The Kari Sloan family received more than forty gifts.
On the eve of December 25, 2021, they are just a wish list that the Kari family hangs on the website, including clothes, socks, shoes and hats, favorite snacks for children, daily cleaning supplies, and some items that children and families need.
Almost overnight, their wish lists were emptied.
Gifts are packed into yellow cartons and couriered to the doorstep. This flattered the Kari family, who had never received so many packages at the festival, and it took them hours just to unpack them.
A total of 32 families received gifts, and they have a common identity: American families that adopt disabled children in China.
These families are spread across 22 U.S. states, including 121 adopted from China. Some of these children suffer from cerebral palsy or epilepsy, and some are born deaf and blind, and they are not "healthy people" in people's eyes.
Some families adopt more than one such child, some as many as 17.
Kari and the adopted daughter
Image source: Instagram
Kari's youngest son, Gabe, is also adopted from China, blind in both eyes, unable to speak, autistic and ADHD (attention deficits and hyperactivity disorder). When they returned to the United States, they lost contact with China.
Kari never imagined that one day, a group of strangers from China would empty their wish lists again and again, helping them in this way and expressing their gratitude to them.
Among the mountains of gifts, Gabe's favorite is a green cloth swing from a Chinese donor. It was Gabe's first swing, and Kari hung it in front of a sofa in the living room. Kari documents Gabe's first swing: he lay on the swing, his whole body tightly wrapped, swaying with the swing, revealing his two legs swinging outside. At this moment, the sun shines into the living room, gabe is having a good time, smiling and showing his cute front teeth. Every day after that, Gabe would play with the swing several times, each time for at least 20 minutes.
Kari tries to tell Gabe the origin and the story behind these gifts, hoping that he will experience the kindness of strangers from his home country, "We feel, we are seen, and loved." Kari said the children had a joyful holiday and this year's Santa Claus is from China.
The story of the Katie family
The story of 32 American families begins with an online video.
In the video, a blind girl with pink cheeks is lying in a hospital bed, her body bound by a quilt and bandages, and doctors are taking a CT scan of her brain because of a seizure. The fear of blindness made her cry uncontrollably.
The girl's name was Ivy, and nine years ago, the Katie Hearst family of Michigan adopted her from China along with Ellie and Simon. Both girls are blind children plus autism, and Simon has B thalassemia, with blood transfusions twice a week. Katie remembers that Ivy was four years old at the time, very thin, weighed only 10 pounds, and had abnormal physical indicators.
During the treatment in the United States, in order to alleviate Ivy's fears, Katie specially found a music therapist to play guitar and guide Ivy to sing. Ivy's crying slowly stopped, as if she had forgotten her fear and pain, and began to sing Scars to the Beautiful.
Christmas gifts received by Kari's family.
Image source: Courtesy of the interviewee
In 2019, Katie uploaded this video to the Internet, which quickly attracted the attention of netizens. When Chinese documentary filmmaker Zheng Qiong saw Ivy's video, she wondered how these American families selflessly loved these strange children from a foreign country, and how could these traumatized disabled children find love and identity in a new, unrelated family. With these questions in mind, Zheng Qiong began photographing the Katie family, documenting their daily lives and trying to find answers.
Later, Zheng Qiong posted the video of Katie's family on the Internet, and a Chinese near Katie's family saw it and went to visit with several friends with gifts. Gradually, the visiting team grew stronger, and by Christmas Eve 2019, more than 30 Chinese people came to Katie's house to bring gifts and donations.
A month later, the Katie family had a series of accidents, first Katie fell ill, followed by Simon's surgery, and Katie's husband, in addition to caring for three disabled children, also had three biological children. The local Chinese immediately formed a food delivery team, and 14 families took turns to deliver food for Katie's family.
The 2020 outbreak affected Simon's weekly fixed blood transfusions, and Ellie's violence intensified, requiring a professional psychiatric evaluation. The house where Katie's family lived also had various problems, the tiles in the bathroom were peeling off, the shower was damaged, the vents were old, and the air conditioning and roof also needed to be replaced. Ellie still likes to disassemble things constantly, and the wardrobes and cabinets in the house are torn apart by her.
Katie desperately needed to solve these problems, she listed them one by one and sent them online for help, and soon someone provided a door-to-door repair service, and someone directly gave away the air conditioner.
Luo Xin, a Chinese living in New Jersey, wrote down the story of the Katie family, allowing thousands of Chinese netizens to know the Katie family. They transformed into Santa Claus, sent a flood of gifts and donations to the Katie family, and later changed their big house for them.
A year passed, and the Katie family returned to a peaceful life. On the eve of Christmas 2021, a friend asked about buying gifts for Katie's family. Luo Xin and Katie discussed it and suggested that she open an Amazon wishlist. Katie listed a wish list with more than a dozen gifts, which Luo Xin sent to Katie's love group and was quickly bought out.
Soon, Luo Xin and Zheng Qiong mentioned the matter, and they had a sudden idea to let other adoptive families in difficulty open a wish list and provide some help as much as they could.
"We initially wanted to find three or five families and send a circle of friends every two days." Luo Xin said that in the 36 hours of the first article, 227 people contacted her. In just two weeks, adoptive families continued to join, and the number of adoptive families she came into contact with ranged from 3 to 5, to 10, and finally to 32.
"He's the kid we're looking for"
In March 2016, Kari met Gabe at the Eiberford Welfare Home in Hohhot, wearing a gray coat and a little cold, and threw herself into Kari's arms the first time they met.
Before coming to China, the Kari family had been waiting for a year. She and her husband have three children, two boys and a girl, and the family lives in Tennessee. Her husband works and she stays home full-time with her children. "I need to adopt a child and I'm a blind child." Kari recalls the decision.
When her first child left home as an adult, she felt the time had come. She consulted the idea with her husband and began to pay attention to information from various adoption agencies. During this time, Gabe's message appeared several times, and Kari and her husband quickly paid attention to him, and the two had the same feelings and tacit understanding, "Gabe is the child we are looking for." Kari said.
In the United States, there are not a few families like Kari who adopt children with special needs in China.
According to Wu Gongzhan, vice president and executive director of Asia Affairs at the Godini Adoption Center in the United States, the largest number of Chinese children were adopted by foreign families in 2007, and the United States is the country that adopts the most Chinese children. Since then, the number of healthy children in China for adoption has been decreasing, so the agency began recommending the adoption of children with special needs six years ago.
Group photo of Kari's family
Many people refer to these children born with disabilities as "disabled children", Wu Gongzhan said in an interview with the media: "Many children suffer from diseases that are not a big problem in the United States and can be cured, such as cleft lip, polydychia and so on." There are also children who can only sit in wheelchairs for life, such as cerebral palsy, etc., we call these children 'special needs children', which is beneficial to the healthy growth of children. ”
Adopting Gabe costs $45,000, plus a trip to China. Kari and her husband went around raising money, a cost they won't pay off until 2021.
For adoptive families, adopting a child is a big expense, including travel expenses, intermediary fees, immigration fees and lawyer fees, and even many people are saddled with debt. "These adoptive families have formed close ties within each other, and they often help each other, exchange news, and help each other raise adoption funds." Luo Xin said.
The strength behind these families is mainly faith. They believe that suffering is a kind of tempering. "Some families go to orphanages one after another, and when they see children suffering, they adopt them, which is far from being supported by simple love." Luo Xin said that the moment they saw the child's photo, they thought it was "god's guidance."
At first, Luo Xin thought that the adoption of 3 disabled children was already the limit, she did not expect that some families adopted more, "I saw the adoption of 4, 5, 7, 11, and 17!" For example, Mr. and Mrs. Karen and Gary live in Louisiana and have 19 children, including 17 with disabilities and 16 adopted from China.
The Yager family, who live in Indiana, have three biological children and have adopted 11 more Chinese children. Matt, the man, is an electrician and Mandi, the hostess, is a school bus driver. When they saw a picture of a disabled Chinese girl, they fell in love with her. The Yagers went to China five more times and adopted six children.
2017 was their last trip to China to adopt a four-year-old girl. Later, they took in 4 Chinese children in the United States who had been abandoned by other families. They are currently preparing to adopt 3 children from Colombia, and the family will soon have 17 children.
The Ost couple, who live in Kansas, have no children of their own and have adopted a total of five girls. The eldest is from Yueyang, Hunan, the second is from Yiwu, Zhejiang, suffering from serious heart disease, the third is from Foshan, Guangdong, there is a blood disease, the fourth is a newborn adopted in Arizona, the fifth is from Wuxi, Jiangsu, in addition to spina bifida, there is a rare disease, her intelligence is only two years old, Ost couple to raise her for a lifetime.
Now nearly 60 years old, The Ost couple is about to welcome their first son, a nine-year-old boy from Liaoning. Luo Xin said, "They are anxiously waiting for the epidemic to end, they can go to China and hold this child in their arms." ”
The unknown side
When Gabe first arrived in the United States, Kari's home was unfamiliar to him. For a long time, he could not handle the sounds coming into his ears from the outside, and he cried for hours a day. At this point, only snacks can soothe him, such as bear cookies, chicken nuggets, oranges and cheese.
After a year and a half, Gabe was finally able to understand English and could react to Kari. Clap your hands and agree. If bumped or injured, he would pick up the other person's hand and put it where he felt the pain.
Gabe carried a communication device, white, 12 inches, covered with 12 buttons. On each button, Kari is pasted with stickers of different textures to help Gabe distinguish. When Gabe wants to eat chicken nuggets, he presses a button with a blueprint of blue stars on it, and the device reads out the word "eat." Then press the red button at the top right to convert the function, at this time, the blue star drawing represents "chicken". "The blue star's button is gabe's most pressed." Kari said.
For 5 years, In order to give Gabe a full sense of security and an atmosphere of being loved, Kari and her husband rarely went out.
When Gabe feels frustrated or surrounded by strong emotions, he expresses it by kicking at walls and destroying furniture. Walls, windows, furniture, and even the people around him will be the object of his venting.
And he is extremely sensitive to sound, and the slightest noise from the outside world will cause him to be uneasy and collapse. The child is very destructive, leaving the child at home and leaving it in the care of others, Kari is not at ease.
But every week, they still try to take Gabe out a few times to help him adapt to different environments.
On June 29, 2019, 16 groups of American families adopting Chinese children celebrated and took a group photo at the Chinese Consulate General in Houston.
Source: CNSPhoto
Gabe loves to crawl and has good balance. In the backyard, Kari and her husband deliberately built a climbing frame for Gabe to play with, "he can hang upside down on it and even stand smoothly on the top." Gabe also likes to listen to music, and when she hears the rhythm, Gabe will wave his arms and swing from side to side, "We like to watch him dance, it's very cute." Kari said.
For blind children, the biggest problem is that they can't distinguish between day and night, which makes them suffer from insomnia. Gabe often woke up in the middle of the night and could no longer sleep, and Kari had to sit by Gabe's bedside all night to accompany him, "sometimes he was happy, sometimes he cried all night." It wasn't until last year, when the doctor gave Gabe a sleeping pill that worked, that everything improved, "As long as Gabe sleeps well, I sleep well." Kari said.
In adoptive families, Gabe's situation is not too bad. Some adoptive families create conflicts where the biological child cannot understand the parents' adoption decisions. There are also children who induce more serious diseases during treatment and then die, "which is undoubtedly a huge blow." Luo Xin said.
Luo Xin found that the adoptive families were not wealthy. Whether they adopted 1 child or 17, they all put a lot of effort into it, and their relatives did not understand their adoption decision and cut off contact with them. Neighbors and friends have gradually alienated them.
Hope Vance lives in Florida with only two couples and a daughter from China, Finley. The girl suffers from a disease called VOLTERL, and each letter represents a different condition. In order to provide her with the best treatment, the couple took the child to find the best doctor and team. Over the past two years, the cost of multiple rehabilitation therapists has been spent on all their savings. Finley has had three major surgeries so far and her condition has improved, but more surgeries are needed.
Over the years, the Yager family has been frugal and do everything themselves, they have never been to Disney, they have never used high-end goods, and the money saved is used for adoption costs. For example, the last girl adopted from China spent $35,000.
In addition to savings, Yager mainly relies on fundraising on weekdays. In order to collect donations, they came up with all kinds of tricks. For example, their eldest daughter-in-law, the main force of the American women's volleyball team, after winning the championship at the Tokyo Olympics, let her sign a lot of jerseys and volleyballs, auctioned among friends, and thus made up enough deposits to adopt colombian three children.
"There were some small holes in our towels and our sheets were so thin that you could almost see the opposite side. We may also use plastic molds and spoons, because the 'fairy' does not know where to take the original cutlery. Our vacuum cleaners are glued together with tape. There are also holes in the children's shoes, and we even avoid talking about the holes in their socks. We just kept telling them 'how many days are there until Christmas'. On December 11, 2021, Mandi Yager said on Facebook.
They list a wishlist
Ashley Kellogg's family lives in Indiana, USA. She had six biological children, the fifth being a daughter, who was born with severe brain damage. In the process of caring for her, Ashley learned many ways to care for people with disabilities. Later, she adopted 6 disabled children, 5 of whom were Chinese. Recently, Ashley went to Texas to pick up a black girl from Haiti.
Because of the adoption, the Ashley family's financial burden is very heavy, especially the recent legal fees and travel expenses for adoption, and the family has almost no money left. On the eve of the holiday, Ashley was still worried that the children were short of clothes and had not prepared for the holiday. Just then, a friend put a bag of clothes on her doorstep and told her that two Chinese women were making wish lists for adoptive families and suggested that she also attend.
The two Chinese women were Luo Xin and Zheng Qiong, who also invited Brenda Brown to open an Amazon wishlist. Brenda is a single mother in Memphis, Tennessee.
Five years ago, she adopted an 8-year-old Chinese boy. The boy was Caleb, who was adopted by an American family from a Chinese welfare home when he was 6 years old and later abandoned by the adoptive family. When Caleb was nine years old, Brenda officially adopted him. Caleb has been diagnosed by experts with ADHD, autism and bipolar disorder. This year, he is 13 years old.
The list Brenda sent was full of little things for Caleb. The 10 items, totaling less than $150, were bought out in less than two hours, and Luo Xin asked her to quickly put a few things on it.
In August 2016, 6-year-old Veronica grew up in New York. Four years ago, Sabina and her husband Mark adopted her at a welfare home in Anhui.
The Riddles live in North Carolina. Six years ago, they adopted Essy from Henan. Little girls suffer from rare genetic diseases, mental, vision, language skills are underdeveloped, and also have autism. Now that Essy is 8 years old, Riddles most wants to buy a blind child's reading machine, she is worried that the reader is too expensive, the price is $129. The Riddles listed a wishlist of ten books for Essy.
These days, Luo Xin continues to receive transfers from people asking for gifts for the children of these adoptive families. Later, Luo Xin used the remittance of a Peking University 81-level brother to buy a reading machine for Essy.
The Ost family's wishlist is simple, just a few diapers, and none of them exceed $20. Luo Xin asked them to change it several times, and some of them initially handed in their wish lists, and all the gifts added up to about $150. "We'll remind them to put some more stuff."
The next family, the wish list is being emptied faster and faster. Luo Xin's speed of sorting out information and sending it to the circle of friends is far from keeping up. Sometimes, she sends a circle of friends for less than an hour, and her wish list is empty.
Luo Xin and Zheng Qiong intend to continue to open the wish list, which can be continuously replenished. "If you think it's enough, give what you receive to other families who have adopted Chinese children." There are several mothers, and each of them has transferred four or five families. Luo Xin said that the number of people benefiting from this wish list activity has far exceeded 32 families.
The lists listed by these families include bed sheets, towels, socks, underwear, forks, tablespoons, restaurant gift cards, books, children's crafts, as well as pillows, snacks, games, diapers, medical supplies, almost everything for everyday use.
Adoptive mothers continue to pull in adoptive families in difficulty. Luo Xin and Zheng Qiong are bombarded with all kinds of information every day, and they are overloaded. What Luo Xin did not expect was that people's enthusiasm for buying was becoming more and more turbulent. Later, every time a family was launched, the wish list was emptied within a few hours.
It's been 20 days since the checklist program began, and a temporary volunteer team of 20 people has been running continuously. On the one hand, some people sort out, collect, and push these family information, and on the other hand, they continue to feedback the gratitude of these families after receiving gifts to donors, "inadvertently, a benign and rapid feedback mechanism is formed internally." Luo Xin said.
A history teacher in Shanghai entrusted Luo Xin with the purchase of two items on his wish list to pay tribute to kim's family. Kim's family lives in Massachusetts. They had four biological children, and four adopted girls, one from Bulgaria and three from China, and all four adopted girls were blind. Mr. and Mrs. Kim are intellectuals and live a very low-key and simple life. They raise their own chickens, grow vegetables, and listen to books and Chinese at home. This Christmas, Kim also began to receive packages, and they also recorded a video to thank everyone.
As a volunteer in China, Zhang Yixin, who lives in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, also participated in the activities. There are also some students in school who donate their living expenses for a month, some elderly people in China will not operate Amazon, nor will they use WeChat transfers, they indirectly donate through their children in the United States, some directly call Zhang Yixin, and some add friends, without saying a word, direct transfer.
Not a gift, but a reward
Over the past few days, some American adoptive families have received wishlist gifts. Brenda, a black mother, received the quilt and couldn't close her mouth happily. Karen's husband, Gary, was still in the hospital and cried when he received photos of the package from his wife. Cathy received a lot of attention, her wish lists kept getting short, and she received gifts. In the package Angela received, there was a handwritten card that called herself "Grandma" and made her cry again.
"Every family is posting gifts, and I can feel the joy across the screen." Luo Xin said that the wish list was emptied, and she kept reminding, "If the wish list is empty, put a few things in." But the other person always asks, "Is it appropriate to do this?" Luo Xin replied, "Suitable." In her opinion, every gift purchased on the wish list is not a gift, but a return.
Among the gifts received, there were also 19 gift cards, which Kari passed on to another 19 adoptive families. Another 31 families also forwarded some of the gifts and gift cards they received. So far, 158 adoptive families have received donations and gift cards have been sent to teachers at special schools where their children are located.
Because of the epidemic, Zheng Qiong's shooting plan was delayed for two years. When she returned to the U.S. in 2021 to continue filming, she found that the children had changed too much. Ivy no longer likes to sing, luo Xin and Zheng Qiong plan to implement the wish list activity for a long time, and are now ready to cooperate with non-profit organizations to turn it into a regular donation project.
If it weren't for the event, Luo Xin, who has lived in the United States for many years, would not know about these adoptive families, "most of the people I see in the news are adopted children who have gone to Yale or won a world championship." This time, she learned that behind every family, there are many stories, there is joy, there is warmth, there is also struggle and hardship.
Over the past year, the Kari family has undergone roof renovations, air conditioning replacements, flood damage and redecorated bathrooms. Recently, Kari's eldest son's child was born, and she and her husband had just been promoted to grandparents.
Image source: TEHRAN
At present, the Kari family's life is gradually returning to normal, Gabe goes to bed at eight o'clock every day, gets up at 4:30 a.m., and goes to class at the Tennessee School for Blind Children, which is a 45-minute drive from home. There, he needs to learn Braille, learn about his body, and try to find a suitable way to discipline himself.
Gabe has recently found a way to deal with his emotions. Whenever he was depressed, he would go back to his bed, listen to music in his own space, and calm down. "Adopting a child is never about getting something in return." Instead, Kari said, watching him grow and progress slowly, he was sincerely satisfied. She and her husband are currently sponsoring another blind child in China.
What the future holds for Gabe, no one knows. Of Gabe's full names, Kari retained his Chinese name. In the future, they may be looking for Gabe's biological parents to "let them know that Gabe is surrounded by love."
"We don't know what kind of future Gabe will have, but we will give unconditional support every step of the way he takes, and he will always live with us." Kari said she was honored to be Gabe's family.
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