An American couple living in China for 15 years says their success in
rescuing over 1,000 medically-fragile orphans is due to totally relying
on God, especially during trying times.
“You really have to have an absolute dependence on God that the money's
gonna show up when you need it and that you're going to stay out of
trouble,” Brent Johnson of the organization China Little Flower told CNA
Oct. 17.
Founded in 1998, China Little Flower is the parent organization of
Brent and Serena Johnson's “apostolic hobby,” Little Flower Projects, a
charity that seeks to reach out to the most vulnerable of China's
population by providing medical care to abandoned orphans and children.
While one was a student and the other a tourist, Brent and Serena met
in China in 1990 and soon returned to the United States, where they
converted to Catholicism and were married.
When they returned to China as teachers shortly after the 1995 birth of
their eldest son, Thomas Becket, the Johnsons were confronted with the
“unbelievable” conditions of Chinese orphanages.
“It was a confrontation with the truly ugly side of humanity,” Johnson said. “So we said, 'We gotta do something.'”
Although conditions in the government-run orphanages have improved
since the 1990s, he said around one-third of the country's roughly 700
facilities still have an infant mortality rate that hovers near 100
percent.
The Johnsons asked the orphanage leaders if they could foster one of
the children in their own home and were granted permission.
“We were just kind of ordinary, young Catholics living our faith,
trying to do the right thing,” Johnson said. “When we started this, we
didn't think of ourselves as missionaries.”
From then on, they convinced family friends in China to do the same.
Eventually, they began to pay Chinese families to take in orphans as
well.
“This wasn't any great leap in brilliance, this was just doing what
(Serena's) parents had done,” Johnson said, referring to his in-laws in
Connecticut who three adopted children, had three biological children
and served as foster parents for several years.
Since then, the Johnsons and those who work with Little Flower Projects
have helped rescue 1,400 orphans who would have otherwise died.
In 2005, the organization also began to arrange group homes for
children with physical disabilities, giving them a place where they can
live and be educated in a family-like setting until adulthood.
“We feel this incredible pressure to just save as many babies as we can,” he said.
Johnson, who works full-time as a start-up business manager and now has
6 children of his own, said the charity generally has only about 2-3
months of funding in the bank at one time.
“I don't know if it's bad management on my part,” he said with a laugh, “or God's plan.”
Johnson added, “The truth of the matter is that every time we get ahead with money, we start a new project.”
While some people have called such a move financially irresponsible, Johnson generally ignores their criticism.
“I think, 'Well, I have this money now. I can save 100 babies this year that otherwise wouldn't be saved.'”
Regardless of one's opinion of China, Johnson said it is important that
Americans not “forget the little people” who make up the “bottom rung”
of the country's nearly 1.4 billion population.
Prayer and educating oneself about China's orphans is the best way to get involved, he added.
Those who are interested can receive updates about the organization and
the children they serve by “liking” their Facebook page, which
frequently adds prayer requests and photos of the children in their
care.
“As I said in the beginning, I think this is God's hand at work here,
and I'm not one of those kinds of Christians that says that lightly,”
Johnson said.
To find out more about China Little Flower, visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Little-Flower-Projects/230680524654.