How were you able to adopt a boy from China?

Jim and I are often asked how we are able to adopt a boy from China. There is a general perception amongst Americans and also some of the Chinese people I have met that there are little to no boys waiting for adoption in China. This letter I received from our Social Worker today clearly outlines the fact that reality in this case is the exact opposite of many people's perceptions.

"Dear Families,

I hope this email finds you doing well and enjoying your summer! I am writing today to talk with you about something that is near and dear to my heart, the waiting special needs children in China, more specifically the waiting boys.

I am writing to tell you about the need to adopt boys from China, and even though they are on the special needs list, already had their surgeries, and doctors are stating, that except scars, they are healthy. I am sure that many of you have heard of or read the book The Lost Daughters of China by Karin Evans about the abandoned girls in China and their journey to adoptive families, and their forgotten past. Families for years have been going to China to bring home little girls that were abandoned as the Communist government was enforcing the one child policy and families were keeping their one boy and abandoning their girls. To this day we still see that 95% of adoptions in China are for little girls. I too, when I started the China program, thought mainly of these girls, and there is still a need for families to adopt girls in this country that is still run by these rules of Communism. However, it was not until I began working in the special needs program here at AGCI, that I began to see the need for boys to be adopted too. The special needs program ranges from age 6 months to 13 years old, from minor to major special needs, to correctable to uncorrectable special needs. The older children and the boys from China are the hardest to place.

I have learned that since we opened in China in the early 1990’s we have only received one non-special needs referral of a little boy! However, in the few years we have been placing special needs children, we have received nearly a hundred referrals of special needs boys and they continue to come. We are only one agency of many in the United States who are trying to place these precious boys. Something I did not think of until I began in this program, and I am sure many families have not thought of either, is that if families in China can only have one child in there home they will most likely keep a healthy boy, and abandon a boy who has a special need. As a result we are seeing just as many boys as girls on the special need list and sometimes even more. Even though I know this and we share this with many families, we still have a huge majority of families coming to the special needs program for girls. On average we receive 30 special needs children every four months from China and have three months to place them. With every group we have a waiting list of families to contact about the kids. When we received our last group of kids on our waiting list of about 40 families, only about five were open to boys. “Why is this?” is a question I often ask myself. “Why, if I have a two year old girl and a two year old boy with the same special need online, will many families call about the girl but hardly any for the boy? Why will a girl be placed within days, and a boy sit for months waiting and often we will have to return his file to China?” I do not think we have ever sent a girl’s file back to China, they have all been boys. I do not understand why I have 9 boys waiting right in China, many of which have needs, that if they were a girl, would probably already be placed, but now the boys have been sitting three months with hardly any inquiries and are awaiting an approved extension from the CCAA so we can have more time to place them.

I am seeing that many families are now going the special needs route as the timelines are now 9-12 months from start to finish rather than the nearly 2 ½ years in the non-special needs route. Even with that, many boys still remain without a family. I recently did some research online and learned that there are other agencies facing the same problem, one actually has a whole section titled “China’s Forgotten Boys” and another large China only adoption agency has a boy on the opening web page trying to bring on families to adopt boys from China.

I wanted to share this with you today to inform you about the need we have for the boys to be placed on our special needs list. We still have several other boys waiting that are listed at www.allgodschildren.org . Please contact me if you or someone you know is interested in any of these other little boys. We are hoping to find homes for all of them soon! If you already have a referral or know that God is calling you to adopt a girl that is awesome! God knows what is best for you and your family and special needs is not something that everyone can take on! If you are still not sure though we encourage you to pray about welcoming one of these little ones into your heart and home and we ask that you share this possibility with friends and family too!



Blessings"