In November 2008, WACAP President & CEO Lillian Thogersen traveled to China to meet with officials and see children who were waiting for families. When she arrived, the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA) made a staggering request -- that WACAP find homes for a group of 34 children at the Luoyang Children’s Institute, age 10–13. Under Chinese law, children become ineligible for adoption on their 14th birthday. The children were all at risk of losing the chance at a permanent family.

“Meeting these kids was absolutely wonderful, and any parent would be lucky to have one as a son or daughter,” says Lillian, “but the CCAA’s request was daunting because it is already difficult to find families for ‘older’ children who are just 3 years old. When you have a large group of kids whose ages are already in the double-digits, it can seem nearly impossible. That’s why we named this project the ‘Journey of Hope.’ We knew it would be a challenge, but we had to take it on because the kids had so little time before their chance at being adopted went away forever.” 

WACAP’S ROOTS IN CHINA

When China opened its doors to international adoption in 1990, WACAP was one of the first agencies to work in the country. In the early 1990s and 2000s, many other international placing agencies followed suit, finding homes for some of the thousands of babies girls abandoned across China. While WACAP searched for families for these babies, staff also focused on finding homes for children who were older or who had special needs. When the CCAA implemented new restrictions for adoptive parents in 2007 and the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption took effect in 2008, many agencies left China. WACAP stayed. “The reason the CCAA asked us to find homes for the Journey of Hope kids is because they have seen our success at helping the children who are more difficult to place because of circumstances that are out of their control,” says Lillian. “We have always worked hard to find families for waiting children in China, and the CCAA recognizes that. They knew that we would work hard for these kids.”

BRINGING THEM HOME

When WACAP received information on the first 18 Journey of Hope children, Family Finders program staff immediately began to search across the country for adoptive families. Thanks to funding supplied by generous donors, WACAP was able to reduce the adoption fees for all 18 of the kids. “We know that the expense of an adoption can be prohibitive, especially for kids who are older and might have more expenses once they come home” say Jo Reed, supervising waiting child case manager. “Because the donations allowed us to absorb so many of the costs associated with these adoptions, the children were available to a substantially larger group of potential adoptive families. Still, we weren’t sure what kind of response we were going to get. The pressure was certainly on since some of the kids were about to turn 14.”

The response turned out to be overwhelming. In just the first week, because of the hard work and dedication of the Family Finders Team, WACAP received over 400 phone calls and e-mails about the Journey of Hope children. By the end of February 2009, all 18 had been matched with families. 

 The Journey Continues...

Because of those initial successes, the CCAA has asked WACAP to find families for even more orphans ages 10-13. “The bottom line is, we will not give up on these kids,” says Lillian. “Just because they are older doesn’t mean they aren’t children. They still need the love, care and support that only a permanent family can bring.”

If you are interested in opening your heart to an older child waiting in China, please contact WACAP's Family Finders department for more information.