Taiwan Journal #9 - Back to Cathwel

Yesterday morning we went back to Cathwel for a second visit. They're technically closed for the holiday but Sister Rosa said we could come back to spend some time with the children and we were really excited to get to do that.

We arrived a little after 10:00 and gave Sister Rosa the rest of the money that was donated by everyone at Powell Church... it came out to $15,000 (settle down... that's about $500 US) and she seemed to be very moved by this gift. She wanted me to thank everyone there for having faith in what they were doing. She insisted on getting our address so she could send us a card... she's really sweet.

After we gave her the gift she asked if we wanted to spend some time with the babies and we told her we did so we scrubbed in (you have to wear scrubs and get washed up before you can go in with the babies) and went into the baby room. The area where the babies are is split into 2 rooms with seven or eight babies in each room... there were about five people working there with the children. We spent about an hour and a half holding them and playing with them and they let us give some of them their bottle (we do it a little differently in America so they had to keep showing us how they do it). Fortunately on Saturdays, there's a woman named Susan who works there at Cathwel who grew up in Manhattan so she was able to talk to us quite a bit. She put some of our fears from our first visit at ease telling us that she has seen many, many children be adopted by families who already have children.

I could go on and on about the children... they are just beyond precious. Most of the children we were playing with had already been adopted and were just waiting to go home... there are some very lucky families somewhere out there in the world. There was one little girl in particular who just completely melted both of our hearts. She was just so sweet. Really all of the kids seemed to be really happy and they all were very anxious to be held and played with.

To anyone reading this who is adopting through Cathwel, the one thing I would have to say to you is that your child is being incredibly well cared for. We've heard stories of many Chinese orphanages where there are 50 kids with 2 workers and they never get held or anything... that's far from the case here at Cathwel. They are well staffed and the workers there really are great with the kids... you can tell that it's genuine and they really love the babies. They seem to all get a lot of attention, everything is incredibly clean, and the babies are happy... it's still an orphanage, but I can't imagine a better setup for the kids. They're really doing a great job.

One interesting thing that happened... while we were there with the kids another couple came in... it was an American man who had a Taiwanese wife and they were from Columbus, Ohio. They were here visiting and are thinking of starting the adoption process. It was neat to meet another family from the US and I would guess after spending some time with the babies they're probably about ready to sign up!

We didn't want to wear out our welcome so after about 90 minutes with the babies we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel. I think after this second visit, Jessica and I both feel a little more at ease with the whole process. The waiting is probably going to be a bit harder now having spent time with these precious little ones but that's alright. When our referral finally comes and we have to endure that long 8 months of waiting to travel while all of our court papers are prepared, we'll be able to imagine where Claire is, what she's doing, and who is taking care of her, and we'll know that she's being loved... that alone was worth the cost of this trip.

(any families adopting from Cathwel who have any questions at all, please feel free to email us and we'd be glad to answer any questions.