Jin Xianmei, 49, living in Sancha Village of north China's Shanxi Province, is raising seven children with deformity at her home.

Villagers say that during the past 30 years Jin has voluntarily brought up 35 handicapped children from the local social welfare house, offering them mother-like love and care.

Now, four out of the seven children are still fed on milk, so she always has to feed them at mid-night while washing a huge pile of diapers at dawn.

Jin said she never regretted this kind of life.

"I lost my mother at the age of 11 and my first baby died in infancy when I was 18," she said. "I deeply understand the feelings of orphans, especially those who are handicapped."

In fact, there are tens of "mothers" in the village like Jin.

Though merely consisting of 170 households, the village has adopted over 1000 handicapped orphans since the 1960s when the social welfare house of Datong City could not afford to accept poor children. Now 240 children are being brought up in 83 families.

Most of the children were abandoned by their parents because of deformity. However, they are luckily accepted by the villager, though the majority of villagers suffer from inadequate food and clothing.

Cai Yuqin, 64, who has brought up over 30 handicapped orphans since 1968, said many mothers like her have devoted much more to the orphans than to their own children.

Some of the children are mentally retarded, who cannot even pronounce "mum" or "dad".

"We feel it is our responsibility to take in the children and never think of rewards," said Cai.

The "mothers" are paid around 100 yuan (US$12) as the monthly expenditure for each child, which is far from enough.

Cai said apart from offering the kids a warm family, the villagers also try their best to provide them with necessary education. Though in poverty, the villagers have raised about 200,000 yuan (US$24,000) to build a school with 18 classrooms.

The school has now enrolled 143 pupils, of whom 42 are handicapped, said a teacher with the school.

They are never discriminated at school, said the teacher, and their healthy classmates are always ready to help them out of inconvenience in study and life.

In the past two years, 16 handicapped children have finished their primary education in the school and continued studying in middle schools and five others are admitted by technical secondary schools.

Over 500 children have grown up in the village since 1964 and they are now doing what they can to repay the love they have received.

Dang Guiying, a primary school teacher, bought her foster mother presents with her first salary.

"She has spent her whole life taking care of us, and now it is time for me to repay her," Dang said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 16, 2004)