Hosting Arrivals – Group II Has Landed!
The Arrival
Hosting arrivals are a very emotional and exciting time for everyone involved, from the kids that have just flown for many long hours to get here to the families and staff members that have been eagerly tracking their flight’s status each step of the way. While the timeline for hosting is much quicker than that for adoption–as you can go from being matched with a host child to having them in your home in a matter of weeks rather than months or years–the emotional journey that families embark upon is quite similar. Once our families are matched with their host kiddos and flights are booked, they spend every day leading up to the arrival feverishly preparing for the whirlwind of hosting an orphan. They prepare the child’s room, schedule fun family outings, prepare welcome posters, and so much more! And when the day finally comes, they stand anxiously in the airport waiting for a group of kids to flood the hallways.
For the host kids, however, the journey is much different. Yes, they’re excited to spend the next month having fun with a family in America, but they’ve just traveled for hours to get to a country where they don’t understand the language to stay with a family that they haven’t met before. Each child handles this situation differently. While some are completely exhausted, others will get a rush of energy and excitement. While some will warm up to their host families immediately, others shy away from the unfamiliarity of the situation, taking longer to settle in. Either way, when the crowd of children approaches the waiting host families, there is a sudden outbreak of excitement and chaos.
This summer, with two different groups for our China hosting program and one group from Latvia, we have had the opportunity to experience this rush of excitement on three different occasions. Most recently, we were delighted to welcome Group II from our China Summer Hosting program this past Monday! We’re so happy to see that all of the kiddos are starting to get settled in with their host families. After just a few short days, the transformations that we’ve seen have been truly amazing. We look forward to following each of their journeys over the course of the next four weeks!
After the Arrival
While some of our host families move forward with the adoption of their host child, others advocate on their behalf to help them find a loving and permanent Forever Family. If you’re interested in learning how you can adopt a child that’s currently being advocated for, or following our host kids’ journeys, visit our Advocate Hosting Photo Listing or contact our matching specialists today at meredith@gwca.org!
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