Baby Sarah's "Bai Jia Bei"

Dear Family and Friends: As many of you know, we are adopting a baby girl from China and our dossier is logged into China’s database. Currently, the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) is taking approximately 14 months to match babies with their forever families. We hope to receive our referral and travel in summer 2007, though it may take longer. We have requested to be matched with an infant girl as young as possible and have chosen her American name to be Sarah Lyn (Chinese names to come with referral). To welcome and celebrate a new life, a tradition exists in the northern part of China, to make a Bai Jia Bei (100 Good Wishes Quilt). It is a custom where friends and family contribute squares of cloth along with their wish/prayer for the baby. The quilt is said to contain the luck and energy from everyone who contributed a piece of fabric. We would like to create a 100 wishes/prayers quilt to give to our daughter when we bring her home from China and we would like to have your love and prayers included. There are two pieces to contribute: FABRIC - Choose a machine washable, 100% cotton piece of fabric. It can be new or used (from a meaningful piece of fabric). Cut a “fat quarter”. (An idea for a shortcut is to go to your local fabric store and look for "fat quarters". These are pre-cut squares of fabric specifically for quilts-no measuring and cutting required!). WISH - This is the fun part. Send us a note (no bigger than 5 ½ by 8 ½) with a good wish/prayer/blessing for Sarah Lyn and a scrap of your fabric (glued to the paper). Your wish can be simple or elaborate, handwritten or typed. It can be something you wrote or a favorite poem, lyric, bible quote, or anything else that strikes your fancy. Please remember to sign your wish and include your city and state. These written wishes compiled in a scrapbook and it would be wonderful to link a blessing with a piece of fabric in the quilt. (If there are any scrapbook lovers out there-here's a chance to show off your skills). If you have more than one person in your family who would like to participate then please feel free to send more than one quilt block and wish. Remember, we need to get to 100 wishes (or more) so the more the better. Children are welcome to be contributors to this project as well! If you do not have our mailing address, please email us at adoptionwait-baijiabei@yahoo.com. We know you all have very busy schedules, but we hope you will be able to help us create this special keepsake. This will be so incredibly meaningful to us as well as to Sarah as she gets older, especially since it incorporates a part of her Chinese heritage. Sarah's Family