Meet Amanda Grace Benson

This is Xue Ru soon to be called Amanda. We're big about the meaning of names around here and picked Amanda before we knew what it meant. It means "worthy of love". Isn't that sooo appropriate?


Amanda was born in May, 2007, so she's a two year old already. She resides in the Xuchang Social Welfare Institute which is just a fancy way of saying she's in an orphanage. Through connections on the web, her orphanage seems to be a place where the children are well cared for and loved. This is from people who have adopted from there in the past year.



Xuchang is located in Henan province south of Bejing. It's light blue on the eastern side of the map. At almost 100 million people, if it were its own country, it would be the twelfth most populous, just behind Mexico. Henan is traditionally regarded as the cradle of Chinese civilization. Our adoption agency has started working there in order to help orphans get registered to be adopted into families and to help the orphans left behind. Because of their efforts, children like Amanda are able to know the love of a familiy.

We waited 2 1/2 years from application to placement for Amanda and are thrilled she gets to be a part of our family. When they called and told us we had a little girl waiting for a family, we were in denial. We still have been a bit, but this past week, we got the official paperwork that says we are accepted by the Chinese government to adopt Amanda. We are just now waiting for final travel approval and then it's book tickets time, Brett's flying to China!