Boys waiting for forever families

Our adoption agency has shared information on three boys in Taiwan waiting to be adopted. Every time I read an email about a waiting child or see a post like this, I rack my brain trying to think of families who may be interested in adopting this child. I’ve decided to post the information on here, just in case you are the family for one of these boys. If you are interested in finding out more information, you can contact our agency for more information (email me or leave a comment if you need the contact details). Here is the information from our agency director:

Our agency has three darling young boys in Taiwan waiting for adoptive families. They’ve been posted to our rainbowkids site for quite a few weeks without much interest.

- The seven-year-old lived with my family for four weeks last summer during our hosting program and is darling, fun-loving and loves to be surrounded by siblings.

- The six-year-old I’ve met. He’s a sweet shy child and has had a difficult life and needs the love and stability of committed family.

- And the four-year-old is just the cutest, all boy kid you could meet being raised in a great foster family.

Additional information about each boy is available on the Rainbow Kids Waiting Child website. You must be registered to view the listings. Once you register, search waiting children by agency and select “For Every Child”. You will be directed to a page with more information about each boy. It is my hope and prayer that each of these boys will soon be united with his forever family.

Our family is growing. . .

We have exciting news to share. . .our family is growing! We were surprised to receive a phone call from our adoption agency a couple of months ago – our little guy has a baby brother in Taiwan. His little brother has been placed for adoption. As busy as the holidays can be, our December was even more of a whirlwind as we completed a new home study and updated all of our dossier paperwork. We learned today we have received orphanage approval to adopt this little boy. Stay tuned for more details. . .we are excited about this blessing God has given our family and look forward to sharing our newest adoption journey with you!

Review: Park Taipei Hotel

This is the fourth post in a series about the hotels where we stayed in Taiwan.

After returning to Taipei, we stayed at the Park Taipei Hotel. This is a new hotel and has only been open since about June. We chose it because of its proximity to the American Institute in Taiwan, where we had to go to obtain our son’s visa to come home. Overall, it’s a nice hotel. We had a couple of issues with the front desk and housekeeping which I will explain below. I am happy we stayed there, and it only took us about 10 minutes to walk to AIT. Like the other hotels where we stayed, it offered free wired Internet access, a good breakfast buffet and the location was perfect for us. It was close to an MRT (subway) station and we were able to walk to the Jade and Flower Markets on Saturday.

Front Desk: Late Check-out Request

The hotel staff was service-oriented and very helpful, which is why I was surprised at the response to our request to check out a couple of hours late. We had told the front desk upon check-in that we may only stay two nights instead of four nights, depending on how quickly our son’s visa was issued. Once we received the visa on Friday afternoon, we told the front desk we would be checking out on Saturday, and requested a late check-out of 2-3pm, since our flight departed that evening. They said no. The room had originally been reserved by us for two more nights, so I was surprised they said no. I told them I was willing to pay a fee to check out late. The front desk manager then offered to let us check out late if we paid 50% of the room rate. I told her that was unacceptable and the most I would pay would be $50. She checked with her manager and said that would be fine. When we checked out, they decided to waive the fee.

Housekeeping

We had designated “Do Not Disturb” on our door at the hotel while our son was napping. It was about 10am when housekeeping knocked. Before I could get to the door they had already entered our room. The woman did not understand English and she kept motioning that she wanted to clean our room. Perhaps it would be helpful if the hotel wrote their “Do Not Disturb” signs in Mandarin so the housekeeping staff could understand it.

Would I stay at this hotel again? Probably. It was worth it to be so close to AIT, especially when the visa officer called to tell us we could pick up our visa early. And it is a really nice hotel. It was the most expensive of the four hotels where we stayed, at a rate of about $180/night (including occupancy and government taxes).

Our room at the Park Taipei Hotel

Another view of the room

Review: Hotel Tainan

This is the third post in a series about the hotels in which we stayed while traveling in Taiwan.

Hotel Tainan was our third hotel in Taiwan, located in Tainan near the train station. We stayed there for two nights at a rate of about $75/night. It was not the newest or fanciest hotel in Tainan (I think that’s the Tayih Landis Hotel where we had dinner one night). However, it is a great value for the price. I would compare this hotel to an older Marriott or perhaps an upscale Holiday Inn with a doorman and bellboys. The least appealing part of our stay was the view from our room, which was an old, possibly-abandoned building across the street.

Pros:

• Good breakfast buffet, offering some Western options
• Easy to find a taxi; helpful doormen and lobby staff
• Reasonable rates
• Free wired Internet access

Cons:

• Small room, even smaller bathroom
• Location not as convenient for sightseeing or shopping
• Warm room: we lowered the thermostat, but the room stayed warm at about 25 degrees Celsius (about 77 degrees Fahrenheit)

If we returned to Tainan I would compare the rates of the Hotel Tainan to the Tayih Landis Hotel. The Tayih Landis Hotel was closer to some stores where we enjoyed shopping, and is the hotel where we had our special dinner before our big day at St. Lucy’s.

Our room

The view from our room

Taiwan and adoption news

Two articles in the Taiwan media this week may interest some of you. . .

The first article, from Taiwan Review, discusses the impact the economy is having on children and the perception of adoption. Here is an excerpt:

“Harold Li is afraid that, if the economic situation continues to worsen, another issue will become more serious: abandoned children. According to Li, Taiwan saw an annual average of approximately 500 abandoned children and adolescents in the past six years. At the start of this year, the CWLF was receiving around one call per day from parents willing to give up their children and asking for information about their adoption. Li says that since the Lunar New Year celebrations at the end of January, the foundation has been receiving around two such calls per day…

“For Li, however, the attitude of many Taiwanese towards adoption is problematic. “Usually adoption is a secret in our society,” he says. This explains why the chance for a child to be adopted over the age of 3 is quite slim because it is easier for older children to realize that their adoptive parents are not their biological parents. In addition, the adopted child has to be completely healthy and look acceptable. Some couples refuse to adopt children with a dark complexion or whose parents were laborers in Taiwan from Southeast Asia, Li says. In comparison, the CWLF coordinator says, Western people who adopt a child are more likely to ignore age or other factors unwelcomed by Taiwanese. Then again, he also speaks considerately of the latter. “It’s already costly to raise a healthy child today, not to mention a physically handicapped one,” he says.

“For years the CWLF has been trying to educate Taiwanese about adoption and in 2005, the organization coordinated a visit of nine teenagers originally from Taiwan, who had been adopted by Dutch parents more than 10 years earlier. All of the young people had been abandoned as children and most were born with physical impairments. “These children came back to see their place of birth. On the other hand, we wanted Taiwan’s society to learn from those foreign parents. They adopt children of different races and are willing to take care of imperfect babies,” Li says.” – Read the full article at the Taiwan Review, June 1, 2009

The second article features a 7-year-old girl with Down Syndrome who is coming home to live with her new forever family in Massachusetts.  How wonderful for this little girl and her new family – you can read her story at eTaiwan News.