Caring for Caregivers and Waiting Children in China

What we’re all about

Relationships. We believe we learn best who we are and how the world works through our experience of relationships. That’s what our orphanage efforts are all about—building new relationships and seeking opportunities to magnify those already there. We have led teams to step out of their own comfort zones and go, motivated by their own experience of relationship and a call to serve and winsomely draw others to more deeply experience relationships. We are committed to loving and serving children, caregivers, and orphanage administrators, seeking to communicate in everything we do that they matter, that they are valuable, and that someone outside themselves is for them. We all need to know those truths.

How we live that out

• Intentionally pursuing relationships with children with an awareness of their hard starts and a desire to build up and empower them.
• Coming alongside caregivers as helpful appreciators to care for children in a way that honors those who do the work day in and day out.
• Serving as a team rather than a group of individuals, recognizing that the way we love each other and lean on each other is a significant way we can communicate to those placed before us.
• Acting as bridgemakers to prepare children for both the loss and redemption of adoption and encourage and support families in the adventure of adoption.
• Partner with adoption agencies with a long-term vision of sustaining orphan care efforts and adoption programs despite challenging and changing policies and working together to improve those efforts.

What we see happen

Short-term trips are just that—short-term, as in 8-12 days. But, this work extends well beyond 8-12 days. We go, and we go again and again. Our efforts build upon previous efforts, multiplying our impact. We have seen extraordinary things as a direct result of this work. Children who feared adoption have said yes to a family. Families have made a waiting child a son or daughter as we have served as storytellers and helped them to see a boy or girl as more than a diagnosis. Children adopted years ago have been reminded that their stories did not start when they were adopted. Administrators have asked us why we care and invited us to share our hearts behind what we do. Directors have urged us to not give up our efforts on the behalf of their children. Team members have experienced changed lives as they respond to the invitation to step out and join the work already in progress.

Email us at info@sparrowfund.org to learn more about what we are working on as we seek to continue to go despite restrictive policies.