Journeys of the Heart (JOH) is proud of and dedicated to our China Child Adoption Program, which started in 1994. Our fees are very competitive, particularly with the services we provide: personal service, attention to detail, a great track record in adoptions and an excellent relationship with the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA). The CCAA is the department in China's central government that administers all adoptions by foreigners in China. While Journeys places mostly healthy infants from China, Journeys is proud to be one of the few agencies selected by the CCAA to assist in placing older and special needs children. If you are interested in adopting a Chinese child through Journeys, we have many happy parents who would be pleased to speak with you.

Over the last few years, the interest in adopting Chinese children has increased dramatically. It is no wonder - they are found to be among the healthiest babies of any internationally adopted population and most show few emotional effects from their time in an orphanage. The Chinese government's policy of allowing their families to have only one child has meant a phenomena of many abandoned baby girls who reside in orphanages throughout the country. Generally, women in China do not drink or use drugs and most people have an adequate and healthy diet, making this a unique and superior prenatal environment.

After a family's application is sent to China the wait for a referral is about 23 months at this time.  The trip to China is generally two weeks long, starting with a few days in Beijing to visit the Great Wall and the Forbidden City. At least one parent must travel to adopt the child. For groups of seven families or more, an agency escort accompanies your group to make sure all goes well and to help with any issues that may arise.  Smaller groups are well taken care of by the JOH travel coordinators.

The CCAA refers healthy infants for adoption to married couples between the ages of 30 and 45. If both parents are over the age of 45 (in the case of a couple), China will refer healthy children who are likely to be at least one year old. If parents are between 50 and 55 years old, China will refer only special need children. China does not allow persons under the age of 30 to adopt. Babies are generally between 8-14 months old at time of referral.

There are a few infant boys available for adoption who may have special needs. Adopting parents who request a child who has special need will be put on a "fast track," meaning that the time frame to process the adoption should be cut one-third to one-half less.

For families with Chinese heritage, CCAA will expedite the referral process and the time frame should be less than the normal waiting time.

Journeys has taken steps to make sure our program is among the best. Journeys' staff in Beijing advocates for families and makes regular visits to the CCAA.

Journeys arranges all travel so that families can accurately budget their travel portion of the trip. Our guide in Beijing quickly and expertly makes any travel arrangements within China and gets competitive prices even with little advance notice. We utilize top notch travel guides in China who know the adoption process and what to see while you are there. We arrange for a complete travel package that includes all in country travel, hotels, guides, sightseeing when possible, all for about $110 per day per person. Our friendly and knowledgeable guide meets the families when they arrive in Beijing.  Local guides assist in different areas we visit. We help make travel arrangements to get to and from China.  Families who wish to use frequent flier programs for the international portion of the flights can make such arrangements.

A Journeys' representative who has experience in adopting and/or traveling to China accompanies groups to provide additional support when there are 7 or more families in the group. In the rare situation when problems occur, the guides and escort work hard to solve them quickly. The guides and escort also assist the family in completing the child's immigration paperwork, communicating with provincial officials, providing shopping tips, sightseeing ideas and your overall support.

Relief programs by JOH have made substantial 501 (c)(3) Donations to China's orphanages and waiting children, supported surgeries and purchased air conditioning and heat units that help the waiting children survive the hottest of summers and the below freezing winters. JOH continues to give to orphanages in this way through the Love the Children Fund.

For more information on this program, contact Gabriel Marcu at:

gabriel@journeysoftheheart.net or (503) 681-3075

Special Note: New Rules Apply To All Adoption Agencies Working In China

Effective May 1, 2007

I. The adopters are a couple of one male and one female with a stable marital relationship. In case that both the husband and wife do not have any ex-marriage, the length of marriage has to reach two years. In case that either the husband or wife has ex-marriages (not more than 2), the length of the current marriage has to reach 5 years.

 II. Both the husband and wife have reached the age of 30 years and are under 50.

For adoption of special needs child, both of them should have reached the age of 30 and are under 55.

III. Both the husband and wife are fully healthy physically and mentally, and do not have the following conditions:

• AIDS
• mental handicap
• infectious disease within infective stage
• binocular blind or binocular parallax or monocular blind and with no ocular prosthesis
• binaural hearing loss or language function loss; adoption of special needs children who have identical conditions will be exempt from this limitation

• non-function or dysfunction of limbs or trunk caused by impairment, incompleteness, numbness or deformation; severe facial deformation
• severe diseases which requires long term treatment and which affect life expectancy, like malignant tumor, lupus erythematosus, nephrosis, epilepsy, and etc.
• post-surgery of major organs transplantation, not yet 10 years
• schizophrenia
• medication for severe mental disorders, like depression, mania, or anxiety neurosis, and etc, stopped not more than 2 years
• BMI (BMI=weight (kg)/ height2 (m2) )> 40

IV. Either the husband or wife holds a stable occupation. The family annual income reaches $10,000 for each family member, including the prospective adoptee and the family net assets value should reach $80,000.

The family annual income does not include welfare income, like relief fund, pension, unemployment insurance, or government subsidy, and etc.

V. Both the husband and wife have received education of or above the level of senior high school, or vocational skills training of the same level.

VI. The number of children in family under the age of 18 years does not reach 5, and the youngest one should have reached the age of 1 year.

Adoption of special needs children will be exempt from the limitation of "the number of children in family under the age of 18 years does not reach 5".

VII. Both the husband and wife have never come under any criminal sanction. And they behave honorably with good moral characters, and abide by regulations and laws. Both of them do not accord with the following situations:

• have a history of domestic violence, sex abuse, abandonment or abuse of children (even if they are not consequently arrested or criminated)
• have a history of taking narcotics like opium, morphine, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and etc, and medication for mental diseases, which are able to arouse addiction among human beings
• have a history of alcohol abuse and have given up drinking not more than 10 years ago

Adoption application will be given consideration on a case by case basis when either the husband or the wife has less than 3 criminal records of slight severity with no severe outcomes, and the time for correction of wrong has reached 10 years, or has less than 5 records of traffic law violation with no severe outcomes.

VIII. The adopters are able to have a correct cognition of adoption, and expect to provide a warm family for the orphaned children (or children with handicap and disability) via adoption and to meet the needs of the children adopted for the sake of a good development of them. They have a correct cognition of inter-country adoption as well and are fully mentally-prepared for the potential risks within inter-country-adoption and for the situations of children adopted as potential diseases, developmental delay, post-placement maladjustment, and etc.

IX. The adopters make in the adoption application letter clear promises of being able to accept post-placement follow-ups and offer post-placement reports as required.

X. The fixed number of year or age that appears in this letter shall be dated from the day when the adoption application documents are logged in at the CCAA.