Fengcheng Orphanage

A Visit to Fengcheng

Including Meeting Our Daughter's Foster Mother

January 2004

We just came home 2 weeks ago from our 2nd trip to China (first daughter joined our family almost 3 years ago from Jiangsu province). Our 2nd daughter (now named Sophia) is from Fengcheng and she is 18 months old. She had a REALLY hard time for the first few days because she grieved for her foster mother. We anticipated this reaction from her, so we were OK and did our best to make her feel comfortable, safe and loved. As we undressed her for the first time (HOURS after we had received her because we didn't want to traumatize her any further), we were shocked when a note and picture fell out of her shirt.....it was a picture of the foster mother holding her, along with a note that included her name, address and phone number - JACKPOT!!!! We were so excited!!! We found out afterwards that Sophia basically came to our arms right from the foster mother - she wasn't taken back to the orphanage prior to our arrival which really explained her grief. And as if that note and picture wasn't enough, a couple of days later when we went to visit the Fengcheng orphanage, her foster mother was standing waiting for us as we got off the bus!!!! I was so happy because I had put together a gift for her, and was able to hand it to her person...inside we included a letter talking about our family, some pictures of us and our home, and also gave our address so that we can keep in touch. The foster mother is a lovely lady, and we can tell that she took very good care of our daughter. We definitely plan on staying in touch with her. Sophia was so happy to see her and couldn't get out of my arms fast enough....I was crying, the foster mother was crying, and Sophia was just satisfied to be back in the foster mother's arms......it was truly an unbelievable experience - we feel so fortunate to have met her in person. It was closure for all of us I think - we waved bye-bye to her from the bus and of course I bawled my eyes out for a while. We then got to visit the spot that Sophia was found when she was 3 days old - we were the only family in our group (8 families) to get this info that day and be able to take pictures of the spot, so we again feel very fortunate.

If you'd like to see our pictures from Fengcheng, visit our website at http://www.group175.com - after you click "continue" or "skip the intro" from the homepage, you'll see the Daily Blog that my husband wrote essentially every day while we were in China - he did a great job capturing the emotions, and also added some humour if you're interested in reading them. To see Fengcheng, click on Photo Galleries, and you'll see a list of specific trips (or however it's worded...I forget)....anyways, in that list, you'll see "visit to Fengcheng" - click on that. The first picture is of Sophia, her foster mother and me about to embrace her.

We'd love to hear from any families that have children that are from Fengcheng and would welcome any information anyone might have about the city or orphanage.

Please e-mail me at webmaster@gurrad.com if you have any additional information or if your child is from here and you would like to post a picture here or other contact information.