I am excited to share some good news about Starfish with all of you. In an effort to apply our resources and experience to the special needs orphans in Xi'an at this time, we are going to offer our services as a healing home to incoming medical missions. There are three medical missions coming to Xi'an in April.

As a healing home, our primary role will be to provide post-surgical care to the children that have had surgery conducted by the medical missions. The children will remain under our care until they get medical clearance to leave and the children will be returned to their orphanage. In a small and important way, acting as the healing home gets us immediately back to the business of helping babies while staying true to our mission of helping orphans with special needs start the journey to a loving family.

In addition the help Naomi is providing the incoming medical missions, she remains in regular contact with both the Yulin and Xi'an orphanage. This includes riding out to the Xi'an orphanage during the week to check on the kids and flying to Yulin to do the same. Our overall objective with the visits is to confirm the well being of our kids and to confirm that the orphanage staff knows we are there as an asset and we will gladly offer our services as needed. Just Friday, Naomi confirmed that the special wheelchair we ordered for Kaitlyn had arrived in Yulin when she was there. Naomi will work with the Yulin physical therapists to make sure that the chair is properly adjusted.

I also want to use this update as a written "Q & A" session. My Starfish email inbox has been dominated by questions related to the future of Starfish. All of these questions are appropriate in light of the recent actions taken by the Shaanxi provincial government with our foster home and merit a detailed answer.

Our Starfish Board is committed to sustaining our "best in class" foster home operations. All of our efforts are pointed forward to a continuously improving version of The Starfish Foster Home. We will look in the rear view mirror for two reasons:

1) to identify what we did well/what we did poorly and incorporate that knowledge into our future operation; and

2) to stay true to Amanda's mission, vision and passion in directing Starfish's future.

Here are my answers to the questions being asked regarding our future.

•  No. Through the Herculean efforts of Naomi and her staff we have relocated from the foster home to a four bedroom apartment much closer to the center of Xi'an. We have signed a short-term lease to allow for flexibility to move in the future. We have scaled back our operating costs, considerably. The apartment has a volunteer room, a baby room, and is ready to offer services as a healing home. 

➢ How will Starfish deliver upon its mission to serve the needs of medically challenged orphans if you don't have any children? 

• We are going to put our new location to use as a "healing home" to support several upcoming medical missions coming to Xi'an. Our "healing home" will house some of the staff from the medical missions. More importantly, we will offer post-operative care for the babies that will last 30-60 days. 
• This is an exciting and natural way for us to bring our world famous version of TLC to some well deserving kids.  

➢ Will you be staying in Xi'an? 

•  Our decision on a future location will be based on many criteria including, but not limited to, close proximity to quality medical care facilities and air/rail transport, properly skilled labor pool and a productive relationship with local/provincial government. We are looking inside Xi'an and outside of Shaanxi province to find the best fit. 

➢ Have you thought about partnering with other foster homes? 

•  The idea of aligning Starfish with another high quality provider of child advocacy services is a consideration. We have had several preliminary discovery discussions with organization in Beijing, Shanghai and Zhengzhou to see if a partnership is mutually beneficial. 

•  Regardless of the path we choose, the Starfish "brand" will always remain in the public eye and not folded into an existing organization's operations. 

➢ It just seems like you guys are in a holding pattern. Why is it taking so long for something to happen? 

• The pacing of our progress is to a great degree our choice. With respect to things in our control, we are taking a taking a methodical approach to all of our next steps. We are being careful in our investigation and making sure that we are sound in the moves that we make. 
• Would you like to move faster? Yes. 
• Could you move faster? Yes. 
• Why don't you move faster? Because we are a foreign NGO operating in China. The culture of decision-making is different. We must work in the right sequence with the authorities and ensure we progress in a respectful manner.  How we do this is critical to our success.  

 ➢ Are you going to build a new foster home?

• The idea of a dedicated building has been talked about for years and is an option we will keep on the table. We have funds in a dedicated "new building" account that could be used.   

  ➢  Will a "new" Starfish foster home look, feel and be run like Amanda use to do it? 

* We believe our unfortunate circumstances resulting from the Henan fire gave us a very unique and exciting opportunity to build from the ground up and position Starfish to succeed in the future. There are certain realities that Starfish has to adapt to as we move forward in China working as a foreign entity.

* The "new and improved" version of Starfish will most likely look, feel and be run differently that in the past. The improvements and changes will touch a wide span of items such as how we staff from top to bottom, how many children we care for at any given time, how our operations are structured; the internal services we offer our children (therapies/education), launching an internship program, fundraising, use of volunteers, etc. 

  ➢ Why should I continue to support Starfish with my donation? 

* Near term we need your support to help execute our new role as a healing home as costs will be attached to these effort. On a longer-term view we need to remain financially sound so we can invest in our future as part of our commitment to carry on with the mission Amanda started. 

* Most of our donors made their first donation to Starfish based on an emotional connection and the fact that we literally save lives. I also believe that donors justify recurring donations with the knowledge that their funds continue to help save lives. We will continue to strive to earn your donations by playing an active role in saving as many lives as possible.

 I think this quote, "Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success" is a proper close to my note. 

We ask for

1. your patience as we investigate the best way forward;
2. your support for the persistent effort that the Board and Chinese staff are making; and
3. your understanding that while the sweat may not be evident on the surface, we are in full sprint towards a bright future for Amanda's legacy.