JANUARY CHINA PROGRAM UPDATE

I want to wish all of the families in the China program a Happy New Year. I am happy to report that we had four families leave for China in the month of December. Congratulations are in order for Fred and Kim who left for China to meet their daughter on December 17th, 2009, and arrived safely back in the United States on New Year's Eve.

Also on New Year's eve, just as Fred and Kim and their daughter were arriving safely back in the United States, we had the next three families, take off from Newark airport in transit to Beijing to meet their children. All three families were matched with waiting children in Neimengu (Inner Mongolia). They have had an epic trip to China so far, including running into the snow storm of the century in Beijing and minus 35 degree weather in Inner Mongolia, but Li amazingly has kept everything on schedule despite the weather and these families are due back in the United States on January 14th, 2010. Everyone is doing well.

I am also pleased to announce that we have had two additional families successfully matched with waiting children from the shared list. One family was matched at the end of November 2009, and one family was matched at the beginning of December 2009. They will be our next two families to travel to China, hopefully they will be able to travel together in late March or early April. The new shared list is slated to come out any day now, and Becki will be hard at work finding appropriate matches for those of you who have expressed an interest in being matched with a waiting child.

You undoubtedly saw Heather's posting over the holiday that CCAA has now matched dossiers registered before April 3rd, 2006, and has reviewed dossiers up through 2/29/28.

Our next group of dossiers slated to be matched with children were registered with CCAA on April 19th, 2006. Congratulations, CCAA is now actually matching families from your month! Slowly but surely you are making your way to the top of the list.

Unfortunately we were only able to match 2 of the 8 designated referrals specifically sent to Welcome House in August. We will have to send the unmatched referrals back to China on January 15th, 2010. Please get in touch with me or Becki right away if you are interested in any of these children, as their referral information is slated to be returned to China next week. We are also still seeking appropriate adoptive homes for 3 of the 6 designated referrals that were sent to our agency in September. Ideally CCAA likes agencies to match all or nearly all of the designated referrals that they send out, but a number of the children had more complicated medical profiles. We may receive fewer referrals specifically designated for our agency over the next few months as a result. Please let me know if you are interested in any of the waiting children currently available for adoption.