Meet the newest member of our extended family. No, she's not our daughter, although we'd take her in a heartbeat! She's our little flower blossom niece and she will be arriving home with her parents--Jeff's brother and his wife-- from the Hunan Province in the middle of March. Her Chinese name does indeed mean Blossom, but she will be known here in the States as Makenna.



My brother-in-law and sister-in-law thought about Chinese adoption long before we even brought Ben home 6 years ago, but they put it on the back burner for a few years until I gave my sister-in-law for Christmas a copy of The Waiting Child: How the Faith and Love of One Orphan Saved the Life of Another, by Cindy Champnella.

If you haven't read it yet, you need to go buy it now. Yes, buy it--don't borrow it--because 100% of the profit earned on the book goes to Half the Sky, a foundation set up by adoptive parents to aid the children in Chinese orphanages who are left behind and who may or may not ever be adopted.

Champnella's daughter, Jaclyn, was only 4 years old at the time of her adoption, but even before she could speak English she was already trying to tell her parents about "her baby", a little boy in the orphanage whom she took care of.

The Waiting Child is a story of unrelenting love between a little girl in America and a tiny little boy left behind in China whom she refused to forget; a story of how one little girl through her faith and prayers could move two huge government bureaucracies into action, allowing her baby to come home to her extended family. Champnella has stated that between 170-200 children have come home to adoptive families as a result of Jaclyn's story.

Jaclyn was chosen to be a recipient of the Angels in Adoption award, presented by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. She is the youngest person to ever receive this award.

Thank you Jaclyn, for making such an impact on the world of adoption, and thank you for being an instrument in bringing our niece to her new home.