The group presented a cheque to Don for the continuing work of giving hope to those who often pray for people like Don to come their way.

Now that you know of this very sad situation in China I ask and beg you to also shine a light and support Don's cause in bringing hope to who have nothing but hope.

You can contact Don at DWhite@TCFin.com or check out their website at Lovewithoutboundaries.com.

They will be only too happy to hear from you if you can help in ANY way. Until I talk to you again be good to those who love you and Slainte from Downunder. C

You can catch me at mike@globefins.com.au.