BLOOMINGTON - Deb Wollrab was in China to adopt a child and feeling a bit apprehensive about being half a world away from home. Then she met Jane Liedtke, founder of Our Chinese Daughters Foundation.

"Jane helped provide insight about what my daughter would be going through," said Wollrab, a Bloomington woman who adopted through an agency but set up a sightseeing tour through Liedtke's foundation. "I wanted some time in China to get part of their culture."

Liedtke, a former Bloomington-Normal resident, knows how important that is. She adopted daughter Emily, now 13, in 1994 in China.

She formed the Foundation the next year.

"I awoke one night worried about children who would not have the chance to learn about what it's like to be Chinese…," Liedtke said via e-mail from China, where the Foundation has an office and where she lives.

Among other services, the foundation coordinates before- and after-adoption trips to China. It will host an open house and program that begins at 6 p.m. Tuesday at 109 W. Monroe St., Bloomington. Liedtke will speak at 7.

Until May, foundation offices were in a private home.

The new offices, which include the Chinese Culture Learning Center, will provide more space for processing tour applications, facilitating adoptions, providing cultural items such as jewelry, clothing and toys and a lending library.

Liedtke said the purpose of the open house is to welcome the Bloomington-Normal community to the new offices and to share information about how to prepare a family with adopted children to return to the child's homeland.

Wollrab plans to attend. She is happy the not-for-profit foundation, which serves more than 650 travelers a year, has offices in both Bloomington and China.

She expects to use the foundation as a future resource and plans to return to China for a visit with 2-year-old Summer when Summer is older.

"I want to give her a sense of her own history," Wollrab said.

Summer was 14 months old and living in a foster home when she was adopted by Deb and Fred Wollrab. "We immediately bonded and we've had few transition problems," Deb Wollrab said.

Fred Wollrab waited in Bloomington for his wife and their new child during the August 2005 trip.

Deb Wollrab remembers when he picked them up at the airport. "They locked eyes and she was not intimidated by this new person."

Our Chinese Daughters Foundation

The foundation offers:

- Tours of China with culture-focused travel programs for families with adopted children;

- Adoption facilitation services and pre-adoption travel to China;

- Orphan support projects;

- Quarterly newsletter;

- Speakers and workshop leaders for adoption and Chinese culture events;

- China for Children magazine, a quarterly publication for children raised in English-speaking homes;

- China for Children catalog, which supports groups in fund-raising efforts;

- Online Web sites for various aspects of OCDF;

- Educational scholarships for adopted Chinese children of single mothers;

- Grants enabling support groups and adoption agencies to provide workshops and seminars for adoptive families.

SOURCES: Our Chinese Daughters Foundation; Jane Liedtke

On the Net: www.ocdf.org, or call (309) 829-8202

Compiled by Bob Holliday