Let us introduce our daughter.  Her name is Chen Wen Yan and she is currently living in Chenzhou, Hunan, China.  Her birthday is September 26, 1992 and she is now 13 years old.  She was given this name by the orphanage and Chen is the surname given to all children that are living in the Chenzhou Social Welfare Institute.  Wen means “educated” and Yan is the name of a lucky migrant bird in Chinese.

While the process to adopt a waiting child is a little different than the non-special needs program that we went through to adopt Sophie, some things are similar.  One of those things is that we received photos of Wen Yan, a medical report and a report that gives a description of her and her routine.  Since Wen Yan is older, we got much more detail in regards to her personality and how she feels about being adopted.  Because she is older, she had to agree to be adopted and they made sure that she realized that she would likely be adopted by a family living in a foreign country.  From everything that we have seen, this young girl wants a family very much and is willing to give up everything familiar to have one.

All of the following information comes from the report that we were given that was prepared by the Civil Affairs Office in Hunan.

Wen Yan is described as a polite, energetic, and lovely girl, good at singing and dancing.  She is a child with a good understanding of others.  She often helps the nurse to do things she is capable to do.  When the nurse was sick, she comforted her while organizing other kids at the dorm to take care of themselves.

She has received many academic awards and is well loved by her teacher and classmates.  At the institute she is considerate to the nurse and a big caring sister to those little sisters.  She would think of them first whenever there is something that is fun to play or some food that is tasty.  When asked if she would wants to have a home she would answer, “she is longing to have a complete home of her own”.

In all, Wen Yan is a girl who is energetic, cheerful, hard working and with a ready hand to help others.