Thirteen years after she stood on the airport tarmac in China with her infant daughter, Grace, for whom she realized the sky would be the limit growing up in the U.S. and not an orphanage, Kelye Kneeland returned to China and immersed herself and her daughter in the life Grace narrowly bypassed.
“I felt like I was being drawn like a mosquito to a bright light,” Kneeland said when asked why she chose to return to China to volunteer in the orphanage.
The two traveled to China this summer and spent three weeks volunteering in a Chinese orphanage called the House of Grace. The experience was a bird’s-eye view for Kneeland of the good and the bad in Chinese orphanages.
The House of Grace is run by Sandra King, a New Zealand woman who has been living in China for the last 20 years and is often the sole full-time caretaker for the roughly two dozen orphans. She also helps place the children, often Skyping with their soon-to-be parents during the lengthy period of finalizing adoptions.
Over the years, she has reportedly cared for more than 600 children.
While there helping out, Kneeland slept on average four hours a night between caring for the roughly two dozen children in the orphanage. Despite the sleep deprivation, she often stayed up and typed an account of the day on her iPhone and emailed a portion to her husband, who would post it and some photos on Facebook.
Her journal details every thought and experience she had during the trip, from the day she, her daughter and a friend were able to take some of the children to the beach to soothing the crying babies during a thunderstorm.
On any given day, Kneeland and her daughter would help feed, change and play with the babies.
While they were there, four children were adopted. But the unimaginable also happened when a three-pound baby was brought to the orphanage after having been found in a trashcan by the police. He was cold, covered with rat bites, had ants in his ears and barely breathing. The infant, already struggling to breathe, whimpered but never cried.
After spending two hours trying to warm the baby and performing CPR, the infant died. Only afterwards did Kneeland discover that there wasn’t any money to bring the child to the hospital.
Kneeland said that it was one of the hardest things she has ever experienced.
King, 69, has run three different orphanages in China for the past 20 years as a volunteer without any financial support from the Chinese government. Although she should be getting money for the care of the children, she instead relies solely on donations and her small pension, Kneeland said.
With what Kneeland describes as a heart the size of Texas, King thinks of the orphanage as home and the children as her family, and the children living there treat it as such. They refer to King as “grandmother” and Kneeland and the nurses “ayi” or “auntie.” Kneeland’s daughter was called “big sister.”
“I feel like knowledge obligates responsibility. I am Auntie. You can’t be Auntie and turn your back on these kids,” she said.
While instilling a sense of culture and personal history was something that Kneeland has strived to do with her daughter since that day on the tarmac, it has also become an important part of her life.
The Spiritridge Elementary School teacher often hears of colleagues or friends who are considering a Chinese adoption and mentors them through the process.
“Every time I hear about someone who put in their paperwork for a Chinese adoption, I see the faces of the kids at House of Grace that need to be adopted. I know there are kids out there who need to be held,” she said.
Kneeland will be speaking about her experiences at the House of Grace and what people can do to help at the Eastshore Unitarian Church, 12700 S.E. 32nd St. on Sat. Oct. 17 starting at 6:30 p.m.
