Foster home gives children shelter, hope

In a serene corner of Qingyundian Town in Daxing county, Beijing, there is a small, two-story building. When people pass by, they can hear the laughter of children from inside the courtyard.

This is New Day Foster Home, which cares for abandoned babies and orphans born with physical handicaps.

I, Karen Brenneman, an American mother of three girls and director of the Foster Home, am also the mother of more than 50 children currently here.

Before I founded the foster home, I was an average full-time mother in New York in the United States. All my time was spent nurturing my three daughters, until one day I decided to follow my heart to do something meaningful.

I started learning Chinese, and later moved to Beijing with my husband. At that time, my youngest daughter was 7 years old. She has since graduated from college.

Back then, one of my friends was helping orphans and children with physical handicaps in China. I was envious of her happiness that came from her devotion to these children. With her encouragement, we started New Day Foster Home in 2000.

Children abandoned by their parents for various reasons come to the foster home from welfare institutions around China.

They arrive with congenital conditions such as cleft lips and palates, hydrocephalus, clubbed feet and congenital heart disease. Almost all can be corrected with surgery. Sometimes, one surgery can completely transform a life.

What we do is to pay for their living and medical expenses, ensuring the healthy growth of their bodies and minds. We employ full-time nurses, and we operate pre-school classes.

If you ever visit us, you will see colorful paintings hanging on the classroom walls. These are the work of the children that prove a rosy light is in their hearts.

The foster home has helped more than 100 children with their surgeries since 2000, and more than 100 children have been adopted. Each child has a profound connection with the foster home.

Dang Kainan is one of them. He came to us when he was 5 months old, suffering from pneumonia, bronchitis, heart disease, a hernia, malnutrition and a bedsore. We immediately sent him to Beijing Children's Hospital.

The doctors told us that he would not live through the night, but he survived. Our excitement when he lived through that first night was beyond description.

Zheng Lichan came to us with a bladder condition. After his first surgery in Singapore and a second one in the United States, he finally could have a comparatively normal life. An American family adopted him.

Providing a stable life for these children is not our ultimate objective. We cooperate with welfare institutions and other government agencies so that the children can be adopted, giving them a stable family with love.

We are so thankful that many families who have adopted our children choose to stay in close contact with us, making us feel like the children are always around.

In the past several years, our home has received selfless help from many warm-hearted people and enterprises.

Just days ago, Links Group, a domestic communications company, donated 100,000 yuan to us for our Formula Project. With the help of Links Group, we obtained powdered milk support from Wyeth, a US-based pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare products company.

I believe that it is better to give than to receive. It is a blessing to be able to give love to these children at our home.

The happiest thing in my life is to be the mother of not only my three daughters, but more than 100 Chinese children over the years.

The author is director of New Day Foster Home.

(China Daily 10/12/2009 page10)