November 7

Today we took our gong gong qi che (autobus) to Zhijang, a suburb of Jinan, to visit the foster center.  The foster center is affiliated with the Jinan orphanage.  The ride to the foster center was very interesting, we left the big city and drove out into the farm country.  Farming is the way of life of almost all residents of Zhijang.  We were fortunate enough to drive through on Market Day and we saw all of the farmers out selling their goods.

When we arrived at the foster center the directors greeted us with warm hospitality.  They explained what it's like for the children at the foster center.  There are currently 52 families in Zhijang that house 102 orphaned children.  They often move kids with cerebral palsy out to the countryside so they are able to grow up in traditional family homes with a mother figure and a father figure.  The foster center mothers take training from the physical therapists in Jinan and Beijing so that they are able to provide training to the foster children in their own homes.  Because the CP equipment is so expensive, the foster families often make their own equipment.  We were all very happy to learn that the money we raised bake in the States will provide new and advanced equipment to these families.

The foster children visit the foster center once a day,  where they receive training in groups and then the foster families also provide training at home.  After we played with some of the children at the foster center, the directors took us out to visit some of the homes of the foster families.  We felt very honored to be welcomed in to their homes.  They were all very beautiful.  They showed us the training equipment and introduced us to their families.

Foster families are often made up of a husband, wife and maybe even grandma and grandpa, whose children have already left home and they are wanting to raise babies again and cannot have more of their own because of the One Child rule.  These foster families are so generous and have great amounts of patience and huge hearts.  They open their homes to children with special needs who need a loving family.  Once the children learn how to walk on their own, talk and feed themselves they will head back to the Jinan orphanage and become eligible for international adoption.  The directors of the foster center also took us to a greenhouse out in the fields.  We saw tomatoes, lettuce and carrots that the farmers will sell to big cities like Beijing.

After we visited the Foster Center in Zhijang, we drove back to Jinan for a little sightseeing.  We headed over to Baotu Spring Park which houses a natural spring.  The park was beautiful and had many traditional Chinese plants and flowers.

Later in the day, the directors from the Jinan orphanage took us all out to dinner...to a Brazilian Steakhouse to thank us for our volunteer efforts.  We were offered quite a variety of different meats from American Brazilian Steakhouses, but we all had no problems filling ourselves up!  We were very appreciative of their kind words and their generous gifts.