Wish You Happy Forever (37 page)

Beijing
Spring 2009

“The babies are coming!”

Four nurses, a doctor, thirty nannies, and six foster moms closed in on the elevator doors, impatient for them to open.

Thirteen years before that day, a boy—the young son of a wealthy American financier—was sent to Beijing to live with a Chinese family for a year. His parents had a special fondness for China and wanted to give their son a life experience different than the privileged one he knew. The boy learned the language, completed sixth grade, made some lifelong friends, and then went home. That could have been the end of it.

But China has a way of getting under your skin. The boy loved the people, and he was haunted by the poverty. As an Eagle Scout project when he was sixteen, he started China Care, a charity to benefit Chinese orphans with special needs. He began by raising money from his neighbors, and the enterprise ballooned from there: China Care went on to fund corrective surgeries and medical care for hundreds of children with life-threatening conditions.

When the boy was older and ready to explore new things, China Care's leaders approached Half the Sky. It was during the earthquake days. I was only too aware of the needs we weren't filling. I thought often of that little baby in Harbin whose heart was failing.

So now, in the spring of 2009, we were finally ready to greet the first residents of our new China Care Home, providing pre- and postoperative care for medically fragile orphans.

But the elevator doors didn't open soon enough for the baby girl in Harbin. She didn't survive.

Among our first arrivals, there were three whose complex heart conditions could not be repaired in country. Once again, I stepped into the forbidden waters of international adoption and requested special permission to advocate for the three little girls. We had their medical records reviewed by prominent American pediatric cardiologists. Two of the girls easily found adoptive homes and lifesaving surgeries in the United States.

The third, Fangfang, needed, at the very least, a transplant—a new heart. More likely, new lungs as well. Given her frail condition after three years of struggling to live, it was unlikely she could survive surgery. She was deemed inoperable and terminal.

In the China Care Home, Fangfang was given a mama and siblings. Despite her weakness, and in her own way, she blossomed.

I sat in our playroom with tiny Fangfang on my lap and showed her how to work my camera. She watched carefully with a crooked little smile. I heard her delighted laughter as, despite the congenital malformation of one of her arms, she not only figured the thing out but managed to take some great shots. I looked into the bright eyes of this enormously intelligent and spirited little being. And I simply couldn't believe that her life would soon be over.

Fangfang

Fangfang is a clever girl. She can speak many words and is a quick learner. As we show her photos of some children, she can recognize them and say their names. She can walk steadily and use her little two fingers on the left arm skillfully to pinch things like spoon or ball.

Six months into our search for families for the three little girls, only Fangfang was left. Finally, a couple came forward and told us she was meant to be theirs.

But then, when they truly understood how ill she was, the family withdrew. Soon two other families considered adopting Fangfang, but they also decided not to pursue it. I talked to dozens of prospective parents. I tried to arrange a free heart transplant in the United States. From what I could learn, such a thing does not exist. A healthy child's heart is too rare and precious.

Finally, just before China Care Home celebrated its first birthday, Fangfang found her family. She would have three big brothers and five big sisters, four of them adopted from China. Her new parents said, “We knew from the moment we saw her face that she was our daughter. We were prepared to bring her home and provide her with a family and love her unconditionally for however long God would share her with us on earth.”

We all knew they were the ones. Fangfang, of the sweet crooked smile and the iron will to live, became Teresa, the newest resident of Maryland, USA.

She spent three joyous years treasured in the arms of family, but she didn't survive that long-awaited heart transplant. Still, Fangfang's spirit touched the hearts of many; urgent care for critically ill orphans continues today in her name.

 

BY LATE 2009
, we had five flourishing programs and operated centers in forty-six cities. Nine of them were Blue Sky Model Centers; we still had twenty-two model centers to go. Half the Sky was legal and had a bona fide partnership with the Chinese government, complete with contract. Our lives were very full.

Despite all that, and after five years in China, the Splendids returned to America. Our daughters, now fourteen and eleven, dearly wanted to be American girls when they entered high school; and, as much as we loved China, the pollution was killing us. Once again, I became an ultra-long-distance commuter: a month in China, a month in the United States. Life was even fuller!

So when both ZZ and Rachel Xing, our operations director, told me that I really should meet the new boss of the welfare department at the Ministry of Civil Affairs, I kept postponing the visit. I figured he was just another bureaucrat and I'd meet him in due course. They persisted. They'd heard him speak at a conference.

“He's different,” Rachel said.

I did a little research on the man. He was all over the Internet, most unusual for a government official. And he had done some pretty remarkable things.

“He's nothing like the others,” said ZZ. “You should trust us.”

Of course, I did. We made an appointment to meet the new director general.

“IT HAS TAKEN
you a long time to come see me,” said Director General Wang Zhenyao. “All of the other foreign NGO leaders came when I arrived, but
you
were the one I wanted to meet.”

Director General Wang had a crew cut and the mild face of an academic, but the man spoke with a passion that rocked the musty walls of the ministry. His underlings gazed at their boss in open-mouthed wonder.

He had been in charge of disaster relief during the earthquake. There were still maps of Sichuan all over his walls. From his desk piled high with reports and charts and loose papers, he grabbed our Half the Sky training manual.

“This,” he said, “can change everything.”

He told us that, when he made the move from disasters to welfare, like a good academic he did his homework. Every night at home, he sat down to read through piles of research and reports. He glanced at the cover of our book many times. Once or twice he lingered on the photo of a Half the Sky teacher and her young charge, each focused only on the other. The image was so foreign . . . and yet so Chinese. Finally, after many days, he began reading. He read straight through the night.

“When I read this I felt I had failed as a father,” he said. “I only knew to push my child to study, but not to think and dream. This way of raising children is missing not just in our welfare institutions. It is missing in Chinese life. Our children grow up not feeling valued; so they have no values. No dreams! As teenagers and young adults, they suffer. Half the Sky has much to teach us. Look at you, coming all the way to China with your big dreams. Why did you come here?”

“I felt I had to.”

“Because you believed in yourself—in your dreams,” he said. “Most people are not so fortunate. If they have a dream, they immediately think,
Ridiculous! Impossible!
Thank you for bringing
Impossible
to China!

“So we must popularize your way for our children! The way to big dreams. Television, Internet—reach the people. Comic books! How about comic books?”

“Well, we need to start with the welfare institutions.” I laughed.

“Sure! How many institutions are you in now? We have to reach them all.”

The Yangtze River
Autumn 2010

Five years after the boat ride during which China's Ministry of Civil Affairs informed the world that change would come for orphaned children, Half the Sky chartered an even bigger boat. We invited government officials, two hundred orphanage directors, and our entire board and staff (and Princess Madeleine!) to join us on an almost identical cruise—a national workshop we called Collaboration! Working Together to Make Positive Change for Children. But this time, our ship sailed
up
stream. Against the current.

By now, Director General Wang had reorganized the China Center for Adoption Affairs and made it the China Center for Child Welfare and Adoption—one entity that would be responsible for all child welfare in the country. He moved two trusted colleagues from the welfare department to run the new CCCWA. One of them was our pal Mrs. Gan.

Director General Wang set the stage for Half the Sky's acceptance as China's
most famous
child welfare authority. Working together, we would now begin to reimagine the entire child welfare system.

AFTER TWO DAYS
of lively brainstorming sessions, workshops, and, as ZZ calls them, “heated discussions,” we were back on the Yangtze's Shennong Stream in the little peapod boats, being pulled upstream by muscular young men wearing clothes.

Dick filmed while I interviewed Director General Wang and Mrs. Gan, both decked out in transparent purple trash-bag raincoats and orange life vests. Like every Chinese citizen I've had the pleasure to know, both relished a good outing. They were in great spirits as they talked about the future.

“Just a few years ago, Chinese people didn't have enough food to eat. Now food is not a problem,” Director General Wang said. “Now we must turn to quality of life. Especially for the children. More than orphans—all children in need—this must improve! In the next five years, ten years, China will learn.”

“It's an exciting time for China,” I said. “Things are changing so fast. We can see the day when all our hopes for the children will come true. Maybe still far away, but we can see it.”

“The children shouldn't have to wait. We don't want to wait,” said Mrs. Gan.

Director General Wang folded his arms and smiled at me.

“What do you mean, Mrs. Gan?” I asked.

She looked at Director General Wang. “
Ni shuo
,” he said to her. “You talk.”

“We want to train the whole country,” said Mrs. Gan. “Every child welfare worker in the system. Right now. With Half the Sky.”

Now they were both grinning at me. Two high-ranking Chinese government officials in silly outfits in a peapod boat. I squeezed ZZ's hand.

“We know we can count on Half the Sky to help us,” Mrs. Gan said.

“You are so sure of that, Director Gan?” asked Director General Wang.

“I knew it in Sichuan, when Jenny bought the van.”

SOMEHOW, THE FURTHER
we'd drifted from our mission—the more rules we'd broken—the closer we'd come to the heart of it. I think maybe I was following a different set of rules. Immediately after that fateful excursion up the Yangtze River, I returned to Beijing, I thanked Guanyin and the Living Buddha, and I went back to work.

With CCCWA, we developed a comprehensive plan to co-train and mentor every child welfare worker in the country. Besides our Half the Sky training, we'd help the government make its own training more user-friendly. We'd create an online community for caregivers and administrators, an e-learning course for professional certification, and a video resource library illustrating our approach to child nurture, and we'd permanently station our own child development consultants at each of the provincial model centers. Along with the government, the JPMorgan Chase Foundation agreed to underwrite a large share of the costs. And, with Director General Wang's deft and quiet leadership, a plan was made to expand the benefits, over time, to all children at risk, whether institutionalized or not. The government named our joint endeavor the Rainbow Program.

It now seemed that the
most excellent and magnificent
mountain peak I'd been seeking in our Chinese garden was to be found at the end of a rainbow.

THE LAUNCH OF
the Rainbow Program was celebrated in China's Great Hall of the People on Children's Day, June 1, 2011.

In typical Chinese fashion, everything came together (and unraveled again) at the very last minute. The e-mails flew:

Hi Jenny—Mrs. Gan called today:

1. She stressed again to keep foreign guests low number.

2. No foreign media will be invited to the event.

3. Drinks and snacks—Only water. No snacks.—Rachel

ZZ, JPMorgan's senior executives will be at the celebration. They're key sponsors of the Rainbow Program. We've got to have a minister. Also, I just got a call from them. Their Asia CEO can stay at the Great Hall only until 2:00
P.M
. He has another agreement signing. Can we move the event up an hour?—Jenny