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ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
 Love
From Afar
A waiting family holds their love ready for a little girl thousands
of miles away.
 Adopting
Again
Brenda Barker, a
Children's Hope regional director and adoptive mother of seven
(future mother of nine) answers this question of your heart.
 The
Road to Motherhood
International adoption as a child-bearing process — this experienced
mom of a Colombian son shares.
PROGRAM
UPDATES:
 China
Adoption Stork Arrives
Before the New Year
 Colombia
Seven Set to Come Home
 Ethiopia
A Race Closing In
 Kazakhstan
Romantic Getaway
 Russia
Travel While We Wait
 Vietnam
Tet Comes with Good News!
Request a
copy of our Adoption
All Guide to see which program
is right for
your family.
Help the lives of
orphans
by sponsoring a child today!
Get your church
involved with orphan sponsorship and international adoption.
Read more of our
wonderful
family stories and submit your own.
Our Accreditations
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Across the globe,
countries celebrate Valentine’s Day—the holiday of love. In
Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Russia, China, and Colombia, the
traditional Western holiday has spread in romantic fervor. Some
of Children’s Hope staff share their favorite memories of this
celebrated day and also the corresponding holidays their own
home countries set apart especially for the celebration of love
and admiration.
COLOMBIA
 In
Colombia the Dia del amor y la amistad, a.k.a. Love and
Friendship Day, is celebrated on the third Friday and Saturday
in September. While in the U.S. Valentine’s Day is primarily a
day to be cherished between romantic couples, in Colombia it is
more a day of candy and flowers for mothers, your sweetheart,
and your friends. Beautiful cards are often given, but are not
necessarily colored red.
“When I was 10
or 12 years old, the seven children in my family all decided to
do something for our Mom. Because we had not much money, we
asked Father for coins. We bought her a box of chocolates, which
is very special there, and made her breakfast to bring to her
before she awakened. With the help of our father, we brought her
meal in on a tray with flowers cut from patios in a glass. It
was very special!” says Ana of her fondest Love and
Friendship memory while living in Colombia.
CHINA
 Although
the borrowed western Valentine’s Day is becoming extremely
popular with the youth in China, the oldest and most traditional
day of love in the Chinese culture is “The Night of Sevens”, or
Qi Xi. On the seventh day of the seventh moon on the lunar
calendar, a legend is recounted of the Cowherd and the Weaving
Girl. The holiday’s origin can be traced back to a
2,500-year-old poem, heavily influenced by astrology. The legend
is of two literally star-crossed lovers. Roxanne Wang of our
China program shares the story:
A celestial princess, in love with an earthly cowherd was tired
of her privileged but lonely life. She descended from the
heavens much to the cowherd’s delight. The pair married and had
two children, a boy and a girl. Years had passed on earth, but
only days in heaven. When the Celestial Empress found her
daughter missing she was impassioned with anger. Scared of her
mother’s power, the loving wife and mother returned to her
palace in the sky. When her husband bravely flew up after her,
the Empress yanked a hairpin from her hair to scratch a wide
river across the heavens to separate the two lovers forever.
The princess now sits for all time on one side of the river,
sadly with her loom, weaving brilliantly colored clouds. Her
husband watches from afar with their two children. By telescope,
you may still see the separated family as stars on each side of
the Silvery River known to Americans as the Milky Way.
Legend tells that once a year on The Night of Sevens, birds take
pity on the parted pair, forming a bridge of wings to unite the
lovers for a single night. Traditionally Chinese girls celebrate
this day by preparing fruits, melons and incense as offerings to
the Weaving Maiden, praying to acquire both expert sewing skills
and, perhaps more importantly, an ideal husband.
Chinese couples will
celebrate this holiday together—this year, on August 19.
RUSSIA
 Russia
has been borrowing the Western Valentine’s Day progressively for
the last ten years. In many parts of the country there are
Hallmark stores carrying the special line of cards.
“In school we
had to make cards for each other. My fondest memory, though, was
when I was in college. We had a group of thirty-five and three
of us were girls and the rest of them were guys. So it was a
very special time at Valentine’s Day!” grins Anna Rister in
remembrance.
Anna is a native
of Saint-Petersburg, Russia where she spent her last five years
there as an interpreter/ translator for a non-profit
organization that worked with children in orphanages and the
elderly. She moved to the US in August 2003.
RUSSIA
 One
of Russia’s largest holidays honors women on March 8 with
International Women’s Day. The women turned the tables to honor
the gentlemen on February 23’s Defender’s Day (until recently
known as Soviet Army Day). Together Russians had a pretty
adequate Valentine’s Day representation!
“Women’s Day is
a huge, huge celebration, traditionally to show respect to
ladies. Everyone participates and still participates. Men would
stay in long lines to get flowers, sometimes overnight!
I remember very
well. As school children we would go to houses, give the women
flowers, and take them for a theater show featuring classics
like Shakespeare. You’d work on it for sometimes months to make
a show! After the show there was some kind of dinner, dancing,
or discotek. I remember when I participated and put all this
together—it was fun!
I also remember
a nice tradition of buying a bunch of flowers, and up and down
the streets, giving them to any lady with an upset face, who
isn’t smiling, and say ‘Happy International Woman’s Day!’ Many
people do this in my country.”
Yuri and his
family arrived in St. Louis from Siberia in September 1998.
While in Siberia, Yuri founded the first nonpolitical children's
organization registered in The Soviet Union, The Tomsk Hobbitt-Center,
which now serves more than 3700 children.
Do you paint your eggs all red; or dress up like an Easter
bunny?
Are you putting out budding flowers and oranges this week?
Tet, Chinese New
Year, Easter—share your holiday traditions and get published in
the e-news by submitting to
Jennifer.Newcomb@ChildrensHope.net
PS: We love
pictures!
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