When my friend who leads the special needs orphanage in China supported by Global Partners in Life called, there was panic in her voice. She told me that one of the children desperately needed surgery on her heart. This child had blue lips and fingernails the last time I saw her, due to the hole in her heart not allowing the correct amount of oxygen to be in her blood, and she had grown very weak. My friend was frantically trying to raise the funds to pay for the surgery, because in China you have to pay for the entire medical procedure before the surgery actually takes place.
I am so thankful that Global Partners in Life was able to provide for this medical emergency, thanks to one special donor! This was the first major surgery we had provided for financially, and I am so thankful we did! After the surgery, I got to watch this child grow and flourish. She had once backed away from group wrestling matches, but after recovering from the surgery, she would be right in the middle of them.
This is hard to believe, but when this child was only three years old, she could fold the laundry. Also, she could feed the little babies their baby food without spilling a drop! She would get the right amount of food on the spoon and put it into the baby’s mouth, give the baby enough time to eat what they had, use the spoon to wipe up any extra that was on the outside of the baby’s mouth, and then repeat this process until the baby had completed their meal.
I am thrilled to share with you that this child was later adopted by a wonderful foreign family. It is amazing to consider the the difference — that she was once struggling to survive due to their health conditions, and now she is healthy, happy, and living abroad with a loving family!
This is what can happen when we invest in the lives of these truly needy children . . . wouldn’t you like to help make a difference?