Feb - Apr 06 - Blue Sy has been BUSY ! I apologise for not updating the site as regularly as before... but my excuse is giving birth to Baby Sasha. She was born on Valentine's Day and has been keeping me busy. Here she is pictured at 1 month old. Big sister BaoBao is very loving to her. * Blue Sky welcomed a Social Work Degree student from Iceland, Maria Ros in February. She works full time at the home, and has been such a joy to the children. She has arranged countless outings for the kids (even taking them out to play in the snow - which took our staff some getting used to), and has been working to improve our environment, volunteer visits & general welfare of the children. * Outings the children have enjoyed include various park visits, pottery-making (they made their own pottery, window decals and paintings, and were very proud of their works.They returned to Blue Sky with big smiles on their faces). & a special outing organised by our regular student volunteers, Ting Ting and Jia Jia, who took the kids to the Blue Zoo = Beijing's underwater aquarium. They also held a birthday party for LuoFei (with presents and cake!), who turned 4 years old in March. * In march, we welcomed a live-in volunteer Shoana, an 18yr old from America. She stayed at Blue Sky for a month and the kids & staff adored her. She worked daily with the kids and gave them much love and attention. * Jian Gong - our 8 year old is not going to have any more surgery done on his foot at the this time. The orthopedic surgeons have advised that more surgery will not help his walking ability. Local schools have said that they cannot accept a disable child, so we have approached an international school, and are holding a luncheon to raise funds for his future education needs. * New children: we helped arrange for the heart surgery of 13 yr old LiBing, whose parents are poor farmers in Hebei province. Blue Sky's medical fund paid for one third of the surgery costs, with CHildren's Hope International funding the remaining two thirds. LiBing's surgery went well, and he is recovering at home for now. Another baby from Xining, Qinghai, stayed at Blue Sky for a few days, before going to the hospital for cleft lip repair surgery. All went well, and she has returned to the orphanage. * Outreach trips: Blue Sky staff and volunteers visited Jian Gong's orphanage with rice and oil, clothes, toys and other supplies. We are considering how to further help his orphanage in the long run. On another trip, we visited a large non-state orphanage and an old folks home. The orphanage was well run, and the children were all happy and cheerful. The old folks home was in a poorer state and we made a cash donation to help them, as well as gave them donations of clothes and other supplies. * Tian You, our baby who is still in singapore, is still recuperating from his surgery in January. He is not healing well and has had a few episodes of infections. He is currently back in hospital undergoing IV medication for his infections. He is already on the strongest antibiotics.
May - July 06: Exciting news: Ji De, our very first Blue Sky baby (see picture below and on right) turned 2 years old on May 10th. He has been matched with an American family and will leave us soon to join his new family. He will be the youngest of 3 boys ! We are heartbroken that he will be leaving, but are overjoyed that he will be loved by a family. * 3 orphans from Inner Mongolia came to Blue Sky for medical investigations. 2 yr old girl AiJie was born with a big port wine stain birthmark on her face and half her body. She was diagnosed in Beijing with Sturge Weber Syndrome, and also has neurological abnormalities. Unfortunately, there is no cure for the syndrome. 1 yr old boy Shi Piao was born with bilateral cleft lip. We helped him get lip repair surgery and will return in 3 months for the palate repair. 6 month old boy Jia Ye, suffers from clubbed feet and arthrogyrposis (like our 8 yr old Jian Gong) - the surgeons here recommended surgery on his feet in 3 months time. * Qin LiBing, the 13 yr old heart patient we helped from a poor farming family in Hebei province, returned to Blue Sky to "volunteer". His school will not allow him to return until September, so rather than staying at home doing nothing, he asked if he could come to Beijing, and volunteer at Blue Sky, and hopefully pick up some english from our regular volunteers. He's an extremely smart boy for 13yrs old, and we were impressed with his initiative. So he will board with us, and we've arranged some activities for him. * Jian Gong, our 8 yr old, has started school at Mammolina's Montessori. We are very grateful to the school and it's founder Sasha Gigliesi and her husband for accepting him. We have very high hopes for this little boy and have no doubt that despite his physical disaboilities, that he can achieve anything that he wants. He has such an effect on people he has contact with. * Another new resident has join Blue SKy 0- 1.5 yr old He Yong Qiang. He comes from Xining, Qinghai, and recently had heart surgery. The high altitude in Xining is more stressful on his heart, so he is chilling out with us in Beijing (although the pollution here ....). * In hospital now is 11 yr old Gao Yan (see pic below)- who is from a poor family in Hebei. We helped her get heart surgery last week that went well. She's such a pretty girl. * Tian You - our bladder baby, is doing well. He has had a few incidents of high fever and bacteria in his urine, but has recovered with antibiotics. Currently, he has been off antibiotics for almost a month now, which is the longest stretch of being medication free for him. He's very active, and can walk on his own with the help of a stool. To take care of his condition, it requires 2 staff every 3 hours to change his dressings and catherise him. Pictures will be added shortly !
Aug06 - Tian Xi, our cleft palate boy, underwent his 2nd stage palate repair. He is recovering well, and will return to his orphanage in October. * We had a scare with Yong Qiang, 2 year old from Xining recovering from Heart Surgery. He is very prone to getting pneumonia upon the slightest onset of a cold, and we had to check into hospital for 2 weeks. He has recovered, and is under a watchful eye for any further signs of a relapse.
Sept 06 - Our Blue Sky outreach team made another trip to the poor orphanage we have been helping for 2 years, and again tried to advise them on health and hygiene, as well as deliver them a much needed washing machine, high chairs, clothes, infant formula, and other necessitities. Their surroundings have improved slightly, and the children are always in smiles, despite their harsh environment. Thanks to the various sponsors of items for the orphanage. * The Inner Mongolian children that were with us in May have returned for their surgeries, Jia Ye (for 2nd stage palate repair) and Shi Piao (who was born with clubbed feet). Shi Piao will have his feet casted every week for 6 weeks, followed by foot surgery (est at 10000 rmb). He is one smiley little guy ! Along with them came 2 NEW BABIES, both 3.5 months old and born with cleft lips. The boy, Guo Rui, has an amazing head of dark, thick hair (like a bristle brush !), and the little girl (YaNi) has very light brown hair and fair skin (see pics). They came with caretakers from the orphanage, who were most loving with them. They had their surgeries and returned to Inner Mongolia soon after, together Jia Ye. Cutie pie Shi Piao will stay with Blue Sky until his feet are sorted out !
Have we been busy enough? I have to say that our staff are doing a wonderful job. Dr He has a heavy workload, but she always has time to hold one, two, sometimes three children at the same time !
Oct 06 - October holidays - our staff and the older children were treated to a visit Tian An Men Square and the Forbidden City during the weeklong holidays. Picture shows Wen Jie and JiDe. * NEW BABIES ! Newborn girl Xiao Mei arrived at Blue SKy and we checked her straight into the hospital for a workup and consultation of her condition. She was born with Bladder Exstrophy (same as our boy Tian You). We have decided to send her to Dr Prabhakaran of Singapore's National University Hospital as soon as her passport is ready. Beijing United Family Hospital is helping us with her wound care and we thank them for their support. Xiao Mei's surgery in Singapore will be very expensive and we are looking for sponsors of her and a staff's airfare to Singapore. Together with Xiao Mei, came Hai He, a 1 yr old boy born with a congenital heart condition (VSD). We will arrange for his heart surgery in Beijing soon. * Luo Fei, our 4.5 yr old born intersexed, had his 2nd stage surgery completed this month. He has recovered extremely well, and is now waiting to attend kindergarten with Wen Jie. * Our outreach efforts are now helping a small family in JiangXi province. We had heard that they were destitute due to some family problems, which forced the eldest 12 yr old daughter to stop attending school, and help her 70yr old granparents in the fields (her mother left the family and the father is in jail in Shanghai). Her younger brother and sister attend school in the small village. We sent our staff to check on their situation and they visited with the school and family. We are now supporting their schooling fees for all 3 children for the year, and have given basic supplies to the family with a small donation. We also brought clothes, books and school supplies to give to them. The children were also encouraged to study hard. My staff reported that the school they were attending was also quite poor and didn't have much supplies. We are considering sending them computers and other needed things.
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Medical
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Foster
Home
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Orphans
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as regularly as before... but my excuse is giving birth to Baby Sasha. She was born on Valentine's Day and has been keeping me busy. Here she is pictured at 1 month old. Big sister BaoBao is very loving to her. * Blue Sky welcomed a Social Work Degree student from Iceland, Maria Ros in February. She works full time at the home, and has been such a joy to the children. She has 
arranged countless outings for the kids (even taking them out to play in the snow - which took our staff some getting used to), and has been working to improve our environment, volunteer visits & general welfare of the children. * Outings the children have enjoyed include various park visits, pottery-making (they made their own pottery, window decals and paintings, and were very proud of their works.They returned to Blue Sky with big smiles on their faces). & a special outing organised by our regular student volunteers, Ting Ting and Jia Jia, who took the kid
s to the Blue Zoo = Beijing's underwater aquarium. They also held a birthday party for LuoFei (with presents and cake!), who turned 4 years old in March. * In march, we welcomed a live-in volunteer Shoana, an 18yr old from America. She stayed at Blue Sky for a month and the kids & staff adored her. She worked daily with the kids and gave them much love and attention. * Jian Gong - our 8 year old is not going to have any more surgery done on his foot at the this time. The orthopedic surgeons have advised that more surgery will not help his walking ability. Local schools have said that they cannot accept a disable child, so we have approached an international school, and are holding a luncheon to raise funds for his future education needs. * New children: we helped arrange for the heart surgery of 13 yr old LiBing, whose parents are poor farmers in Hebei province. Blue Sky's medical fund paid for one third of the surgery costs, with CHildren's Hope International funding the remaining two thirds. LiBing's surgery went well, and he is recovering at home for now. Another baby from Xining, Qinghai, stayed at Blue Sky for a few days, before going to the hospital for cleft lip repair surgery. All went well, and she has returned to the orphanage. * Outreach trips: Blue Sky staff and volunteers visited Jian Gong's orphanage with rice and oil, clothes, toys and other supplies. We are considering how to further help his orphanage in the long run. On another trip, we visited a large non-state orphanage and an old folks home. The orphanage was well run, and the children were all happy and cheerful. The old folks home was in a poorer state and we made a cash donation to help them, as well as gave them donations of clothes and other supplies. * Tian You, our baby who is still in singapore, is still recuperating from his surgery in January. He is not healing well and has had a few episodes of infections. He is currently back in hospital undergoing IV medication for his infections. He is already on the strongest antibiotics. 
get lip repair surgery and will return in 3 months for the palate repair. 6 month old boy Jia Ye, suffers from clubbed feet and arthrogyrposis (like our 8 yr old Jian Gong) - the surgeons here recommended surgery on his feet in 3 months time. * Qin LiBing, the 13 yr old heart patient we helped from a poor farming family in Hebei province, returned to Blue Sky to "volunteer". His school will not allow him to return until September, so rather than staying at home doing nothing, he asked if he could come to Beijing, and volunteer at Blue Sky, and hopefully pick up some english from our regular volunteers. He's an extremely smart boy for 13yrs old, and we were impressed with his initiative. So he will board with us, and we've arranged some activities for him. * Jian Gong, our 8 yr old, has started school at Mammolina's Montessori. We are very grateful to the school and it's founder Sasha Gigliesi and her husband for accepting him. We have very high hopes for this little boy and have no doubt that despite his physical disaboilities, that he can achieve anything that he wants. He has such an effect on people he has contact with. * Another new resident has join Blue SKy 0- 1.5 y
r old He Yong Qiang. He comes from Xining, Qinghai, and recently had heart surgery. The high altitude in Xining is more stressful on his heart, so he is chilling out with us in Beijing (although the pollution here ....). * In hospital now is 11 yr old Gao Yan (see pic below)- 
who is from a poor family in Hebei. We helped her get heart surgery last week that went well. She's such a pretty girl. * Tian You - our bladder baby, is doing well. He has had a few incidents of high fever and bacteria in his urine, but has recovered with antibiotics. Currently, he has been off antibiotics for almost a month now, which is the longest stretch of being medication free for him. He's very active, and can walk on his own with the help of a stool. To take care of his condition, it requires 2 staff every 3 hours to change his dressings and catherise him. Pictures will be added shortly ! 
repair) and Shi Piao (who was born with clubbed feet). Shi Piao will have his feet casted every week for 6 weeks, followed by foot surgery (est at 10000 rmb). He is one smiley little guy ! Along with them came 2 NEW BABIES, both 3.5 months old and born with cle
ft lips. The boy, Guo Rui, has an amazing head of dark, thick hair (like a bristle brush !), and the little girl (YaNi) has very light brown hair and fair skin (see pics). They came with caretakers from the orphanage, who were most loving with them. They had their surgeries and returned
to Inner Mongolia soon after, together Jia Ye. Cutie pie Shi Piao will stay with Blue Sky until his feet are sorted out !
BABIES ! Newborn girl Xiao Mei arrived at Blue SKy and we checked her straight into the hospital for a workup and consultation of her condition. 
She was born with