Okay, so this is not a photo that would warm most people right down to their toes, but I was absolutely DELIGHTED to see it! This is baby Yan, a child I have spent many nights worrying about. Having suffered a heart attack and open-heart surgery at just eight months of age, Yan was not doing well. She was SO tiny, and simply couldn’t put any weight on in spite of the loving care of her foster mother. But Yan was a fighter…she had made it so far already! If we could just get her to gain a little weight, she just might make it.
Beginning last summer we sent cereal and the very highest quality formula, and tiny Yan still could barely hold her own. But over the last few months, we began to see the first evidence of better color, then…were those actually cheeks we were beginning to see?
YES, we have CHEEKS! And somewhere…lurking beneath that pink snowsuit…there may be a little chubbiness on those arms and legs. I can’t WAIT until summer rolls around again!
And this reminds me of a second story I would love to share with you: After the usual hectic holiday flurry, I was feeling exhausted and a little flat, but sat down at my computer to check LWB emails on Christmas night. I found that we had received a $25 donation from a 10-yr-old boy named Sam. He wanted to donate for nutrition at the orphanage where his little sister Bridget had begun her life. That simple act of giving did so much to bring Christmas Spirit back into my heart!
Right away I thought of Yan, who is being fostered through that very orphanage, and remembered that her next cereal order was due. So I wrote back to Sam to let him know we would use his donation to buy cereal for this tiny girl. I included a photo of Yan and her foster mama, posing with boxes of cereal…I thought Sam would like to see who he had helped.
The next morning I received an email back from Sam’s father: “Thank you so much for this note - it brought tears of joy to Sam, and made real for him a ‘nice thing’ that was pretty abstract. He actually used his own birthday money to make the donation. The picture meant a lot to us as well - the little girl, of course, and the woman holding her was also Bridget’s primary caregiver (she was adopted in 12-2004 and today is her third birthday!)”
Don’t you love a good Christmas miracle?
Jan Champoux
Nutrition Director
