They Called Her “Alien”

Mr. Zheng had never seen any child as kind as his daughter WenJuan.

He explains, “She was so generous. She wanted to share everything she had.”

But her generosity usually back-fired.

“Once she gave her balloon to another child,” says Mr. Zheng. “But when he saw WenJuan’s face, he ran away.”

A little boy in the village says, “Her mouth is very strange. We all thought she was an alien.”

WenJuan was born with a cleft lip and palate. And since Mrs. Zheng has a mental illness, Mr. Zheng and his mother did their best to raise WenJuan. But as people continued to reject her, she started to withdraw.

“I found her digging in the mud and playing by herself a lot. Her only friend was a kitty cat,” Mr. Zheng shares. “I wanted her to go to school, get a job and get married. I loved her with all of my heart, and I was able to overlook her cleft lip and palate. But I knew other people wouldn’t overlook her lip.”

She wasn’t able to eat much.

“She was only half the size of other kids her age,” says Mr. Zheng.  “And the doctor told me that the younger the child, the better the surgery. So, I made up my mind that I would find a way to fix her cracked lip.”

As a farmer, he only makes $8 a day, so it would take years to save for surgery.

“Whenever I got tired at work, I thought of WenJuan, and how she’d greet me and want me to carry her around on my neck when I got home. It helped me to go on,” Mr. Zheng candidly confesses.

But WenJuan’s cleft lip only got worse. She couldn’t talk, and once, she fainted.

Her father remembers well, “The doctor said the child was in danger because she was so dehydrated. I was afraid I’d lose her and didn’t know how I’d go on. I loved her more than life.”

So, when Mr. Zheng heard about CBN, he asked us for help. And we arranged surgery for WenJuan right away.

“It’s like a dream. WenJuan looks like a normal child. Most people can’t even tell that she ever had a cleft lip,” Mr. Zheng proudly proclaims. “She has lots of friends and is kinder than ever. I’m so grateful to the CBN partners who made this possible. You changed my daughter’s life. If I have money someday, I’d like to help children who have cleft lips, just like you helped my WenJuan.”