Sharing Adoption Stories

Is This Your Baby?

2011-10-20T14:12:00.000-04:00

Our second son, Micah, is ourcatch-up boy.

While he was still in the hospital after he was born, thedoctors and nurses tried to skip newborn care with us. After all, we have afive-year-old son named Isaiah. The refrain we kept hearing was, "But youknow about this already."

And we kept saying, "No, treat us like first timeparents because we really are."

Their confusion was easy to understand. When Isaiah wasplaced with us, he was already four months old. We missed those months with himand so we had no idea what to expect with Micah. The doctors and nurses, whilea bit surprised, took it in stride and went over it all, step by step.

While a lot of what we knew from Isaiah's first days withus translated very well, there are still areas where Micah is our catch-up boy.Part of that is dealing with our suddenly "conspicuous family."

In some ways, we should have experienced this already.Isaiah has a very diverse ethnic heritage. He is Korean, Caucasian, AfricanAmerican, and Japanese. And yet many people have commented that Isaiah bears astrong resemblance to me. We're not sure how that happened, exactly, but whenour family went out, no one gave us a second look.

Now, though, we're playing catch up with Micah. Micah'sbirthparents are African immigrants. The first time Jill, my wife, took him outgrocery shopping, a little old lady saw the car seat on the cart and wentaround to see the baby. Jill says that when the woman saw Micah, she froze, hereyes went wide, and she (very rudely) asked Jill, "Is this your baby?"

Jill's response was probably the best: "Yes, he is.And we love him very much."

Me, I would have gone with: "No, he's not. Shhhhh!Don't tell anyone." I'm sure the cops would have found it hilarious, too.

We're probably going to have more experiences like thatone in the future, but we're okay with that, because what Jill said is true.Micah is our son and we love him very much. More than that, we know that Micahis God's child and He loves him very much, too.

In some ways, our family has become a microcosm of God'sfamily of faith, the Church. God also has a "conspicuous family!" As St.Paul wrote, "In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. Foras many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neitherJew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female,for you are all one in Christ." (Galatians 3:26-28, ESV)

So we've learned our lesson: when people ask us if Micahis ours, we'll always respond with a positive and joyful, "Yes!" justas God says "Yes!" to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. May He blessall our families with His rich grace.

Otte family photo by Sydnee Bickett

The Second Amazing Half of an Adoption Story

2011-09-01T09:00:00.007-04:00

I couldn’t believe my ears. This particular mission has strummed a chord in my heart for several decades, and so has its founder, Pandita Ramabai—a former Hindu widow who came to Christ in the early part of the last century and who started up her mission to rescue women and children.

There is an integral character in my novel Shadowed in Silk. Her name is Miriam. Some reviewers described my Miriam as a Mother Teresa figure, but in fact she is based on Ramabai who had died in 1922.

My birth-daughter, Sarah, had no way of knowing this. Only God knew.

So why India? Sarah and Mark had considered all sorts of missions all around the world. Why this particular organization in India? There are so many projects around the globe. Why bless this birth mother's heart in such a way?

As I look back on the road of adoption relinquishment and reunion—and my writing—I am amazed at the boldness of God’s pen strokes in my life.

It’s no wonder I write. I desperately scrabble to get down on paper a trace of His exquisite tenderness and kindness, the artistry of what He can do with a surrendered life . . . a surrendered child.

SHADOWED IN SILK

She was invisible to those who should have loved her.

After the Great War, Abby Fraser returns to India with her small son, where her husband is stationed with the British army. She has longed to go home to the land of glittering palaces and veiled women . . . but Nick has become a cruel stranger. It will take more than her American pluck to survive.

Major Geoff Richards, broken over the loss of so many of his men in the trenches of France, returns to his cavalry post in Amritsar. But his faith does little to help him understand the ruthlessness of his British peers toward the India people he loves. Nor does it explain how he is to protect Abby Fraser and her child from the husband who mistreats them.

Amid political unrest, inhospitable deserts, and Russian spies, tensions rise in India as the people cry for the freedom espoused by Gandhi. Caught between their own ideals and duty, Geoff and Abby stumble into sinister secrets . . . secrets that will thrust them out of the shadows and straight

Another sister is coming to visit!

2011-07-15T20:33:00.002-04:00

I can hardly wait! My sister Pam is coming with her husband, Phil, in October. We're already planning what to do, where to go. I have a writers conference, the ACFW conference, to go to in September, which will help me get through that month.

I still bless God for giving me this blessing of sisters. We're so much alike, I still stand in awe of it. How can you love someone you've only spent a short time with? And yet I love my sisters. I guess it's built into our DNA. Or maybe our spirits. We're sisters in the Lord, too.

Rejoice with me, friends!

And spread the word about Adoption Share. I'd love to share your story!

I Look Like My Daddy

2011-06-28T14:47:00.000-04:00

Anita Agers-Brooks is on a mission to find her biological father. On her journey, she shares God’s message as a Communications Specialist, Certified Personality Trainer, public speaker, and writer. Anita lives in Missouri with her husband Ricky. Contact her via website or email.

I Look Like My Daddy

I am illegitimate, but I am not an accident. And no matter how you came to exist, neither are you.

I was forty-six years old, when through a dramatic series of events, I found out Dad, the man who raised me, isn’t my biological father. My identity is surrounded by mystery, but I know exactly who I am.

In the grief-drenched days, after I received DNA results confirming Dad isn’t my birth-father, I went to the Bible for comfort. My tears stained the pages when I read, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart” (Jeremiah 1:5). I sobbed over God’s promise to be, “A father to the fatherless” (Psalm 68:5).

A dear friend said in response to my story. “God sure must have wanted you. He went to a lot of trouble to create you especially who you are.”

I’ve learned she is right. I am not an accident.

There are six powerful things I discovered while the mystery unraveled:

1. I belong to God, no matter how I was conceived.
2. I exist to glorify Him by becoming the person I was meant to be.
3. I can go to His Word, and His people, to get more information.
4. I found my life’s purpose by asking Him to reveal my unique destiny.
5. I decided in a single moment never to give up.
6. I started by taking one step. Then one more. And another, and then another.

God knitted me together on purpose, with purpose, to fulfill a purpose. My unique DNA combination makes me especially qualified to do the work He planned for me before I was even born. I am wanted, because my Daddy-God adopted me. I am beautiful, because I look like my Daddy-God. I am the daughter of the King of Kings, which makes me a princess. I am secure in my identity, which is found in Christ alone.

But my story isn’t all about me. My story is also about you.

No matter how you started, or where you are today, you are meant for abundant life. You can live the dream God planted in your heart when He set you in the soil of your mother’s womb. You are not an accident. You know who you are. You look like your Daddy.

When God makes a family

2011-06-08T15:00:00.000-04:00

This family could only be designed by God. My four children have three different mothers, three different fathers, four half-siblings (who we’ve never met), and countless biological ties we’ve not been able to follow. You see, our story began nineteen years ago, when my husband and I first heard those dreaded words…”you have less than five percent chance of becoming pregnant.” Carrying a child to term held less hope.

But we were determined. For those of you who travelled this road, you know that itch that spreads to obsession. The baby itch. It directs your path toward the baby section in every department store, it fixes your stare on every distended belly, it whispers in your ear to rent the two-bedroom apartment. I had that itch. Bad.

But no matter what we did, which hormones I took, or how many shots we endured, pregnancy stayed out of reach. Two days before a surgical procedure, the doctor ordered a pregnancy test…just in case. Like any woman who has lived through too many negative results received in a doctor’s office, I took an at-home test the day before. Why not, I’d purchased the Costco-sized box full of them. That way there would be no surprises. I’d know the negative results before that sweet woman’s face announced it to the waiting room.

But this time it was positive.

Positive! Nine months later our little miracle met the world with a hearty scream and the biggest blue eyes you’ve ever seen.

But I wanted more. I wanted a big family. One sounded so lonely. So back to the doctors we went. Surely if we had one, we could have more. However, the doctor called it secondary infertility. My chances dropped. So did my hope. Not the baby itch, that came back with a fury.

That’s when our journey to adoption began. We headed for a Christian adoption agency and placed ourselves firmly on the waiting list to get on the waiting list. Yup, you read that correctly. The social worker told us we had a six to seven-year wait before we saw a likely placement because we already had one child—a birth child at that. Birth moms chose childless homes or homes where their children would be among other adoptees, not homes like ours.

The next day, my friend called. A woman sat in her father-in-law’s law firm discussing a real estate deal, but the matter of her impending birth swung the discussion around to private adoption matters. Did he know anyone who would be interested in adopting her child? Yes. I jumped around the living room until my heart nearly flopped out of my chest. Yes, we were interested, I screamed into the receiver (poor girl, I’m not sure she ever fully recovered her hearing).

Four months later, our first son joined our growing family.

Again the itch returned, but the adoption funds did not. This time, my husband and I turned to the agency we initially contacted and offered our home for pre-adoptive foster care. Many years ago, Wisconsin adoptive laws required a birth mom to place her child in what I considered a middle ground or safe place. A home not tied to the birth mom or to the adoptive family. The length of stay depended on the court system, but usually lasted eight to twelve weeks. So we picked up the newborns from the hospital and placed them in the hands of their new adoptive family or back with their birth parents when the process completed. Oh the stories we could tell, but that is for another time.

This story is about the one that stuck. The other foster moms said it happened and they each had children to prove it, but I was unconvinced. We’d signed papers stating we would not adopt any child we fostered, so the agency could place them with waiting families. Surely, we wouldn’t be so lucky as to have one of them “stick.”

But he did. Our youngest son was the smallest of them all. Weighing in at just over five pounds, he came to us with a laundry list of special needs and frightening diagnoses. Despite the many illnesses he contracted over the next few months and his refusal to grow that first year, he shocked us all by plowing through every adoptive family in the agency’s repertoire in less than three months. Not one felt prepared for such a tiny package that carried such a heavy future. (Don’t you just love the hand of God?)

The date of placement loomed ahead and the agency had a choice to make: place him in county care or place him with us—permanently. Easy decision. Our third child thrived after that first year and I shudder to think where he’d be had he thrived any earlier.

Over the years, our three children grew and soothed away that baby itch. Then one day a commercial played as a backdrop to the noisy mayhem that became our household every evening. It was for a medication thought to cause pregnancy. Hah! My husband and I laughed. Medicine didn’t cause pregnancy. We knew better. Much to our surprise, when my doctor placed me on that medication we did indeed become pregnant. (Who knew?) We finished off our family with baby number four. Our unexpected miracle child arrived a mere ten years after the journey through infertility began.

As I look upon our latest family photo, I’m still amazed at the similarities. All four of my children are fair-haired, silly, and pale as any good-northerner is this time of year. They choose when to share their story and when to hold it close, since folks don’t guess we have such an eclectic history. The only glitch lies in the disbelief of teachers and friends who think my children are making up tales when they tell them there’s adoption in our midst.

I love my total lack of control in creating our family. Oh, I didn’t always feel that way. Many days were spent on my knees, tears streaming down my face as I railed like Hannah for God to hear me. Thankfully, He did. Boy, did He ever.

Married for over 20 years, Shellie and her husband have four wonderful kiddos and two goofy greyhounds. After receiving her undergraduate degree in Secondary Education from the University of Wisconsin--Madison, she went on to acquire an early childhood education certificate. Shellie also served in youth, children's, special needs and family ministries for over twenty-two years.

Now she enjoys teaching her teens how to drive and chauffeuring her preteens across the Wisconsin countryside. And once in a while, she loves to read big people books (you know the kind without pictures).

Shellie writes because it keeps her away from her husband's power tools and because every now and then, she doesn't have the choice, it just takes over. Her best inspiration comes from God and the occasional walk along a country road with her greyhounds.Visit Shellie's website/blog.

Another visit to look forward to

2011-05-25T18:54:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted here. My sister Pam and her husband, Phil, are coming in October. I'm looking forward to spending one-on-one time with her. She's so tenderhearted and sweet, and a terrific baker! She and my son Greg will have fin together.

It's been so interesting getting to know my sisters after not even knowing about them for my entire life. I've said it before, but so many things I thought were simply me, or perhaps my environment or upbringing, turn out to be in my DNA.

When our "baby" sister, Cindy, visited last August, there were a number of times when I did some silly thing and her hubby looked at her and said, "She's so your sister." I laughed but at the same time it thrilled my heart to hear.

When you go a lifetime without sisters then finally get them, it's the greatest gift of God. If you have sisters, give them a hug this week if they live close. If not, be sure you reach out to them. Mine and I have a lifetime to make up for, but we're loving the opportunity.

God's blessings on your sisterhood.

STORY BEHIND THE COVER—By Christine Lindsay

2011-05-01T06:00:00.000-04:00

Christine Lindsay writes historical inspirational novels that have strong love stories, and she doesn’t shy away from difficult topics. Her debut novel SHADOWED IN SILK is set in India during a traumatic era. Christine’s long-time fascination with the British Raj was seeded from stories of her ancestors who served in the British Cavalry in India. SHADOWED IN SILK won the 2009 ACFW Genesis for Historical under the title Unveiled.

The Story Behind the Cover

Adoption stories don’t stop at the reunion with violins playing as if that were the end of the movie. Many reunions are idyllic, and others are rocky from the get-go. But I have found God to be more interested in the developing relationships within my adoption triad than some of the members are.

For example, it’s painful for my daughter’s adoptive mom to even see me 12 years after the reunion. But recently she has moved to my town, and I often bump into her at the mall. I wonder if the Lord is gently nudging us together. Nothing could make me happier. But not that long ago the Lord did something that took my breath away—something to deepen the bond between my birthdaughter and me.

I have to go back 12 years though, to just after our adoption reunion. Seeing that beautiful and fully grown girl brought back the full pain of relinquishing her as a baby. No amount of rational thought on my part could take the emotional pain away. Only God could, and did. As time went by He encouraged me to share the healing that He had given me with others in a fictional format.

Ten years later, this coming May 2011—after writing 3 complete manuscripts—my debut novel about the British Raj in India will be released. That plot has nothing to do with adoption (at least not much). But God had something special in mind for me.

My publisher for SHADOWED IN SILK is WhiteFire. Some would say there are disadvantages to putting your work into the hands of a small and fairly new publishing house. But the Holy Spirit who said to me 32 years ago—trust your child into my hands—is the same Spirit who said to me—trust me with the labor of your heart.

As WhiteFire and I discussed the design of Shadowed’s cover, I suggested the model wear the sari material I had purchased in India. WhiteFire then sent me photographs of the model they felt could fill the role of my character, Abby. When I looked at the pictures I fell in love with the face, until it dawned on me that the model resembled my birthdaughter, Sarah.

On a whim I suggested Sarah for the model and WhiteFire agreed. Sarah was shy at first, but she pitched in on this step of faith, even though she would have to come 300 miles to participate in the photo shoot.

WhiteFire wanted 2 costumes—a western one for 1919 and the sari that my character Abby wears in the novel. A friend loaned me a straw boater hat, and I was sure I had a tan linen skirt up in my closet. But when I went to look . . . it was gone. I’d forgotten that when we moved last year, I’d given the skirt away to a charity. On another whim I drove to the local second hand store to search for something similar.

As I walked across the parking lot I prayed the Lord would help me find the perfect skirt. I was not 5 minutes in the store when I found my very own skirt which I then purchased back for $9.99.
I could go on and on about the details—there is so much more to tell. I had asked the Lord to put His fingerprints all over the cover, and He did.

It wasn’t until later that I realized—that without my ever planning or imagining it—He had not only inspired me to write through the loss of my first child to adoption, but He then blessed the fruition of that faith with the beauty of the very child I had relinquished to Him.

Only our Heavenly Father can do something so intricately tender. He cares for our broken hearts, especially if that adoption didn’t bring the joy that was hoped for at the beginning. Or your reunion wasn’t all you’d prayed for. Or you’re still searching for that lost one. Or worse, that loved one rejected you. Hold on to the Father. He holds your deepest desire in His hands.

The verse I’ve taken for my life is Isaiah 49: 15, 16: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands…”
If you’d like to read more about my journey as a birthmother, drop by my blog. You can also read more about the journey of Book 1 of my Twilight of the British Raj series—SHADOWED IN SILK.

SHADOWED IN SILK

She was invisible to those who should have loved her.

After the Great War, Abby Fraser returns to India with her small son, where her husband is stationed with the British army. She has longed to go home to the land of glittering palaces and veiled women . . . but Nick has become a cruel stranger. It will take more than her American pluck to survive.

Major Geoff Richards, broken over the loss of so many of his men in the trenches of France, returns to his cavalry post in Amritsar. But his faith does little to help him understand the ruthlessness of his British peers toward the India people he loves. Nor does it explain how he is to protect Abby Fraser and her child from the husband who mistreats them.

Amid political unrest, inhospitable deserts, and Russian spies, tensions rise in India as the people cry for the freedom espoused by Gandhi. Caught between their own ideals and duty, Geoff and Abby stumble into sinister secrets . . . secrets that will thrust them out of the shadows and straight into the fire of revolution.

Finding My Sisters

2011-03-21T17:11:00.000-04:00

It's been a little over a year since I first posted this story. I've met my sisters and one has been to Georgia to visit. We've grown closer and I wanted to re-post the story of God's miracle.

On a hot July morning, sipping a cup of coffee, I opened my email. Nothing breath-taking about that, except on this particular day, I was asked a question that irrevocably changed my life.

Are you the Ane Mulligan looking for your birthmother, Elsie Vauna Mullvain?

That spun my world and yanked the breath right out of my lungs.

Oh, I'd always known I was adopted. From the day mom and dad brought me home at three months of age, they told me I was a chosen baby.

My childhood was idyllic … well, maybe not for my parents, given the fact I was a barely-contained firecracker. But for me, it was great. Born in January 1947 in Southern California, I truly was a child of the fifties, when Cokes were a nickel and roller skates had keys.

Daddy worked as an aeronautical engineer, and Mom stayed home with my adopted brother and me. I was a happy kid—hyper but carefree. My best friend lived next door, and my school was a half-a-block's walk from our home. My mom and dad believed in me and encouraged me in all I did, uh, with the exception of giving Billy Ledbetter Ex-Lax instead of Hershey's. Come to think of it, there were a few other—okay a lot of—activities that brought down parental wrath. But that's another story.

The mirror doesn't lie
I can't say I was never curious about my birth parents; I was. For one thing, I didn't look like anyone. Family friends would say I resembled my mom, but that simply wasn't true. We didn't share any features at all.

Therefore, I became a people watcher, always wondering. Was that woman my mom? Could that man be my dad? Did I have any sisters? One time, I must have been about ten, I followed a woman up and down the aisles in the grocery store. She finally asked me if I was lost. My mom found me about that time, apologized to the woman, and thoroughly embarrassed, took me home. It didn't matter. Up close, that woman didn't look as much like me as I first thought.

I was disappointed but not daunted. I continued to stare in the mirror, albeit secretly, searching for someone I didn't know and wondered—a lot.

I was your classic rebellious teenager. Being part of the "enlightened" generation, I thought my folks were old fogies. They'd been in their thirties when they adopted me and were, in my estimation, hopelessly stuck in the last generation. You know the one, where they had running boards on cars, danced the Charleston, and songs like "Jeepers Creepers."

It's a good thing adoptions are irrevocable, or I’m sure my parents would have tried. Filled with angst and sarcasm, I tested their patience and fortitude with my smart mouth. I also demanded to know about my birth parents. They had little information, however. Mine was not a private adoption, but rather through The Children's Home Society of California, a non-profit agency. They knew I was Irish, my medical history, and my birthmother had been young. There was nothing known about my father.

Imagining my story
This was, of course, years before the first home computers and the Internet. I had nothing to go on. Having what my teachers always called an "overactive imagination," I fantasized what might have happened to my mother. Interestingly, some of my imaginings weren't so far off the mark.

The era was right after WWII. The boys freshly home from the war. A romantic, my mother was swept off her feet. And left flat. I had a few other scenarios; after all, I was a budding novelist. Later, these scenes would find their way onto paper. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I survived adolescence and hit my twenties. About that time, I also discovered my adopted parents were intelligent despite past belief, and I got married. Raising our son and making a home took a front seat, and I filed away my short-lived quest. I had enough on my hands.

A heart-pounding premonition
A move to Georgia further derailed any thoughts of searching for my birthmother. The years passed. Then in 1998, I received a letter from my dad. He and Mom were eighty-six by this time, and Mom had Alzheimer's. She didn't know who I was anymore than I did. The last time we visited, it varied in her mind who I was: one moment I was her mother, then her sister. Most of the time, she didn't know who I was, but she said she liked me.

As I pulled Daddy's letter from the mailbox, it felt thicker than normal. Anticipating a good read (he always included tidbits of family lore and funny anecdotes) I jumped into the car. It was a Wednesday evening in the Fall, and we were on our way to church for choir practice. As my husband drove, I tore open the envelope.

But it wasn't Daddy's favored lined, yellow legal paper. It was blue and thick. The kind of stock paper they use for official court documents. Premonition made my heart pound. I took a deep breath, and with trembling hands, I slowly slid it from the envelope. A sticky-note was adhered to the outside of the folder.

"I don't know if you want this or not. Love, Dad."

Inhale and … hold
That was all. For once, my overactive imagination was flummoxed. I exchanged glances with my husband and peeled off the yellow sticky. I caught my breath as I read aloud:

The adoption of Roberta Ann Mullvain

Though I'd never seen nor heard that name before, I instinctively knew it was mine. And suddenly I wasn't me any more. But who was I? I glanced at my husband, but he had his eyes on the road, oblivious to the heart-stopping drama, taking place in the passenger seat. I opened the blue folder and quickly scanned its pages, until I saw it: My mother's name. Elsie V. Mullvain.

A myriad of emotions and thoughts whirled. Scenarios played out and were cast aside. With one breath I was excited—then afraid. Tears of joy welled as I thought of open arms, welcoming me, then quickly turned to sorrow with the fear of rejection. I tried to picture her, but her face remained shadowed. I didn't know how I truly felt or should feel. For a word merchant, I was an empty page. I refolded the papers, and slid them in the envelope. We'd arrived at church and I desperately needed to compose myself.

Later that night, I called Daddy to say I received the papers but quickly dismissed the subject and chatted about other things. They were old school, from an era that never had open adoptions. I knew he and Mom would be terribly hurt if I did anything about this. I had to put them first. After I hung up, I put the papers in the safe and closed the door.

And yet …

Unanswered questions
By this time, another year had passed, and I'd reached an age where changes were taking place that I wasn't so happy about. After all, who wants wrinkles and triceps that waved goodbye for a full five minutes after you'd gone? I needed a place to lay the blame for the havoc gravity was playing on my body.

When I brushed my teeth in the morning or combed my hair, I found myself staring into the mirror again, my hand paused it in its work, wondering whose face it was. Whose nose is that? Who do I blame for the bunions? How did my mother age? Did I look like her? Did her hair turn to beautiful silver or was it salt and pepper? I had a million questions and no one to ask. I decided it was time to search for Elsie.

Although I now I had the Internet, I met with a lot of closed doors. Who knew The Children's Home Society of CA held their records tighter than a Scotsman holds his purse? I would get nothing from them beyond medical information—which I already had.

Searching for Elsie, but was I?
I posted my mother's and my name on a California adoption search board. There I met Barbara, who gave me some ideas of how to search using an Internet search engine. I found about a dozen or so Mullvains in the U.S., but no Elsie. Not an overwhelming number, so undaunted, I emailed those with email addresses and snail-mailed letters to the others. I received quite a few answers from distant and not-so-distant cousins, but no success in finding my Elsie.

I continued to ask questions, searching everywhere. Then in March of 1999, I received a phone call. The woman said she had an Aunt Elsie Vauna Mullvain, and she would forward my letter to her. However, she cautioned, when she'd told Elsie about my letter, her aunt said when she was young, she'd let a friend use her name.

That sent me to the state of Confusion. Was that true? Or was she lying to protect herself? In truth, it made no sense. Back in 1947, a person's good name meant everything to them. I was left to wonder if my search had ended in success, or was this only step two? I waited. A month later, I received a letter from Elsie, and with it, more of her story.

While she told me about her situation back then, which remarkably matched my earlier fantasies, she did not want a relationship with me. I understood and honored that. My only other communication was to send her flowers on her birthday that year. The card merely said, "Thank you" and no name was included.

Looking for sisters
I didn't contact her again. Although I was saddened a bit, I never knew her, so the loss then wasn't as hard as it could have been. After all, I had no mental picture of her; she was still faceless to me. I never got a sense of her personality from her letter. Maybe it was strength of will, but I closed that door.

However, through the cousin who had called me I learned I had three sisters. Growing up, I had a loving relationship with my adopted brother, but I'd always wanted a sister and now had three … somewhere.

I prayed and hoped maybe one day when my mother passed away, I could find my sisters. Once again, my overactive imagination got into high gear. Would they want to know me? Were they like me? I only had one problem. I didn't know their names. It would be difficult to search with out those—not only that, they were most likely all married with new names. And how would I know when my mother died? And if I managed to find them, how would I approach them?

Reluctantly, I put the dream into God's hands. It was never out of my mind though.

On June 10th, 2001, my adopted mother went to be with the Lord. Four months later, Daddy joined her. I felt like I was truly an orphan, and I began to think more and more about my sisters. If I could somehow find out if Elsie was still alive … then I remembered my promise to honor her request, so I did nothing, except write it all in my journal and in scripts for the stage.

Realizing the 'what ifs'
A couple of years later, I turned to novel writing. An administrative assistant at my church, knowing I was adopted, excitedly told me she and her husband were adopting a baby. I thought, "What if that baby was the grandchild of one of my sisters?"

From that "what if," I wrote When the Wind Blows. Elsie's story was part of the inspiration for that story. For the next book of that series, I wrote When the Bough Breaks. It chronicles a young woman's search of for her birthmother. By then, I'd written all I knew on the adoption theme, and the story was ended. I moved on to a new series of books and a new theme.

God has His own timing … and a delightful sense of surprise. On July 18th, 2009, I got an email from a woman named Linda, asking that breath-taking question: Are you the Ane Mulligan looking for your birthmother, Elsie Vauna Mullvain? After confirming I was, she proceeded to tell me my mother died in 2007. She also told me I had 5 sisters. Five? I felt like I'd won the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes!

My mirror images
Then she sent me a copy of my mother's obit from the newspaper, which included a photo.

I looked into that mirror of a photo and saw myself. For the first time in my life, I looked like someone. I felt like I'd come home from a long journey. For me, the bond was instant. I "knew" what she'd gone through. I understood the betrayal she'd experienced. The heartbreak. And I knew she'd loved me.

The next email brought a photo of one of my sisters. She had my face, too! One of my friends photo-shopped my red hair on my sister and we became twins, although she's almost eight years younger than me.

Linda had handed me the greatest gift I'd ever received. But she had a gift-topper. She sent a link for Elsie's online memorial. There, I saw all my sisters and Elsie's pictorial life. I couldn't believe the resemblance. There were childhood photos of her that were identical to mine, reflecting who I was and everything I knew about myself. I saw her laughing, head tossed back, and captured her personality. And I knew her.

Linda gave me our birth order: Me (of course), Pam, Trish, Debby, Becky, and Cindy. The photo at the top of this blog (minus Becky) is in a different order. From left to right: Debby, Pam, Me, Cindy, and Trish.

Joining the sisterhood
I wanted so badly to meet them, but I left it to Linda and her sister, Yvonne (who babysat my sisters when they were young). I didn't want to tarnish my sisters' memory of our mother, nor did I want to disrupt their lives.

I will be forever indebted to Linda and Yvonne. They decided they'd want to know if it were them. Yvonne called my sister Trish. Within minutes of that phone call, I received an email. The subject line read: Hi, Big Sister! After several emails, filled with details about the family, I called Trish.

The sound of her voice as she answered the phone with, "Hey, big sis," filled my eyes with tears and lodged a lump in my throat the size of Texas. Together we laughed and talked for more than 90 minutes. Her personality was so much like mine I could hardly believe it.

On the Friday before Halloween, I flew to Seattle, where they all live. I was only able to meet with 4 of them, as one of our sisters is ill. Pam, Trish and Cindy met me at the airport. I would meet Debby on Sunday. The four of us hugged and cried and laughed. They opened their arms and their lives to me.

It was beyond amazing. There was no need to get to know one another. We're so much alike all we had to do was catch up on our lives. Things I'd always thought were due to my upbringing and environment (like my love of books and even mannerisms) turned out to be in my DNA. Who knew?

The first thing Cindy did was grab my hands and examine them. Her ocean-wide smile and nod told me I had her hands. Mullvain hands. Now I understand the old saying blood it thicker than water.

Once I was lost and now I'm found
On Sunday, they threw a family reunion at Debby's house for me to meet my brothers-in-law, my nieces and nephews. They also invited their late dad's sisters. When I walked in the door, their Aunt Andy stared at me, agape.

"If I didn't know better, I'd swear I was seeing a ghost. You're a clone of your mother. In fact, of all the girls," Andy said, "You look the most like Elsie."

What a beautiful gift!

The emotions of finding and connecting with my sisters still bring tears to my eyes. Tears of gratitude. To God—and to Linda and Yvonne. And to my sisters for opening their lives and hearts to me. I'm so amazed at how much I love them already.

My sister Debby Jo said it best. She told me when I came through her door and she saw me, her first thought was, "She's finally come home."

You're right, Debby Jo. I'd spent a lifetime lost, and now I'm home. I love you. I love you all: Pam, Trish, Debby, Cindy, and Becky.

And now, before I make my blog soggy with tears, will you share your story?

Rev. Chris & Sharon Bridges

2011-01-24T17:44:00.000-05:00

I met Chris Bridges, Pastor of Worship and Communications at Southside Baptist Church in Mooresville, NC, several years ago at Ridgecrest during music week. A worship pastor, he was interested in drama as well. We struck up a friendship over several years of seeing one another. I rejoiced in his marriage and his growing family. I asked Chris and Sharon to share their adoption story.

You can read more on their family blog and Chris also has a ministry blog for dramatic and devotional musings.

Our journey to Wu Jin Jun, now Virginia Grace Bridges, began in January of 2007. My wife and I had been feeling the tug of God's hand to pursue a second adoption. Our first adoption, a domestic one, led to our son Nathan. We had considered an adoption from China many years before, but the time suddenly had felt right.

We began the process of seeking a healthy infant from China. However, as time went by, and the wait to adopt through China lengthened dramatically, we felt God's hand again telling us we needed to pursue a special needs adoption. This decision was also influence by others at our church, who had gone down the same path. So, we felt confident stepping forward.

In January of 2010 we made this switch, and began one of the most difficult phases of the process, spending countless hours researching medical conditions, examining profiles of children we thought may be a match for us and contacting doctors to gain opinions about specific children. Many times we thought we had found the child God wanted for us, only to discover that child was no longer available or had a condition we were not prepared to handle.

During this time, the Lord taught us much patience, and about following His will. He also showed us His sovereignty, as the child we were to have would be ultimately His choice, not ours. So, we stepped back. We put things on hold for about two months and didn't look at a single profile. We were burned out with the wait and the search, and this time away gave us a fresh perspective.

When we returned to the search, it wasn't long after that we began looking at the profiles of two little girls, one of which would become our daughter. My wife Sharon knew almost immediately which girl was the missing part of our family, so after some further research and much prayer, we locked in her file and began the journey to bring her home.

Wu Jin Jun's special need was that she was born premature. It is likely that she was only a few pounds at birth. She was abandoned by the gate to the morgue at the Children's Hospital in Shanghai, China. After being found, she spent the next several months in the hospital, fighting infection, intestinal conditions, pneumonia, and even a hernia.

When her medical condition improved, she was turned over to the orphanage. Still, she is quite behind developmentally, being only 20 lbs at three years old. We are in the process now of consulting with doctors and specialists to make sure that no follow-up treatments are necessary and that there are no other underlying conditions.

Our trip to China itself was obviously one of the most memorable experiences of our lives. My mother and father were able to accompany us on this trip, as was our now 7-year old son Nathan. The sights we saw in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou were things we'll never forget. We made many friends on the trip, some of which we'll share a lifelong connection with I'm sure.

Still the biggest blessing was the moments in which we first laid eyes on our little girl. God in His masterful way, had knit together our family in a way we never would have dreamed, and it still seems quite surreal each time I look into this little girl's eyes.

The first two or three days with her were not easy, though, by any means. There were tantrums, and the feisty side of this little girl's personality would show itself in full force. Despite that, and even more and more as each day goes by, the moments of joy, smiles, kisses, milestones - overpower any of the hardships.

We call our little girl "Ginny" because it is similar in sound to her original Chinese name. Since she's three, she's quite use to hearing that, so we didn't want to change it drastically. We chose the more unique spelling because we wanted it to be short for "Virginia," which is the state where I had my first full-time ministry position, and where our son was born and was adopted into our family. Her middle name, "Grace" is for the grace that comes from God.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 31, Part 2

2011-01-07T06:00:00.003-05:00

Chapter 31, Part 2

At last we arrived at the Jacksonville Airport and I parked in the well-lit, enclosed parking area which I deemed safer than the dark outdoor lot. It would also require less walking for Anne with her wobbly knee. As I turned off the car, Manisha put on her shoes and waited impatiently for me to open the door. As I did so, a cold rush of air chilled my exposed skin. I couldn't believe how much the temperature had dropped in the last hour and a half.

“Make sure you put your coat on.” “Okay, Mommy,” she replied.

We walked to the connecting overhead bridge from the parking lot to the terminal, and I found the kiosk which displayed the arrivals and departures. I checked the arrival time and gate for Joy's flight which showed it would be thirty minutes late. We would have plenty of time to grab something to eat.

“How long till Joy gets here?” Manisha asked.

“If it's 7:30 p.m. now and she arrives at 9:30 p.m., how much time will pass?”

She hated it when I asked her “time” questions, but I always made use of opportunities when they presented themselves.

“I don't know,” she answered.

“It will be about two hours.” I wasn't going to press her on it tonight. There would be other opportunities. The hard part would be to keep her entertained while we waited.

The Jacksonville Airport was not that big, and at this time of night, not that busy. We found a place to eat that had a television and claimed the two best seats—right in front of the screen, to pass the time while we waited. Curtis had called and said he would arrive around 9:00 p.m.

The weather report showed snowplows removing mounds of debris from roads in several cities in the Northeast. I couldn't believe Joy had arrived in the middle of a huge blizzard. One airplane had run off the runway in New York and I had panicked that it was hers. The last couple of hours of waiting seemed the longest.

As the minutes grudgingly ticked away, I watched as a couple of other planes came in, releasing passengers in one fell swoop of instant noise and controlled confusion that slowly dispersed into quietness. At last the time drew near as Curtis walked up and found us waiting by the arrival gate.

“How is everybody doing?” He asked.

“The plane is running about thirty minutes late.”

Manisha wanted to walk around so the two of them took off leaving me alone. I took another sip of my Coke as I watched the captions on the television screen. Not bad, I thought to myself. I wondered if I knew the captioner. CNN was captioned by Vitac, one of NCI's competitors. Too bad they didn't have Fox News on. Every Monday night, 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. I would caption “Hannity and Colmes” and “On the Record” with Greta Van Susteren. I checked my time. “Hannity and Colmes” was on, but the plane would be here soon, about 9:45 p.m., and my thoughts focused on Joy.

Shortly Curtis and Manisha returned as the overhead sign lit up that the plane from Newark, New Jersey, was approaching. I stood up and walked over to peer out the dark window. A few minutes later a large jet cautiously approached its resting spot. The airport employees pulled the portable gangplank up to the plane and latched it to the plane’s side. Soon people began to pour through the open doors. Curtis, Manisha and I stood and waited, looking for a large woman, one Vietnamese child, and a baby to appear. The plane must have been completely full as huge numbers of passengers exited. Humanity kept pouring through the doors as I excitedly waited in anticipation. The mass exodus slowed down to a trickle and there was still no sign of them.

“I wondered if they missed the plane,” I mused to myself, afraid to say anything out loud. We waited another minute and no one else exited through the doors. I double checked the flight number and date. Did I make a mistake? I had almost given up hope they were on the plane when there appeared through the doorway a heavy set woman precariously walking with a cane, pushing Joy in a stroller, and one little girl, Jade, her daughter, following closely behind.

“There they are,” I shouted, stating the obvious. I should have known Anne would be the last person off the plane because of her leg. We hurriedly walked over to them. Exhausted, Anne looked relieved to see me. I could tell the last few days had been an ordeal.

“Joy did great,” she said, “mostly sleeping.” I squatted down to eye level in front of Joy's stroller. “Do you remember me?” I asked her.

She looked at me questioningly, as if to say, “Why did you leave me in Vietnam?”

Someday I would explain it all, I thought to myself, and reached over and gave her a big hug.

“I want to push her,” Manisha insisted.

Anne was more than willing to relinquish responsibility of Joy to her new big sister. As Manisha grabbed the handlebars of the stroller, I quickly stepped back a few feet to take a picture.

“Smile.” The camera responded with a click as I snapped the first picture of my two daughters together.

“Can I hold her?” Manisha asked.

I walked back over to Joy and unsnapped the safety belt around her waist. She was holding her favorite toy I had left with her, a little round yellow rattle with a fake mirror on the inside. I lifted her out of the stroller and handed her to Manisha. Joy stared at the new person whom she had never met. Looking tired from her journey, she seemed content to let things take their course.

Manisha walked around proudly holding Joy on her hip and giving her a peck on the forehead. I was thankful that she had so much love to give her. Manisha was happy to hold her new sister, and it gave me a few minutes to sit and talk to Anne.

Curtis had walked off to check on the progress of the luggage, and Jade, who seemed to have been overlooked during the arrival, stood by holding several bags which she gladly set down beside us. Anne handed me some paperwork, including Joy's passport and adoption papers. I would have to sort through them later. I sat beside Anne on the bench as we watched Manisha and Joy together.

“What is this?” I asked, as I peered into the bags Jade had discarded. In one was an adult-sized yellow sweatshirt.

“It was so cold in the New York airport and I had no warm clothes for Joy,” Anne said. “A man saw her shivering and took his shirt off and put it on her.”

I held up the yellow sweatshirt and wondered who the man was. I would never be able to thank him personally, but God knew.

“Isn't it interesting, as young as Manisha is, that she knows to poke her hip out to hold her,” Anne commented.

"Yes," I responded, "just like she's an old pro at it."

As we sat and rested, I contemplated the future, enjoying the scene of Joy and Manisha getting to know each other. There had only been a few times this side of paradise that seemed perfect and this was one of those blissful moments. I realized at that moment that God brought Joy to me and not any other child.

My first referral had hepatitis and God had not given me peace to adopt her. The second referral, Thi My-Sa, was my child of prayer, but unable to be adopted by me because of paperwork. The third, Nguyen Thi My-Duyen, disappeared before I ever arrived in Vietnam, and finally, Joy.

I knew I was where I was supposed to be. Nothing had happened by accident, mistake, or coincidence. The past and the future receded into the background as I watched my two daughters together for the first time—a memory that would be stored in my treasure chest of God’s blessings.

As Manisha continued to walk around with Joy nestled securely on her hip, I paused to reflect on another moment, one in the distant future. Would it not be that different when we arrived in heaven? Jesus would welcome us with scarred hands, embracing us with His perfect love. We would know we were His, bought with a price, our adoption papers sealed forever. What a reunion that would be when we truly arrived “home.” This night was a foretaste of an even more perfect reunion, a symbol of what God has in store for all of us.

God had unleashed the chains of bondage to sin and healed me from the past. His grace had helped me to overcome my fears and given me strength in weariness. Only through His miracles had insurmountable obstacles been overcome. He had made what seemed impossible possible. Through all the storms, trials, and tribulations, He had vanquished the powers of deceit and deception. God answered my prayers, redeemed by His unfathomable love, by making me a mother to two orphaned children. He gave me a treasure hidden in a field and a pearl of great price. Through adoption I was able to create my family as God had given me my Children of Dreams.

To read the Epilogue of the girls & Lorilyn's story or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 31, Part 1

2010-12-31T06:00:00.004-05:00

Chapter Thirty-One

He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children

Psalm 113:9

Wednesday, January 26, 2000, 5:30 p.m.

East Coast storm paralyzes airports, roads, rails January 25, 2000

From staff and wire reports

(CNN) ... Heavy snow and strong winds in the eastern United States put the freeze on travelers around the country Tuesday, with blizzard-like conditions closing airports from North Carolina northward and causing significant delays and cancellations of flights into and out of the region... New York's LaGuardia and Philadelphia International Airport were completely closed. Very few flights took off or landed at JFK and Newark airports, the Port8Authority of New York and New Jersey said. [8 CNN.com, January 25, 2000]

My conflicted feelings wouldn't be erased until Joy landed safely on the ground in Jacksonville. Anticipation, worry, frustration, fear, hope, and joy wrapped up in one. How the human heart can contain so many emotions at once is baffling. Surely the jars of clay we live in weren't made for such spiritual beings as we are. Words too limiting to express my emotions, I sat glued to my television screen watching the scene unfold where runways were shut down due to the massive snowstorm. The adoption agency had phoned to tell me that Anne's flight had been delayed leaving New York because of the blizzard. Anne had another little girl named Amber that she was escorting to a family in the Newark area. Anne, her daughter, and Joy wouldn’t arrive until Wednesday, January 26, around 9:30 p.m. It had been one more unexpected delay and one more day to worry had I let my emotions run rampant.

The last three weeks since flying home from Vietnam had seemed surreal. Nothing extraordinary happened when the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2000, marking the beginning of the new millennium. Once the initial worry of a global crisis passed, I crammed as much math and reading into the hours as I could so I wouldn't feel guilty after Joy arrived and Manisha and I skipped homeschooling for a few days. Joy's room was decorated and made ready with a borrowed crib from the Murphys. I had purchased everything I thought I would need, including a car seat, high chair, diapers, and a diaper changing pad, and hoped I wasn't forgetting anything important. Joy would be my first and only baby because Manisha wasn’t a baby when I adopted her.

Having such a young one in diapers, single parenting, homeschooling, and working full time seemed daunting, but is this not what I had chosen? I reminded myself that as hard as things might seem in the beginning, no child ever went to college wearing diapers. Mine certainly wouldn't be the first.

I had made numerous phone calls to Vietnam in the previous three weeks to Mr. King at the U.S. Embassy on the progress of Joy's adoption. Each day was a step in faith that God would bring her to me. With the beginning of the new millennium, I imagined a new beginning for the three of us as a “forever family” brought together through God's providence and love. I longed for children years earlier when I was married and couldn't get pregnant. Memories of a distant past that no longer held me captive, chains loosened from the emotions that bled of hurt and betrayal.

Forgiveness had helped me to let go and embrace God's love. I hoped God would give me the grace to run the race set before me with perseverance. Single parenting to one child can be overwhelming. Did I really know what I was getting myself into? I am sure Mary, the mother of Jesus, must have felt the same when she found herself with child under dubious circumstances, but she never questioned God and rejoiced over the baby within her womb. The feeling had never left me that there was something missing before Joy. I knew I was supposed to have two children. Now our family would be complete the way God intended.

***

“Are you ready to go, Manisha?

“I am coming, Mommy,” she called from her room.

I grabbed her coat and pulled my black and red Mexican-looking shawl over my head. Even when it was freezing, I hated coats. It was due to hit the 30s later in the evening. I wondered if Joy would be warmly dressed coming from the cold in New York City. I tucked Joy’s coat that I had bought her in Vietnam inside the diaper bag just in case she needed it.

Wednesday night, Thursday, and Friday would be my only days off from captioning since I had missed a month of work while in Vietnam. I lamented I couldn’t be rich for two weeks so I could have more time to prepare for the adjustment after Joy’s arrival. I forced myself to look at the bright side of things. I worked at home and didn’t have to leave the house to earn a paycheck.

I gave Manisha a quick hug. “Are you ready to meet your new baby sister?” I asked her excitedly.

“Yes,” she said emphatically.

“Let’s go.”

Curtis Murphy would be arriving a little after us at the airport. We had arranged for him to come in his car because Anne and her daughter needed transportation back to Gainesville where her mother lived. It was just providence that we lived in the same town. My red Firebird could only hold four people, one too many to fit in my sports car. We would meet him at the airport a couple of hours later since we were leaving Gainesville early.

The hour and a half trip in the car was one of anticipation and nervousness. I couldn’t wait for Manisha and Joy to meet. I had dreamed about this day for more than three years, even before I began the adoption process. It was important to me that Manisha have a sister, someone that would be family to her when I was no longer around. Now that the moment was finally here, it seemed dream-like.

I inserted one of the Focus on the Family Adventures in Odyssey tapes into the tape player and cranked on the heat. Manisha had worn her bright red flannel outfit which could serve as clothes or pajamas. Who knew what time we would return to Gainesville, particularly if the plane was late.

I reflected back to a few weeks earlier when I came home from Vietnam. Manisha had seemed so big after spending a month with Joy. Seven and half years apart in age might seem like a lot now, but I knew down the road, those years wouldn’t matter as they reached maturity. I was one month shy of nine when Paige, my sister, was born. Manisha would be nine on February 23.

I was glad Joy wasn’t a newborn—someone once told me that the only things newborns do are eat, sleep and poop. In hindsight, fifteen months seemed like a perfect age to adopt a second child. Young enough for bonding with an older sibling yet not so young that Manisha couldn’t help me. Manisha didn’t see it that way, though. She saw Joy as an instant playmate. I hoped that wouldn’t change.

It was almost dark now that the sun had receded behind some clouds to the west of us. As I sped along I-10 east toward Jacksonville, I had a few more moments to reflect before pulling into the parking lot at the airport.

Would Joy remember me after almost a month? I wondered if Manisha would have pangs of jealousy having been the center of my attention since I adopted her almost six years earlier. Would she remain seizure-free? That was a big one. I had received the final medical report back from Dr. Hostetter on Manisha's blood work. She had sent a sample of her blood to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta for testing with a new, more sensitive test for neurocysticercosis. The doctors had been unable to confirm the diagnosis which made the test results disappointing. Either Manisha didn't have neurocysticercosis or the test wasn't as sensitive as they had hoped. I knew in all these things I had to trust God, but if my mind was left to wonder, it always seemed to return to Manisha's haunting medical history.

I looked at my watch and it was 7:00 p.m. I felt my stomach grumbling from hunger as I had been too anxious to eat before we left. The tape was close to finishing as we approached Jacksonville. Too excited to sleep, it had kept Manisha awake but quiet on the way.

I had shared with her about my time in Vietnam and what Joy was like to prepare her. Thinking about the two of them together made me think back to my own childhood. One of my favorite memories was when I was nine and my sister was born. I remembered going to the hospital and looking through the glass window at all the babies and the nurse pointing to which one was my new baby sister. How excited I was as I stood and admired her scrunched-up face and whiffs of hair. I remembered when we brought her home from the hospital how I wasn't jealous but our dog, Gypsy, was. She hid in the corner for a week and wouldn’t have anything to do with anybody.

When I was eleven my younger brother, Thomas, was born, and although I was happy to have a brother also, I was more jealous of him than I ever was of Paige. He got away with murder. Okay, maybe not murder, but it seemed like it when he took little bites out of all my favorite pieces of candy hidden in my room and nobody did anything about it.

In the end, we all grew up loving each other and have a good relationship today. Both of them are married and have children of their own. Not only would Joy and Manisha have each other, they already had cousins and extended family which I never had. When the time seemed right after Joy’s initial adjustment, we would travel to Atlanta so everyone could meet her.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 30

2010-12-24T06:00:00.003-05:00

Chapter Thirty

Do not let your hearts be troubled...

John 14:1

After we arrived back at the Lillie Hotel, I packed an overnight suitcase to go to the airport. We had to fly to Ho Chi Minh to drop Joy off with Anne. I would fly back to Hanoi and leave on December 30th. It would take two days to get back to Gainesville. I didn't want to be traveling on New Year's Eve.

When I purchased my airplane tickets, I had jokingly asked the Vietnamese Airlines attendant if they were flying on January 1.

“No,” He said. I asked, “Why not?” “No customers.” I didn't want to be the first.

After time had gone so slowly over the past couple of weeks, the minutes became like a blur. In a matter of hours I would be leaving Vietnam. Joy had come so far in such a short amount of time. I was reminded of I John 4:18, that says “...perfect love drives out fear.” Not that I had given her perfect love, but God in his mercy had made up the difference.

John 16:24 says, “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”

As we waited at the airport for our flight, I reflected on my conversation with Mr. King earlier. Why had God allowed me to even know about the investigation of Anne? I had to take captive every thought as every cell in my body cried out to Him to bring Joy home. God had not abandoned Manisha in Nepal, and I knew He would take care of Joy. Although she would miss me for a time, as when Jesus left his disciples, He promised them that their grief would turn to joy (John 16:22).

We boarded the plane in the early evening to fly to Ho Chi Minh. North to south, Vietnam is 1,615 miles long and 375 miles at its widest point. To the east, it’s bordered by Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. Ho Chi Minh is located in the mid to southern part of Vietnam. As I peered out the window, I reflected back to when I flew to Nepal to adopt Manisha. Excited to be adopting my first daughter, I remembered looking down over the flat Vietnamese terrain on the way to Thailand.

Little did I know then that just a few years later, I would be back adopting another little girl from Vietnam. It was 709 miles to Ho Chi Minh, so the flight took only a

couple of hours. We were served a traditional Vietnamese meal with chicken noodles that tasted even better than usual since it would save us from being hungry when we arrived. Joy settled in comfortably, and it was fun to watch her as her fear of new things had been replaced by a curiosity to explore.

She was seated to the right of me, her little legs just barely reaching to the front edge. I latched her seatbelt around her and, unlike Manisha, who gave me fits when I strapped her in, Joy was content to sit still. I lamented we weren’t headed to Hong Kong instead of Southern Vietnam. After so many concerns about health issues—scabies, anemia, skin infections, autism, being small for her given age, and developmental delays, I began to appreciate even more how perceptive she was.

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh after dark and although we weren't able to see much, I could tell it was a lot different from Hanoi. A large city teaming with people, it churned with activity and brimmed with night life that was almost nonexistent in Hanoi. We took a taxi to the hotel, which was a little more upscale than the Lillie. With the Vietnamese adoption done, I felt a freedom I had not felt before. Sitting in a different hotel in new surroundings, I was excited—if only I didn't have to leave Joy the next day. She now easily went to bed and slept through the night without waking up crying.

The next morning, a taxi took us to Anne's home and in a brief downtown tour of Ho Chi Minh, I was surprised at how much it reminded me of America. Even more Western than Hanoi, it was a big metropolitan city full of people working, traveling, and enjoying life, a blend of Vietnamese culture and economic prosperity.

Was this not part of what the Vietnam War was about, to give the Vietnamese economic freedom and capitalism? Even today there isn't religious freedom, but that may soon come. Perhaps the best way to bring about freedom of religion is to provide people with a feeling of empowerment. Freedom in one area is contagious—it spills over into others.

After seeing a little bit of Ho Chi Minh, I was glad to have spent most of my time in Hanoi. If I had to be somewhere in Vietnam for a month, I would have chosen smaller and more conservative Hanoi over Ho Chi Minh.

The taxi dropped us off at Anne's home. Out front were tropical Vietnamese flowers and shade trees. The building was set back a few hundred feet from the main road, so it had a quiet, secluded feeling away from the street noise. When we walked in, we were greeted by one of her staff who took us to Anne’s office.

I had never met Anne before. She was six feet tall, a rather large middle-aged woman, with on-going medical issues with her leg and needing a cane to get around. She sat at her desk in the middle of a spacious, rectangular room with a high ceiling. The desk was cluttered with papers and on the floor stood piles of folders. I wondered how she could find anything.

She rolled back from the desk and stopped her activity to talk with me about Joy. After a while, she told me about herself and how she came to be involved with adoptions in Vietnam. Her many stories reminded me of a cat with nine lives.

“By the way,” she said, “A family in Gainesville, Texas will be here in March to adopt Thi My-Sa.”

Before I could find out more, another adoptive family stopped by. Since they had some business they needed to discuss, I thanked Anne and got up to leave. As I walked outside to take in some fresh air, I met another adoptive parent with his little boy who was about three. We talked and shared our stories.

His new son was recovering from abdominal surgery and had a temporary colostomy. I was touched that he and his wife were willing to undertake the adoption of a child with such a serious medical condition. As he shared with me their adoption journey, he told me about a biological son of theirs who had the same malady. When they got word of this little boy, they knew he was meant to be their child. I heard similar stories from others in my brief stay at Anne’s home. Does God not bring each child to the family that was meant for them?

There were several children that Anne was fostering, and she had also adopted a little Vietnamese girl that was four. Her daughter, Jade, took a liking to Joy and wanted to show us her bedroom. We followed her upstairs and she gave us a tour. Her room looked like any other American child's—brimming with Disney movies, books, and stuffed animals.

Afterwards we went back downstairs as Anne's staff had prepared lunch. Joy was clingy and wouldn't let me out of her sight. I think she feared I was going to leave. She would get excited playing with the other children and leave me, only to come running back to make sure I was still there. She had stacked her little suitcase beside mine to reassure herself I wasn't going anywhere without her. I hated the thought of leaving her in just a few hours.

One of the cooks came in and coaxed my daughter into another room to feed her. I knew this would be the best time to leave. I didn’t want to let Joy know I was going as it would be too heartbreaking. I would have to slip away quietly. I remained silent without saying goodbye as the staff person carried her off into an adjoining room. I sat a little longer wishing I didn’t have to go. I asked someone to make sure she was happy eating.

“She fine,” she said. “She eating.”

I thanked her and grabbed my suitcase, eyeing Joy’s suitcase that now stood all alone beside her stroller. It would be a difficult three weeks until I saw her again. I walked slowly down the long hallway out front to wait on the taxi Anne had called for me, which showed up a few minutes later.

“I need to go to the airport,” I told the driver. My heart was heavy as I prayed for Joy not to forget me during the time she would remain with Anne. I flew back to Hanoi and slept one last night at the Lillie Hotel, missing Joy immensely. The room was so quiet and lonely without her. Wondering what she was doing, I called to see how she was.

“She is fine,” Anne assured me. “She cried a little when she realized you were gone, but she’s okay now.” I wondered if she told me the truth or if she just said that to make me feel better. Knowing Joy, I was sure she cried a lot.

The next morning I paid the hotel bill and finished packing all my suitcases to leave. It was amazing the clutter I had managed to accumulate that I didn’t want to take home—half- eaten bags of food, diapers that wouldn’t fit in the suitcase, Christmas decorations that weren’t worth saving, and toys that Joy had already lost interest in. After feeling at times like a prisoner stuck in Hanoi over Christmas, my time in Vietnam was coming to an end. The next morning I said my goodbyes to the folks at the hotel; the lady in the “dungeon” who, according to Jenni, made the best Jasmine tea on the planet, and the lady at the front desk who had been so kind.

“Please thank Jenni again for the stuffed animals,” the receptionist told me. One afternoon before Jenni left to return home, my sensitive, young traveling partner had emptied her backpack on the counter and several beloved stuffed animals tumbled out. She had planned to take them to an orphanage, but when she found out how needy the young lady’s children were, she decided to give them to her. It was a touching moment as the receptionist received them from her.

I took a taxi to the airport and boarded the flight back to Hong Kong. Unlike when I left Kathmandu several years earlier, leaving Hanoi was uneventful. As the plane took off and flew over the city, I looked down at the streets and buildings receding beneath me that had been my home for the last four weeks. January 1st, 2000, would soon be upon us, ushering in a new century and millennium full of hope and promise.

I was glad to be on my way back to Gainesville, but part of my heart would remain behind as I thought about my “Bundle of Joy” in Ho Chi Minh. But only for a time—I believed God would bring Joy to me because God loved Joy more than I did. She needed a “forever” home and I needed a “forever” little girl from Vietnam, the second of my "Children of Dreams."

Faith is refusing to give up, believing in dreams not yet seen, and knowing God gives us both. Hope had already arrived and Joy was on the way. The days till January 25 would pass quickly. I began to think about all the things I needed to buy,

like a baby crib, a high chair, diapers.... I couldn't wait!

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Another good article on inter-racial adoptions

2010-12-20T20:11:00.001-05:00

I shared Ilie Ruby's story of adopting 3 Ethiopian children a few weeks ago. Recently, she wrote and article for the NYT parenting blog, Motherlode. I was so touched by the article, I want to post the link here. It was written by Ilie Ruby. I hope you read it and are as blessed by it as I was.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 29

2010-12-17T06:00:00.003-05:00

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Choose Life, then, that you and your descendants may live

Deuteronomy 30:19

On December 26, the day after Christmas, Joy and I walked out of the Lillie Hotel to rays of sunshine glistening off the street pavement. I had finally become accustomed to checking at least four times before crossing the street since the heavy traffic would not yield to pedestrians. Frequently Joy’s stroller would get stuck going up and down the uneven curb or land in a deep gutter. After Jenni’s collision in a xichlo, my favorite Star Trek line was resurrected from childhood. We were going “where no man (or woman) had gone before” every time we crossed a road in downtown Hanoi.

The heavy cloud of disappointment that had settled over me because I couldn’t take Joy home for Christmas had now lifted since the holidays were behind us. I looked ahead with hope and expectation to the Giving and Receiving Ceremony two days away. It was easier to enjoy sightseeing now that the adoption day was near and my time to return home would soon follow.

We had become mother and daughter during our two weeks together. The days lazily spent at the park and shopping had provided hours of nurturing and bonding with Joy and an opportunity for me to experience the blessedness of motherhood once again. Almond eyes, straight black hair, and a pug nose didn’t represent just any little Vietnamese girl I saw on the street—they were Joy’s, my daughter from Vietnam.

During our daily outings as we strolled along the streets, my conscience had been seared by the many war memorials that were part of the landscape of Hanoi, a tribute to the distant past.

On the streets were reminders “to never forget.” The well- preserved relics were like anachronistic objects woefully out of place and time in a world that had moved on. Forgiveness and healing had replaced the pain, but lest we forget our past and those who died, everywhere were remembrances.

We visited the Hoa Lo Prison, meaning “coal oven,” and also known as the Hanoi Hilton. From 1964 to 1973, the Hoa Lo Prison housed American prisoners of war, among the more famous, John McCain. Pictures and writings only told part of the story. I could only imagine the atrocities and torture that were committed.

We didn't stay long as the pictures and solemnity reminded me of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, a memorial to the six million Jews who were brutally murdered in the Holocaust. It filled me with too much sadness that I didn’t want to dwell on, but I silently thanked the American soldiers who gave their lives. Coming to the Hoa Lo Prison was my way of bearing witness to the unsung heroes who sacrificed so much. We also toured the Bao Tang Quan Doi or Army Museum. It was largely empty except for a few tourists like me snapping pictures of the war memorials, including tanks and missiles.

It was hard to believe so much time had passed since the Vietnam War. I was in the fourth grade when the brother of a classmate had returned to the United States after serving. We sat in the school auditorium and listened as he talked about what he experienced fighting our enemy, the North Vietnamese. Little did I know that one of my daughters would someday come from this far-away place. That day in a lunchroom auditorium with a couple of hundred other kids, I learned about war.

Joy’s birthmother wasn’t born until long after the fighting, and I wondered how much the North Vietnamese children knew about that part of their country’s past. What propaganda were they told by the communist government? One thing I did know, each day the school kids, speaking fluid English, would besiege us to sell whatever they had, whether it was postcards, maps, books, or something I didn’t want.

If not today, someday, because of the Western influence and English language brought over by American soldiers, the school children would have the freedom to discover the truth for themselves. Perhaps in that way, we did win the war and our young men didn’t die in vain.

Before we left Hanoi, I wanted to take Joy to see the puppet show, known locally as the Mua Roi Nuoc. After a few weeks with me, Joy wasn't as scared of people in her new environment and she was over the “hump” of visual stimulation evoking fear. I had heard good reviews from other adoptive families and Vietnamese locals who had seen the show.

It was different from other puppet plays I had seen or had put on in my church when I ran a puppet ministry. The puppet show reflected Vietnamese culture and history, and I was impressed with the visual creativity and esthetics. Though it was all in Vietnamese and I didn't understand the story line, the puppets were enchanting as they swayed to Vietnamese music played on traditional instruments. Joy watched attentively and seemed to enjoy the little marionettes as they danced rhythmically on the water stage.

Earlier in the week we were on our way to the camera store and Joy began singing when she heard music streaming out of one of the shops. I had sung Christmas carols to her at night when I put her to bed. The soft melodic tones helped to calm her spirit before drifting off to sleep. I continued to wonder how artistic she would be when she was older as I watched her enjoy the puppet show.

One nice thing about time is that it doesn't stop. At last, December 27 arrived, the day for the Giving and Receiving Ceremony. I dressed up in a black velvet dress and had bought a pretty outfit for Joy. The ceremony would take place in Thai Nguyen, about an hour and a half north of Hanoi.

Joy and I sat in the back of the van, and I held her in my arms as there were no car seats. On the way, we stopped and picked up a woman doctor that worked for Anne. She handed me an envelope that contained money to “help get the mother back on her feet.” I did not ask any questions and did not open the envelope to see how much it contained.

I looked forward to once again seeing the countryside. After leaving downtown Hanoi, buildings were replaced with flat, luscious fields inundated with lots of small lakes. Eventually the flatness gave way to green rolling hills like the waves of the sea. Young Vietnamese women could be seen working in the flooded lands wearing the Non La, or Vietnamese hat. The hat is only worn in Vietnam and is made of leaves and bamboo. I had purchased two, one for Manisha and one for Joy as a souvenir, but left them on a plane somewhere between Vietnam and Florida.

We parked the van at the Department of Justice where the Giving and Receiving Ceremony would be held and walked inside. We were ushered into a small room where a short, elderly man, the equivalent to a court officer, sat us down. Joy's mother, Luu, walked in and took a seat to the right of us. Luu was teary-eyed and emotional as Joy rested quietly in my arms. When Luu reached for Joy to hold her one more time, she refused to go.

The ceremony began and the Court Officer glanced through the documents and asked us both some general questions.

“Is this what you want to do?” I said, “Yes.” He asked Luu, “Is this what you want to do?” She nodded. It was all very official, and afterwards, he smiled,

congratulated us, and offered to take our picture. I handed him my camera and he took two pictures of all of us standing beside a bust statue. A red Vietnamese flag with a yellow star hung limply to the back of us. Luu held a handkerchief in her hand which she used to dab her teary eyes.

After the ceremony we were dismissed to leave. As I followed Joy’s birthmother down the steps outside the courthouse, I watched her walk away in a moment of personal reflection. She was returning to her life before Joy. With little prospect of better things for herself, she was willing to give her daughter that opportunity. I wished her good health and happiness as my life would be changed forever because she was brave. Joy would have hope of a wonderful future and a chance to live out her dreams.

In 1999, Vietnam had the highest abortion rate of any 193 country in the world.7 Luu could have made the easy, selfish choice to end her baby’s life. Nine years later as I pen these words, my eyes are full of tears as I picture what could have been and what happens every day across America. Suppose Luu had not been courageous. I never would have known Joy’s contagious smile, her sweet hugs, her selfless love, her charming beauty, and her endless creativity. Most of all, Luu, through God’s grace, gave me a priceless treasure and a pearl of great price.

A few years ago, I wrote a poem about Joy, and I dedicate it to Luu and all birthmothers who endure the pain and humiliation of bearing a baby out of wedlock; who choose life over death; sacrificial love over their own personal comfort; good over evil, and beauty over trash. May God use this poem to sear the conscience of those women who teeter on the verge of sorrow and regret. May they be as brave as Luu and make the heroic choice of letting their baby breathe, someday ride a bike, get married, and have children of their own. May they picture their “bundle of joy” chasing butterflies in a field of their own hopes and dreams. Through their courageous sacrifice and the gift of adoption, another woman’s empty arms can be full of “joy.”

My Joy

My Joy, my valentine, born in my heart,

My priceless treasure from a world apart.

My Joy, my daughter, who fills me with love,

May God richly bless you from his storehouse above,

My Joy who showers me with hugs and sweet things,

Pictures I cherish, who tells me her dreams

My Joy, a gymnast, a star in third grade,

My Joy, a sweet kiss and “I love you” each day.

My Joy, with little hands who fixes my hair when I’m hot,

My Joy, who forgives me when I blow up like a steam pot

My Joy, may you grow in God’s love every year,

And each Valentine’s day we always be nearer and dear,

My Joy, eat lots of chocolate, draw pictures and have fun,

For our journey together has only just begun

My Joy, my daughter, who I thought I would never see

I’ll love you forever, you shall always be

My valentine wrapped in hugs and a kiss,

From your mom, our lazy cats, our loud dogs,

and your big sis.

Under Vietnamese law, Joy was legally my daughter. I breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed the trip back to Hanoi a lot more than the trip to Thai Nguyen.

The hard part was ahead—leaving her behind.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 28

2010-12-10T06:00:00.005-05:00

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men...

Luke 2:14

By the time December 21 rolled around, I think Jenni had her fill of “tasting the culture.” She had crashed in a xichlo, visited the school where her 12-year-old little translator attended, spent some time with Australian backpackers, and ate exotic fish cooked in honey at a hole in a wall.

When she left, most of the other adoptive families were also gone. The hotel was largely empty and quiet. It was too expensive to call home often, so I sent emails every day to all my prayer warriors. The highlight each day was my email from Sylvia about all the holiday activities—baking Christmas cookies, shopping at the mall, cutting down a Christmas tree, wrapping presents, and watching several movies at the theater. I knew they couldn't take my place but Manisha would have a wonderful Christmas.

Tired of being a tourist, time goes by slowly when you can’t do what you want. The shops were closed for the holidays and few restaurants were open. For the first time in years I was bored; the boredom was far worse than being too busy.

God had His way in using what I considered a waste of time to bring redemption. Staying the extra nine days in Vietnam gave the two of us as mother and daughter hours together without the distractions of daily living in a hectic world back home. We spent hours each day playing with blocks and at night I would read to Joy from some books I had brought. I lavished her with lots of hugs and kisses, and as she thrived on the attention, her insecure, little personality began to peek out.

She was now smiling and for the first time in her short life had all of her needs met. Even the little sores on her arms that she had picked at in the beginning were going away and three new teeth were visible.

The Giving and Receiving Ceremony was scheduled for December 24th, Christmas Eve, but was delayed to December 27th—three more days of waiting. It eliminated any chance for all of us to be together on Christmas. I was left with counting down each day knowing I was one step closer to coming home. In quiet moments I reflected on the Bing Crosby song, I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.

I asked several people if they knew of a Christmas Eve service we could attend, but because Vietnam is communist and Christians are persecuted, nobody was very forthcoming. One person told me about a sanctioned church service, but that it probably wouldn't be what I wanted. Anything seemed better than nothing, and without giving it much thought, I made plans to go.

It was Christmas Eve, December 24, and we dressed up for the occasion anticipating something memorable. I called a taxi and gave the name of the location to the driver. He dropped us off at a church that appeared to be at least several hundred years old.

We walked in and the sanctuary was packed with a large crowd seated in pews. A man in a robe at the front was conducting the service in another language besides Vietnamese; maybe it was Latin. His voice reverberated and echoed off the ancient walls of the building and the chanting put me ill at ease. I was disappointed for having gone to the trouble of coming and had no desire to stay. We left after several minutes and returned to the hotel.

As we entered the hotel lobby, I was greeted by the young woman who was working the night shift. Despite not being home with her family, she was cheery and festive.

“Here is a present for you,” she said to me with a big smile. She pointed to it on the counter. “You are back so soon?”

“Yes, it wasn’t what I thought it would be, but what is this?” I picked up the present and eyed it with a sense of wonder. I couldn’t believe someone had thought of me for Christmas. It made being away from home almost bearable. The present was beautifully wrapped in green Christmas paper.

“It’s Christmas, isn’t it?" She answered, “Your custom?”

“Yes. Can I open it now?” I asked.

“Yes, please do.”

I unwrapped the small gift and hidden inside were two handmade white doilies, one for a cup and the other for a plate, lined in green stitching along the outside edges.

“Thank you; they are beautiful.”

“You are welcome,” she beamed back. It was a special moment in what otherwise had seemed like a gloomy day.

“Merry Christmas,” I said. “I am sorry you have to work.” I knew she had two kids at home, but I wasn’t sure if they celebrated Christmas.

“It’s okay,” she said.

We said good night, and Joy and I headed back up to our room. I thought we would spend a quiet evening watching CNN and MTV, but as always, at least for me, there is the rest of the story. After feeling sorry for myself and moping around for an hour, I called the Murphys. It was late enough I hoped I wouldn’t wake them up, but I couldn’t wait any longer.

“Merry Christmas!” I shouted excitedly into the phone. A lot of love can be shared in a short amount of time. Manisha was happy to talk to me and told me about all the things Santa had brought her.

“When are you coming home? I miss you,” she said. “I miss you, too, Honey. I will be home soon.”

I thought in my heart, though, not soon enough. Tears welled up in my eyes as I regretted that I couldn’t be with both my daughters for Christmas. Jenni had shared the pictures of Joy with Manisha and I hoped she could focus on meeting her new baby sister. It was a short conversation, but I felt better having heard her sweet voice across the ocean, reminding me that although we weren’t together in person, she was with me in spirit.

As I watched television feeling homesick, I heard noises outside, louder than the usual honking of horns and vehicular traffic. I picked up Joy and we walked back downstairs to the lobby. I felt excitement in the air with faint Christmas music barely audible above the sporadic street noise.

“What's going on?” I asked the young lady who had given me the gift earlier.

“It's the Christmas celebration,” she said.

What celebration? I thought to myself. Vietnam is a communist country and they don't celebrate Christmas, or so I thought.

I quickly ran back up to our room, grabbed our coats and stroller, and carried Joy down the steps into the cool night air. I could see crowds up ahead on Hue Street walking toward Hoan Kiem Lake. We joined the crowd, and as we approached, Hanoi’s version of Christmas spread out before us. The lake was decorated with Christmas lights, and a large Christmas tree adorned with presents took center stage. A cardboard Santa Claus was displayed near the tree. A little baby swing decorated in a colorful leis was set up to take pictures.

Crowds gathered in the streets wearing red Santa stocking caps and carrying balloons. I couldn't decide if the “party” resembled a parade or people gathering for a concert. A festive, family atmosphere filled the air, and the lake was packed with Vietnamese families.

I was excited to have something to do. Uplifting, holiday music wafted from the loud speakers over the noisy crowd. I wanted to know where the music was coming from. It had a sweet-sounding familiarity, like a piece of chocolate to a hungry soul. I wanted to grab it and not let go.

In such an anti-Christian country, I never thought I would hear Christmas music broadcast in downtown Hanoi. Many of our Christmas songs have a message of “tidings of great joy,” with Jesus as a baby in the manger. Even though the celebration was steeped in commercialism, the familiar words from Christmas carols filled the air, giving me hope that all was well with my soul. I pushed Joy in her stroller to the nearby church a few hundred feet from where the music came.

My soul was enraptured with joy, a balm for my homesick heart. I longed to be with friends and family. Here I could sing in harmony, filled with the Christmas spirit, enveloped in oneness with those around me who were here for a different experience, but so far from home, I welcomed Christmas in another culture.

For a brief moment, I understood Ephesians 4:5. There is unity in the world, “one body, one hope, one baptism, one God and father of all.” I felt a connection to the Vietnamese people. For some, this might be the only testimony to the risen Savior they would ever witness, but as Isaiah 55:11 says, “My word...will not return to me empty.”

As the crowds swelled, Joy's stroller became a nuisance as several men tripped over it in the sea of people. I also felt someone's hand sliding down the back of my pant pocket. I knew we needed to go, but God had given me a taste of Christmas in Hanoi that I would always treasure. We returned to the Lake and I took Joy over to the Christmas tree and swing. She was intrigued with the bobbing balloons tied to the Santa and stared wide-eyed at the Christmas lights strung around. I handed the camera to someone to take our picture. Standing in front of a cardboard Santa Claus, the bittersweet moment was captured, now kept in the scrapbook that I had won years earlier, a memoir to the past I didn’t want to forget.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 27

2010-12-03T06:00:00.002-05:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

What is truth?

John 18:38

As time passed and I met other adoptive mothers, I became aware of “things” that worried me. The adoption agency was thousands of miles away and seemed dependent on me for all of their information, almost as if their contact with Anne was non- existent. Anne was several hundred miles south and very difficult to get hold of except through email. Email at the hotel was down as much as it was up. I was left to ponder too many things.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss. While Joy and I were enjoying our time together, there were obstacles that I eventually became aware of that were disconcerting. Looming like a huge thundercloud were continuing questions about Anne. I didn’t know if I could trust her. She told me the Vietnamese government was expediting Joy’s adoption. Normally taking two months, she said they promised to do it in three weeks, but they still couldn’t do the ceremony until the end of December, which wasn’t soon enough for me.

And what about the U.S. side of things? Once the Giving and Receiving Ceremony was held, the U.S. officials would need to approve and sign off on the paperwork. I was told by Anne they wouldn’t approve the Vietnamese adoption until the end of January. Why would the Embassy be so slow? In fact, I had been told by other adoptive mothers that their adoptions were being expedited because of Y2K. The Embassy wanted adoptive families to return home before the end of the year in case there were worldwide computer failures. They didn’t want families to be stuck in Vietnam. Why was I being treated differently? I couldn't imagine missing Christmas with Manisha.

I didn't have the money to leave Vietnam and come home for one day and then return. In addition, if I left Vietnam before the Giving and Receiving Ceremony, Joy would go into foster care in the orphanage. I knew that would devastate her.

Without the finalized Vietnamese adoption papers, I couldn't give Anne Power of Attorney. I realized reluctantly I had to stay until the Giving and Receiving Ceremony, which I still hoped could be done before Christmas. Then maybe the U.S. Embassy could expedite Joy’s adoption like they were expediting everyone else’s. I desperately wanted to be with both my children on December 25th. As I spent hours praying for one more miracle, I received a phone call from a man I later came to know as Mr. Nathan King at the U.S. Embassy.

“Ms. Roberts,” he said, “you need to come to the Embassy to discuss something very important.”

“What is it?” I asked.

He refused to tell me over the phone. “Please come alone and don’t tell anyone you are coming.”

That was easier said than done. When I asked the hotel clerk how to get to the U.S. Embassy, she must have told Anne’s representative that I was going to meet with someone. Either that or someone working for her overheard the phone conversation. Shortly afterwards I received a call from Anne in which she wanted to know who had called me from the American Embassy.

“I can’t remember his name,” I told her. It was the truth. “But he told me to come by myself.”

“I will need to send someone with you,” she insisted. I wasn’t in a position to protest and it made no difference to me one way or the other. I could tell in the tone of Anne’s voice, however, that she wasn’t happy about this new development. Was I being paranoid, I asked myself, or was there something going on that was cause for concern?

I asked Jenni if she could baby sit Joy for me so I could go and meet with Mr. King. I wanted to leave the hotel as quickly as possible and I made an appointment and took a taxi later that afternoon. Anne had a young woman who spoke very little English to accompany me. Upon my arrival at the Embassy, I introduced myself to the receptionist. She quickly picked up the phone and buzzed someone that I was waiting.

A large, handsome, middle-aged Vietnamese man stepped out of an adjoining office. He introduced himself as the Mr. King who I had spoken to on the phone. After shaking my hand and exchanging the usual pleasantries, he glanced over at the young woman who had accompanied me and the two spoke in Vietnamese. I didn’t know what he said to her, but she nodded in agreement. I was motioned by Mr. King to accompany him into his office. My traveling companion remained reluctantly seated as I followed closely behind him and shut the door.

Feeling nervous and intimidated about being there, I sat down in front of his desk with a queasy feeling in my stomach.

“How has your stay in Vietnam been?” Mr. King asked me.

“It’s been okay.” I looked around his office which was immaculately clean and well organized.

“Where are you staying?”

“The Lillie Hotel.”

I was surprised he spoke such fluent English. I later learned that he had been adopted by an American family as a child and returned to Vietnam to work for the U.S. Embassy in charge of adoptions for the entire country.

He smiled and commented, “That’s where a lot of families stay.” We chitchatted for a couple of minutes as I told him about what had happened upon my arrival. I got the feeling as he quietly listened he already knew more than he wanted to let on. It would have been nice if he could have validated Anne’s story to me about the kidnapping, but instead, the conversation took on an even more sober tone.

Leaning over his desk and looking directly into my eyes, he stated, “You must keep this confidential, but I need to inform you that Anne is under investigation by the U.S. government. I can’t tell you the details, but we have grave concerns about whether your Vietnamese adoption is legal and if we can approve it under U.S. international adoption laws. We have a higher standard than Vietnam.”

I sat frozen in my chair speechless. Mr. King continued, “We would highly recommend you not leave until the approval process has been completed. If there is corruption, the U.S. Embassy will not issue Joy a Visa.”

He held up several case files involving adoptions where the U.S. Government refused to issue Visas. Adopted children were left behind, stranded in Vietnam, while their parents spent thousands of dollars in legal fees. Without an American Visa, a child can’t enter the United States.

“Are any of them hers?” I asked.

He refused to tell me. “We are not processing any of her adoptions now. They

won't be done until after the investigation has been completed.”

I thought about all the other adoptive families I had met who arrived after me and yet were being approved ahead of me. Jenni had been right about Anne all along. It was unlikely the adoption agency even knew about the investigation.

My adoption was the last one they were doing with her, and once I returned home, their business relationship would end. Earlier I asked Anne about why it was taking so long.

“They won’t be able to finish your paperwork till the end of January,” was all she would say.

“What is holding up my case? Other adoptive families who arrived after me are being processed by the U.S. Embassy almost immediately,” I tried to tell her.

“That’s not possible,” she said.

I could take Joy home before the end of the year if they would do my paperwork like everybody else, I lamented. Anne continued to be evasive, but she did offer to escort Joy home for no charge along with some other children.

Suppose I couldn’t adopt Joy after all, I thought to myself, as I sensed a veil of evilness in all of it. Satan, the father of lies, had done everything he could do to stop me from adopting in Vietnam. God, the Author and Father of Truth, would have to swallow evil up in victory. I had to believe. As the man said to Jesus in Mark 9:24 concerning his son, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

Many times I had almost given up. Would I be afraid to love Joy, fearful that things might fall through? I thought of Romans 8:15. God, my heavenly Father, had traveled this road with me before. Was there too much of my fearful self wrapped up in this and not enough of Him?

Mr. King warned, “Stay in Vietnam until we complete our investigation, and be careful in your dealing with Anne.”

Uncertainty consumed me. Mr. King gave me his name and phone number and told me to call him if I had any questions. As I walked out of the office, I looked away from the woman who had accompanied me. I didn’t know what to say to her.

Jenni had offered to change her plane ticket and stay with me until I left, but I knew Sylvia and Curtis would want her to come home for Christmas. I also knew if she left she could take pictures back of Joy. Even though I missed Manisha immensely, I felt like this Christmas Joy needed me more than she did. I had to trust God because I had no control over the U.S. Embassy. As I had done with Manisha's adoption, I had to render under Caesar the things that were Caesar's and render unto God the things that were God's.

My flight was booked to leave Hanoi on December 30. I would arrive home just before 2000 when Y2K would hit and all my documents would expire. Joy’s adoption had taken to the very last possible day of the millennium. If one other thing had happened to cause a delay, I wouldn’t have been able to adopt her. If Manisha had not had a miraculous healing, I wouldn’t have been able to come to Vietnam at all. If the U.S. Embassy found something wrong with Joy’s adoption or with something Anne had done, she would never be able to leave Vietnam.

I continued to wonder about the little girl that sat in the orphanage whose paperwork was never completed. What about the little girl I came to Vietnam to adopt? Years later, I would realize the truth, not just as head knowledge, but in my heart, that “... in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

I had to put my trust in God, despite the evil which prowled around like a hungry lion. As I pondered these things in my heart, I was determined not to give in to worry. Certainly that came easier to me than prayer on the heels of Mr. King’s admonition, but I would pray to keep away the demons that threatened to take away my dreams. I had to cling to the hope that in spite of everything, Joy was the daughter God meant me to have.

Her name seemed so fitting at Christmas. Galatians 6:7 says, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.” Was it not part of God’s plan for me to be in Hanoi at Christmas and adopt a little girl named Joy?

I was determined to remain positive and thought about having a late Christmas with Manisha when I returned home. Christmas doesn’t have to be on December 25. On December 19, I sent this email to Manisha.

Dear Manisha, I love you and miss you, too. I wish I could be home for Christmas. I could have, but it would have been so hard to come back and expensive, and we might not have gotten Joy. I prayed and I knew God would take care of you, along with Uncle Curtis and Auntie Sylvia. Pray for God to bring Jenni and me home safe. Lots of hugs and kisses, Mom.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 26, Part 3

2010-11-26T06:00:00.000-05:00

Chapter 26, Part 3

As I write today pondering Joy’s ethnicity, I wonder how much Vietnamese creativity is hidden in her genes. Joy’s artistry and proclivity for creating beauty out of the absurd is mind-boggling. I wished I could have brought some of the Bat Trang pottery back, but I was too concerned it would get broken.

Later in the week we returned to the Sofitel Metropole to swim. The pool was on the top floor of the hotel enclosed in a room similar to a fancy greenhouse with sides and a top that would open when it was warm. On this day the top was open and inviting sunshine beat down on the pool’s surface. I wanted to run and jump in but Joy would not go near it, crying every time I tried. I had to be content to sit with her and admire the blue, inviting water.

I reflected back to Kathmandu with Manisha at the Everest Hotel when she had found it more fun to play with my makeup than swim. On another day perhaps I might come back without her. Jenni had offered to babysit for me if I felt I needed a “mommy” break.

With camera in hand, we walked outside to a veranda that overlooked the capital. The Sofitel Metropole was situated on a high hill like a citadel. From this scenic view, Hanoi was dotted with numerous small lakes and miniature skyscrapers. As gusts of wind whipped hair in my eyes, I tried to hold the camera still long enough to snap a few quick photos. Joy was preoccupied with the long row of flower pots in front of the railing. As she looked for the last remaining vestiges of red flowers and I admired the view, one overwhelming feeling superseded everything—how God had brought so much good out of so much adversity.

I snapped several pictures of my new daughter in a pink bathing suit that I had unearthed the day before in a local shop. In her hunt for flowers, Joy had managed to find one lone red flower still clinging to the otherwise bare branches. As I held up my camera, I captured my first picture of her with a charming smile. All the others to that point showed a sad little girl with tears, a scowl or a frown. The smile for the camera, though, would continue to be rather elusive. After a quiet, restful afternoon atop one of the highest points in Hanoi, we headed back to our more modest abode on Hue Street.

Each evening before bedtime, I would fill the bathtub with water. Sitting in the warm, bubbly suds, Joy would have spent the whole evening splashing in them had I let her. I bought a couple of plastic ducks and she excitedly squeezed the little critters filling them with soapy water. Later I would have to extract the cold, soapy water trapped in their belly so the little ducks could survive another day without mildewing. Joy would have been too disappointed to lose her new bathtub friends.

One of the most frustrating things about traveling to foreign countries is when one can’t speak the language. Once when I was in Mexico, I asked for towels and the maid brought me coat hangers. I tipped her for something I didn’t want because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I am also not very patient. Add into the mix an impatient little girl who easily becomes frustrated and international adoption becomes even harder.

One difference in personality between Manisha and Joy was evident early. Manisha was happy to go with the flow and enjoyed talking to everybody. Joy wanted to swim upstream and have nothing to do with anybody, but as I watched Joy play with her ducks in the tub, I could tell she was frustrated with the language barrier that separated us. It was obvious she wanted to tell me how much fun she was having. She would sit in the bath tub and try to mimick a few sounds.

I knew enough about the Vietnamese language not to even attempt it. Considering that it is tonal makes it even more difficult for non-native speakers. The doctor at the clinic had told me that Joy understood the Vietnamese commands that he gave her, which meant at fourteen months she already understood two languages, her mother tongue as well as Vietnamese.

Depravity would describe Joy’s life before I received her. As she became more comfortable and not so traumatized by her new surroundings, a beautiful flower emerged displaying a gentle delicacy wrapped in beauty. It was encouraging to see her come so far in such a short amount of time.

My new daughter spent hours stacking the blocks that I had brought in my suitcase from home. Sometimes the things children do when they are young are a foretaste of greater things to come. I saw a glimpse of what made Joy who she was, her giftedness, as she patiently and meticulously stacked the blocks into various shapes and designs. When she tired of that, she would stack the pots and pans she found under the sink. I think she enjoyed hearing the clanging of them as much as playing with them.

By far the most fascinating item in our hotel room was the mirror that vertically hung on the wall. Joy rearranged my suitcase so she could sit on it in front of the mirror and make funny faces. I don't think she had ever seen herself before.

Checking out the contents of my suitcase provided interesting and new things to look at. My new daughter pulled out each piece of clothing and examined it. The only one that grabbed her attention was my bra. She tried to put it on several different ways but it didn’t fit. Perhaps two might work better. She went back into my suitcase and retrieved a second one. As the first one dangled down her back, she unsuccessfully tried to put the other one over her head. Returning to the mirror and frowning at herself disapprovingly, she ran over to me as if to say, “Here, you wear these things. How does this work?”

An afternoon nap was needed each day so I could stay sane. I would put Joy down in my bed—there weren’t any cribs—and snuggle up with her reassuringly. After she fell asleep, I’d grab my book from the Left Behind Series and read until she woke up. Compared to the Tribulation, living in Hanoi for a month seemed tame. At least I wasn’t fighting the Anti-Christ.

In the basement of the hotel was what I called, “the dungeon.” Dark and dreary, I only went down there once a day. It was the small restaurant where Jenni and I had eaten previously on that one occasion when we talked about the ad. The cook was an overly-indulgent, thin, dark-haired, middle- aged woman who went out of her way to be helpful to the guests. She knew how to make the best rice soup in the world for adoptive babies. She showed me how so I could make some for Joy in our hotel room. I never ate any, though, because it reminded me of that soupy stuff they served in the “restaurant” in the Himalayan Mountains.

One morning when I went down for breakfast I ran into one of the other adoptive mothers, Jackie, whom we had eaten with at the expensive hotel. As I walked in and sat down, I noticed her little girl, just a few months older than Joy, was walking around with a limp. When I looked closer I realized she had a club foot.

Jackie told me how excited she was that her daughter, Jenni, had started walking. Since she came from the orphanage and was crippled, she never had a chance to try. Now she couldn’t wait to take Jenni home so her foot could be repaired. I marveled at how doctors could fix a limb so badly mangled. I never heard how it turned out, but I can easily imagine her running track in the Olympics.

Shopping was more fun in Vietnam than in Nepal. I didn’t have to worry about running into unsightly things like dead animals hung out as food or cows and their dung in the streets. There were many stores near the hotel, and we had an abundance of shops to choose from. Most of the items were cheaply priced, especially children’s clothes.

Since Joy was much younger than the one I expected to adopt, I had brought no clothes that fit her. It was a good excuse to shop, and we bought lots of cute dresses and matching knit tops and bottoms for just a couple of dollars each.

When the weather turned cool after the first week, I bought her a red coat that kept her nice and cozy, especially Christmas Eve when we were out in the night air. Joy soon discovered most of the things I bought were for her and couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel to try them on.

Since it was the Christmas season, I indulged and bought some festive ornaments to decorate our hotel room. It was more fun than I thought it would be to put up strands of ribbon and a small Christmas tree. After commenting to one of the restaurant owners how much I loved the nativity scene displayed in his window, he tried to sell it to me, but it was a little out of my price range.

I didn’t watch CNN—news reminded me too much of work—but after awhile, I started watching MTV. I studied classical guitar as a teenager, never having liked rock or jazz, and I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of the songs enriched with an Asian influence.

The quaint Vietnamese stores that lined the streets of downtown Hanoi were family affairs. It was quite common to see a mother and father with two or three young children out front with welcoming smiles to come in and shop. At one store I bought a beautiful twelve by fourteen inch hand-stitched picture of a Vietnamese house surrounded by mountains. A child that reminded me of Joy sat on a donkey. It was hard to choose which one I wanted but I settled on this one, because it seemed symbolic of Joy’s home in Vietnam.

I also bought Joy several souvenirs, including a child’s ring, a red velvet lined trinket box, and a gold and blue laced fan. I had lamented in the years since Manisha’s adoption that I had not brought home more souvenirs. For the next several years, on the anniversary of Joy’s arrival, I would give her one as a present to remember her “Gotcha day.”

It was fun in the evenings to go for a walk when the shops were closed. The families would cook in front of their stores, which were also their homes, on little open grills. Corn on the cob was a staple. The aroma from the freshly cooked corn and other vegetables each night whet my appetite. Sometimes they would offer us some, but I always turned it down. I didn’t want to get sick.

Each day brought us closer together. Despite the difficult beginning, I knew Joy was the child God meant for me to have. On December 8, 1999, at 1:40 p.m., I received this email from Jill at the adoption agency:

I just wanted you to know that I am at home today. We are having another snowstorm. I am rejoicing in all that the Lord has worked out. It seems that you were never intended to parent that other girl, and God knew that. He knew this little one needed you to be her mommy.

God is so amazing! He knew what He was doing. We just need to have faith. I just think it would be so much easier if God just clued us in a little more. But then we wouldn't have the opportunity to polish our rough spots. I hope and pray you are enjoying your time with Joy. Please try and send me your email photo. I can't wait to see her. God is all-powerful, Jill.

Jill’s prayers and emails while I was in Vietnam seemed mightier than a legion of valiant warriors fighting a battle of lies, betrayal, and deceit. Only after I arrive in heaven will I know fully the demons of evil that were raging in the unseen world about me. She had just the right word to help me refocus on God even when things seemed bleak.

Everything seemed to be falling into place until...

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 26, Part 2

2010-11-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

Chapter 26, Part 2

I went back to the motel encouraged but still feeling discouraged. I could use a lot of words to describe Joy, but joy wasn't one of them. She was the most joyless person I had ever met. How could I get her to accept me? How could I get her over “the hump”?

We also discovered she was very adept at temper tantrums. One afternoon shortly after receiving her from her birthmother, she was distressed in the hotel lobby. After much cajoling, I realized there wasn’t a lot I could do to make her feel better about me or life. She would have to decide she didn’t want to be so miserable. As we stood in the lobby, she yelled louder and louder to draw attention to herself. When no one took notice she stomped her feet. It was funny to see this little girl so full of anger stomping her poinky feet in defiance of the world. A couple of the people in the lobby started laughing. Joy did not like that. She stomped her feet harder as if to say, “How dare you laugh at me.”

I reflected on how we are all born with a sinful nature. My new daughter was a sinner in need of a mother’s love and God’s salvation. I would need God’s wisdom to bring such a strong- willed child into submission and obedience unto the Lord.

After several nights of not sleeping, though, I was tired, depressed, and wanted God to do something to make things better. Something had to change. I called Jenni on the phone a couple of floors below and asked if she could come to my room to pray for God to confirm I was doing the right thing. I wanted Him to take away her pain. Joy was so miserable that I couldn't bear it any longer.

We sat on the edge of the bed and prayed for the Heavenly Father to reveal His will. Later in the morning when Joy woke up, I immediately sensed a change in her spirit. She seemed “different.” We got dressed and walked downstairs to the lobby. No longer crying, she stood quietly beside me in the lobby while I tended to some business.

The hotel clerk looked at Joy and remarked, “Is that Joy? She seems so different today.”

Another adoptive parent made the same comment. “It’s almost like she’s a different child. What happened?”

I didn’t tell them we had prayed, although I did wonder why we hadn't prayed five days earlier. Now that my new daughter was more pleasant to be around, I thought Jenni would enjoy spending time with us.

Eventually each day we developed a routine. After we got dressed, Joy would gather her shoes, cap and most importantly, my keys. Usually I had tossed them somewhere in the room and she’d find them for me. After the morning scavenger hunt, she would wait at the door as if to say, “Okay, I am ready to go. Hurry up.”

I would grab my purse as she pulled the knitted cap over her ears, bend down to help with her poinky shoes, lock the door, and head down the hall to the elevator. If I was too slow with makeup or deciding what I wanted to wear, she would let me know. One day before we left our hotel room, I handed Joy bottled water, an orange, and a stuffed animal. I said to her, “Which one do you want to take with you?”

She grabbed the orange. An American child would have taken the toy, but Joy had known what it was like to go hungry. Food was more valuable to her than toys. Once I realized her insecurity about food, I always gave her an orange or something to carry with her when we would leave the hotel. When she realized food was always available, her episodes of crying almost stopped.

Compared to Nepal, Vietnam wasn’t much different from America. I didn’t have to discuss with chickens where the toilet was, go behind a bush to use the facility, or beg for toilet paper. I didn’t have to carry with me my own bottled water, and I didn’t return to the hotel every afternoon smelling like dirt. There were no motorcycle rides in dresses or propositions from men that stared at me. I didn’t have to explain what “caste” Joy belonged to or worry as much about getting sick.

There were things that made it hard. It was not unusual to be accosted by beggars. The most heart-breaking were those that had missing arms or legs or both. The first one that approached me had no arms or legs and I was horrified at the grotesqueness of getting around without any limbs. Hundreds of Vietnamese have been maimed by long-forgotten land mines hidden in the killing fields, many of them children.

I always lost whatever munchies I had if one of the maimed ones crossed my path as I was headed back to the hotel. My heart melted at the kind of life they had been dealt and how fortunate I was to have two arms to carry my baby and two legs to take me wherever I needed to go. After a month of giving away chips, candy, and crackers, however, I realized if I wanted that chocolate bar when I returned, I better hide it from the maimed beggars.

In so many of the countries I had traveled, I had seen a dog that looked like Gypsy. On this day, it was no different. As we walked out of a store, a little brown and white long-haired stray was scrounging along the curb where someone had discarded a plastic bag. Looking for a meal, she appeared to have been quite successful in her endeavors, as she had a few too many pounds around the waist. I snapped a picture to add to my collection of “Gypsies from around the world.”

My dog Gypsy from childhood was what God had used to teach me at an early age that there was a God who loved me. Wherever I traveled, God would always bring a dog across my path that looked like her. Why, I am not sure—perhaps to remind me of His presence no matter where I traveled, or that the neediness of God's redemptive love transcended every tribe and nation.

It was the Gypsy from Israel that haunted me the most. The frightened dog couldn’t quit shaking as she followed us along the streets of Jerusalem. Gypsy from Italy had a litter of puppies she was trying to raise in the island of a gas station. The one from Nepal was emaciated and covered with fleas. My dog Gypsy from childhood will come to me occasionally in dreams, completely white, as if she is waiting for me.

A few hundred feet from the Lillie Hotel was a little store akin to a 7-Eleven. Each day before turning in for the evening, we would stop in to purchase my chocolate. On the candy rack were two kinds of bars—cheap and expensive. I always bought the cheap one and dreamed about how decadent the expensive one would taste. The cheap one tasted awful, but it satisfied my chocolate addiction by leaving a horrible aftertaste. In some tortuous way, I looked forward to my chocolate every night following dinner.

Although we were routinely awakened every morning, at least it wasn’t because of people throwing up as in Kathmandu. The hotel had its own resident rooster that staked its territory at the front entrance. He was faithful not to let anyone sleep past 6:00 a.m. in the morning.

After a few days of adjustment and wanting a change in scenery, Jenni, Joy, and I took a couple of afternoons and visited some of the local tourist attractions. One temple we visited was the Temple of Literature. It was built in 1070 by King Thanh Tong and later became Hanoi's first university. We experienced a flavor of ancient Vietnamese architecture as the buildings were beautifully adorned in colorful relief depicting dragons, tigers, and ancient inscriptions. There were many pagodas connected to the temple with Buddha statues out front, and the burning incense created a mystical experience. From one of the buildings, the sounds of chanting monks could be heard. I stood outside the door curiously listening, but resisted the temptation to go inside.

Outside the temple by the lake, Western-style music played via loud speakers. Several Vietnamese women had a stand set up to sell souvenirs to tourists and I bought Joy and myself a shirt. A blend of the old and the new: It was a little oasis in the midst of honking horns and city life, a charming spot to spend a few quiet moments before heading back to the hotel.

On another day, Jenni and I were invited to eat lunch at the Sofitel Metropole with the two adoptive mothers we had originally met at the airport. It was a beautiful five-star hotel a short distance from the Lillie Hotel. Out front a platform had been erected to display Santa and his snowmen, dressed in hats and scarves. The platform was decorated by a large sign with letters written in red cursive, “Season’s Greetings.” Santa Claus was seated on a bike with a carriage holding all the gifts. Bikes were the most common mode of transportation in Vietnam, and without snow, a bike worked better than a sleigh.

The entrance to the hotel was adorned in rows of Poinsettias, and red and yellow flowers beneath the platform framed a beautiful Christmas display. The Christmas music and decorations helped to transport me back to the familiar. At last, halfway around the world, I found myself in the Christmas spirit.

We were escorted inside and seated in a lovely Western- style restaurant. In contrast to Nepal, it was nice to share the adoption experience with other mothers and the camaraderie helped to alleviate stress. As we sat and waited, I took off my gold and silver Guess watch and allowed Joy to play with it. When my brother and sister were young, my dad would give them his watch while we waited to be served. I thought I would continue the family tradition.

A buffet lunch was served and the chef stir-fried pasta in herbs and oil. I can still taste the perfectly seasoned, spicy pasta, my favorite meal while in Vietnam. I have since learned the Sofitel Metropole has a world-renowned reputation for Vietnamese and French cuisine, even offering high-end cooking classes.

With our taste buds whetted in anticipation, we chatted and shared our adoption stories, admiring each others’ new babies. The two families were from Canada, one country I hadn’t visited, and I learned a little about what life was like in the far reaches of the north. Sometimes I forget, living in the Deep South, that the world’s second largest country of thirty-four million people occupies a vast area of land north of the United States.

One mother showed me pictures of her home covered in snow. My mind got stuck on how cold it would be during the winter. Being born in Tampa and having lived most of my life in Florida, my thin blood would do me in for eight months out of the year.

After lunch, we took a tour of the lobby of the Sofitel Metropole. It reminded me of the Everest Hotel in Kathmandu with its stately gold columns and chandeliers gracing a high- domed ceiling. Too expensive for my pocketbook to stay overnight, it was a nice place to indulge our appetites for lunch.

I hoped Joy and I could come back later for a swim. I took a peek at the Olympic-size pool and couldn’t wait to dip my toes in the cool blue water.

When we returned to our hotel after lunch, I discovered my watch was missing and assumed I left it on the restaurant table. I made a quick trip back to find it, but it was gone. It was the first and last expensive watch I ever owned. I replaced it with a cheap one in Vietnam for ten dollars that lasted until I returned home.

I thought it would be fun to take a tour of the countryside surrounding Hanoi. I preferred trees, mountains and scenic vistas to the hustle and bustle of city life even though I grew up in Atlanta. I asked the young woman who worked at the front desk if she had any recommendations for a half-day excursion.

“You might like touring Bat Trang. It’s a pottery village just outside Hanoi,” she suggested.

That sounded like something enjoyable. I hired a taxi to take the three of us on a tour, hoping to see a little countryside along the way.

In some ways, the Hanoi scenery reminded me of Florida— flat and wet. Rice grew well in the waterlogged soil that is a food staple throughout Southeast Asia. A hard life for the field workers, it requires long hours bent over in the flooded land to tend and harvest the crop. Luu worked in the rice paddies north of us and I reflected on the future Joy would have faced had I not adopted her.

Frequently we passed bikers wearing a hat called a Non La. I was struck at how life moved at a snail’s pace in third-world countries, especially away from the city. It was almost like stepping back in time. I wondered, in my fast-paced, hurried environment back home in Gainesville, what I was missing. If only I had time to stop and “smell the flowers.” I vowed to spend more time in my back yard working on my half-baked nature garden when I returned home.

Bat Trang was an interesting place to visit. Established in the mid-1400s, the pottery village had a history of selling exquisite ceramics that were exported to other Asian countries. The village sits on the Red River and produces its own unique

style with crackle glaze and fine glaze finishes. The pottery from Bat Trang was also distinctive in design, decorative patterns, and colored enamels.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 26, Part 1

2010-11-12T06:00:00.007-05:00

Chapter Twenty-Six

...my cup overflows

Psalm 23:5

The next morning I got up early to pray. I had no way of knowing if Luu would change her mind or if she would bring Joy to the hotel. I pulled out my Bible and turned to several passages from Psalms. I ended with rereading Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true at last, there is life and joy.”

The room was quiet as I closed my eyes and contemplated the events over the past few days. I wanted the floodgates of Heaven to burst forth with angelic praise, vanquishing the evil one and casting him into the shadows from whence he came. Doesn’t God promise He will overcome evil with good? In spite of corruption, greed, and deceit, because God is all-powerful and just, I prayed my heart would be filled with joy just as I longed to hold Joy. My prayers and philosophical musings were interrupted by the phone ringing.

“Your baby is here,” the hotel receptionist reported.

When I went downstairs to receive my new daughter, Joy’s birthmother had already left. Luu’s tears of sorrow would bring me tears of happiness as Joy and I would begin our lifelong journey together as mother and daughter.

I thought of the parable of Matthew 13:45; a merchant had gone in search of fine pearls and when he found one of great value, he went and sold everything he had and bought it. The story seemed so fitting for Joy. Pearls are produced from the suffering of the mollusk as a means of survival to protect them from parasites or intruders. Joy was “my pearl of great price.”

One of the translators from the night before handed Joy to me. After three long years, my arms were full with the second of my "Children of Dreams." I carried Joy up to my room as her wails reverberated off the walls. I knew from experience the first day would be the hardest.

When was the last time I put a diaper on a baby, I wondered? I thought about my brother’s messy diapers over thirty years ago. I had not bargained for the diaper routine on my way to Vietnam and Manisha was past that stage when I adopted her. This was something I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams when I left Gainesville—a baby. I would worry later about how I would homeschool Manisha with such a little one. This day I would celebrate my new daughter’s arrival. I picked out a pretty pink dress that I had bought the previous day. The difference in her appearance was stunning with clean clothes and a quick bath.

The next thing on my to-do list was to visit the doctor and have those nasty sores on her arms and legs checked out. Much like an ant bite that has become inflamed, her little fingers wouldn’t leave them alone as she scratched at them relentlessly.

In June, Joy had been brought in for a medical checkup which showed she was anemic. Luu was given medicine to treat it, but on a return appointment in October, not only did she still have the anemia, but she had also developed scabies. Anne doubted that Luu had given Joy the medicine at all and suggested I have her rechecked.

I carried Joy down to the lobby in my arms and asked the desk attendant to call a taxi for us. After the previous night’s difficulty with the transfer from the birthmother, the young lady was glad to see us together. We took the taxi to the OSCAT/AEA International Clinic in Hanoi, just a few blocks from the Lillie Hotel.

The clinic had performed Joy's previous examinations and provided her medical information to me in one big packet. Blood work confirmed the anemia had not gone away, and the nurse handed me iron to give her. The clinic also prescribed medicine for her skin lesions. I bought some Band-Aids to cover the infected sores, but Joy protested loudly when she couldn’t “mess” with them anymore. I cringed every time she

dug her fingernails into the open wounds. It was a battle to keep replacing the Band-Aids she pulled off with new ones long enough for the sores to heal.

“Can you write me a prescription for worms” I asked the doctor. I knew the doctors in the States wouldn't give it to me and after what I went through with Manisha, I was determined to deworm her.

The doctor surprisingly agreed. “Yes, I think that's a great idea. Everybody should deworm themselves at least every six months.”

I laughed to myself. I wondered what the doctors in America would say to that. Since we were already out, we explored the area for a restaurant to get some lunch. We found one on Hue Street, close enough to the hotel we would later walk to it. I asked for a seat toward the back where I could see an American television program broadcasting in English. Several tables had leather benches that Joy could climb around on and not have to be confined to a high chair.

My new daughter’s favorite thing to do was eat. She would consume the crackers and play with the utensils while we waited, and surprisingly, she was willing to try just about everything I put in front of her. Rice, however, remained her favorite food. To give me a break so I could enjoy eating, the host or hostess would often offer to hold her. The restaurant workers were always warm and friendly to the adoptive mothers. I ran into several other adoptive mothers while in Hanoi and they all told me the same thing: The restaurants would take care of their baby while they ate.

After enjoying our first meal together, I took Joy shopping for shoes and a stroller. I realized early on that nineteen pounds was too heavy to carry for long periods, and a child of fourteen months was too young to walk everywhere.

By chance, I met someone who told me about a store that sold strollers. We eventually found our way there at a leisurely pace, as I carried Joy part of the time, and I let her little legs walk as best they could some of the way. I tried to explain to the Vietnamese man, who did not speak English, exactly what it was I wanted. A few minutes later, he walked out excitedly holding what he thought I wanted. Well, not exactly. It was a baby stroller for a doll.

“No, not for my baby to push a baby in, for me to push her in,” I told him.

“Okay. I see,” he said in broken English. “I be back.” A few minutes later he returned with the real thing. I was relieved to have something to put her in as my arms were giving out on me.

For the first five days, the only time Joy wasn't crying was when she was eating or when we were shopping, but even that wasn’t stress-free. Every time a Vietnamese woman would lean down to talk to Joy, she would turn away and scream. She didn't like people looking at her. The poor Vietnamese women would look at me apologetically. I eventually told curious onlookers, “Please don’t look at my daughter.”

“Where is your baby's cap?” The Vietnamese mothers would stop and ask me on the street.

“I don’t have one for her.” What was the deal with the cap, I thought? It wasn't cold.

“Your baby need a cap over her head to keep her from catching cold,” I was told.

After several admonishments by well-meaning, but overly- concerned Vietnamese women, I thought I better buy one if for no other reason than to honor their custom. I didn’t want to be accused of child abuse. I found a shop where I bought her a pretty pink and white knit cap as well as a pair of shoes since she didn’t have any.

As I squatted down and put them on her feet, Joy squirmed out of the stroller to see if she liked them. The sound of poink-poink-poink as she walked was amusing, and as I would discover later, everybody knew when she was coming. She had the distinction of being the only one in the hotel with poinky shoes.

Over the next five days we shopped and ate lots of rice. We spent quality time at the Hoan Kiem Lake since it was a pleasant place with its many park benches, and as we relaxed under the cascading, graceful willow trees, I tried to take pictures of Joy not crying.

Each afternoon following our shopping, the Vietnamese kids would greet us with their pictures, books, and postcards on their way home from school to practice their English. They would dote on Joy and hold her while they tried to get me to buy something. A twelve-year-boy took a special liking to Jenni and hung around with us for the better part of a week. One afternoon I treated him to a meal in one of the more upscale restaurants to thank him for translating on several occasions.

After purchasing clothes, bibs, Sippy cups, diapers, hats, Christmas gifts, toys, or whatever struck my fancy for the day, we would grab a bite to eat. Rice was usually on the menu, topped off with ice cream as dessert. We would arrive back at our hotel room for a nap in the early afternoon.

Joy would always cry for Va, her grandmother, before falling to sleep. I hated the crying episodes and wished she would embrace my love. Particularly distressing to me was her refusal to make eye contact with adults. She would look away in a mournful, depressing stare. After a couple of days, I lamented, “God, what can I do when she refuses to even acknowledge my presence?”

My new daughter was not ready to embrace her new reality. The pain of separation from her past, as lacking as it was, seemed better. It reminded me of the Israelites in the wilderness following their dramatic escape from Egypt, who longed for leeks and onions when God wanted to give them so much more (Numbers 11:5).

I knew Joy was sad, but I wondered if there was anything medically that might be contributing. I continued to question her age. Jill from the adoption agency faxed a list of abilities that were expected of a two year old, but Joy couldn't do any of them. By the fifth day of non-stop crying, I was frustrated and an emotional wreck due to a lack of sleep. I took her back to the OSCAT/AEA clinic and asked them what they thought.

“Could she be autistic?” I wondered.

The doctor performed a few basic tests and although she was developmentally behind, everything seemed to be there for her to eventually catch up. One perceptive, compassionate nurse grabbed my hand reassuringly and said, “I think Joy will be

completely fine. Give her some time. She is just one depressed little girl."

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 25

2010-11-05T06:00:00.003-04:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

Every good and perfect gift is from above...

James 1:17

With a heavy heart but at peace with God, I walked back to the Lillie Hotel. As I entered the lobby, I hoped to pass through unnoticed, but the lady who had helped Jenni and me with the newspaper notice the previous day called me over.

“Look,” she said. “It’s in paper.” She handed me the Lao Dong Newspaper and pointed out our ad. I couldn’t read the Vietnamese part but I recognized the name.

“Wow, that was quick, wasn’t it?” I said. “Thank you.”

“Do you want?” She asked, and shoved the newspaper towards me.

“Sure.” I took it and put it under my arm, carrying it with me to the fifth floor. Now that I had given the ad to God, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel. As I unlocked the door and walked in, the phone started ringing. I didn't get many phone calls, so I immediately picked it up. It was Anne on the other end.

“Lori,” she said. “We don't think this adoption is going to go through. The police have found the woman and detained her for questioning. The baby isn’t even her baby. The baby was kidnapped.”

I wondered if the newspaper notice had anything to do with it, but I continued to listen to the voice on the other end.

“But there is a little girl who was supposed to be adopted by another family that planned to adopt two, but at the last minute, they decided to adopt only one. She was left behind. Her medical work-up has been done and except for a few minor, correctable things, she's healthy.”

She filled me in on a few other details.

“The birthmother claims her baby is two and a half but she’s very small and we aren’t sure how accurate that is.”

I failed to see how that was a negative. “Would you be interested?”

The timing of the phone call couldn't have made it more obvious it was from God.

“Yes, of course,” I replied. Anne continued. “We have some pictures and I will email

them to you. Once you receive them, call me back and tell me what you think.”

I hung up the phone in disbelief. A thousand questions came to mind. Could I take her home on the original travel date? What was left to do on her paperwork? I wondered how old she really was. How could I ever doubt that God was the one in charge? He who holds the universe together could certainly hold me in the palm of His hand.

“Thank you, Jesus, thank you,” I said over and over.

I couldn't wait until she sent me the email. My hope in Anne’s veracity took a turn for the better, but in reality, I was now putting my faith in God rather than in man.

As Anne promised, the pictures arrived within an hour. Van Thi Trieu, who I would rename Joylin Van, was beautiful, but I couldn’t see how it was possible that she could be two and a half. She was just too small. I felt like a new mother examining her “bundle of joy,” counting ten fingers, ten toes, and every little feature, looking for anything that would cause concern. She had a tiny swath of hair, a cute pug nose, a movie-star’s lips, and piercing Vietnamese brown eyes. A long-sleeve, striped green shirt, diaper, and no shoes were all she wore. I tried to imagine a beautiful smile across her forlorn, sad face as she was held in her birthmother's arms. I emailed Anne back that I wanted to meet her as soon as possible.

After three days of sitting at the Lillie Hotel, any more waiting seemed unbearable. For the first time since arriving, it looked like I would get to meet my new daughter. I hurried back down to the computer room on the first floor to quickly send out emails to friends and family, asking for prayer, that God would show me if this was the child He meant for me to adopt.

It was planned that my new daughter and Luu Thi Trieu, her birthmother, would come by bus to the Lillie Hotel the following day. Jenni had decided it would be helpful to get her own room to allow us more privacy. It was now a matter of waiting till “Joy” arrived. I passed the time by making the room more baby friendly, moving breakables up high, and putting anything away that little fingers might want to grab. I went shopping and purchased a few toys to add to the collection of blocks and books I had brought from home. That evening, Jenni and I returned to the Ristorante Roman where we had eaten with such heavy hearts three nights earlier.

“Maybe our newspaper ad really did the trick,” Jenni commented, as I scooped up spaghetti and meatballs and she dove into some kind of unidentifiable Vietnamese cuisine.

Today as I pen these words, I wonder if that’s truer than I could have imagined (see Bits and Pieces at the end of the book for elaboration). Spiritually, though, I credited God with defeating the powers of darkness and giving me peace even before I knew about Joy. As Psalms 118:9 says, “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”

Thursday, December 9, arrived at last. Although the birthmother’s village, Than xa, Vo Nhai, was only a couple of hours north of Hanoi, located in the Thai Nguyen Province, to make the bus connections and get to Hanoi was a full day’s travel.

It was late evening and dark outside as I stood in the hotel lobby peering out the window. The lights from car headlights flickered off the streets and cast nighttime shadows. I had left my hotel room and come down to the lobby early because I was so anxious and fretful. It was hard to believe I had waited almost three long years for this historic moment. Joy and her birthmother would arrive soon and I nervously paced the lobby. Jenni had offered to videotape it, and when she mercifully appeared, my rattled nerves calmed down. I had been through this once before with Manisha but it didn't make it any easier. I reflected on how hard it was for Manisha when she left her father and stayed with me the first night at the Bleu Hotel.

At last three figures could be seen in the shadows walking up the stairs. Luu, holding Joy, entered through the glass doors along with Anne’s two messengers whom we had previously witnessed arguing. Luu was dressed plainly and looked uncomfortable standing in the lobby. She also appeared unfamiliar with Vietnamese customs involving adoption and was reluctant to trust the man who spoke Vietnamese. Her sole source of assurance was the translator who spoke her language.

They lived in a remote area in the northern hills of Vietnam where Luu worked long hours for a pittance in a flooded rice field. Their extended family was part of the Hmong Daw ethnic group whose main population center is in China (Since returning from Vietnam I have learned that the Hmong Daw language has a written New Testament and the Old Testament is in the process of being translated. Only a very small portion of the Hmond Daw population around the world is Christian and it is considered an unreached people group according to the Joshua Project 2000).

One of the two men would translate for Luu from Hmong Daw into Vietnamese and the second messenger would translate from Vietnamese into English. I didn’t know communication with the birthmother would require the translation of three languages.

It was a pregnant moment as we all stood in the lobby. None of us spoke all three languages so it was awkward to greet each other, but Joy spoke a baby language we all understood. Hers was a cry of pain. She was beautiful but her eyes were full of uncertainty and fear. She had two burn marks on the left side of her face that weren’t apparent in the photographs. I was afraid to ask what the burn marks were from.

Joy was dressed in a checkered black and yellow sweater with turquoise and yellow stripes that ran horizontally. She had on bright, orange knitted pants that were too big and a yellow knit hat that covered her ears, with a little well-worn bobbin on the top.

Luu’s long, dark-brown hair was pulled back in a hair tie, partially lying on her shoulder. She stood only about five feet tall as she held her baby, attempting a forced smile as she glanced at me with uncertainty. My heart went out to her, a poor, young, unwed mother, unable to provide for her baby. Would I be willing to trust her if our roles were reversed? Would I love enough to make that kind of sacrifice? I admired her bravery.

My eyes became glued on Joy. Even in the ragged clothes she wore, she was beautiful. She held on to Luu for protection as I reached out and stroked her leg over her pants. When she began crying I backed away. The two men came up and touched her and she cried louder. Luu stroked her head and gently moved her hand over the front of Joy's face in an attempt to reassure her. The more we tried to interact with her, the more she resisted.

Luu handed her a small round item and she clung to it like it would protect her, much like a child would caress a beloved toy or blanket. Tightly grabbing the object, she studied each of us, very aware that four sets of eyes were staring back at her.

Somehow I sensed that Joy knew this whole thing was about her. It was even more painful because we didn’t know how to earn her trust. We found ourselves at a standoff. Jenni turned off the video recorder and we tried to think of a better way to separate Joy from her birthmother without causing her so much trauma.

Joy’s wails revealed only a few lower teeth. She appeared more like a one-year-old or maybe fourteen months. I asked the translator to ask Luu her baby's age. At first she said two and a half, but she changed it to two when questioned again. It was obvious she didn't know exactly. In her village they most likely didn’t keep written records of births.

After several minutes, as Joy continued crying, it became uncomfortable in the hotel lobby. Hotel guests were checking in and out and it seemed like this should be a more private affair. We decided to go up to my hotel room and give Joy and her birthmother a little more time.

It was previously arranged that Luu would leave Joy with me that night but she didn’t realize that. She thought she would have her until the ceremony. The date for the Giving and Receiving wasn’t set, but it was certain to be more than a week away. We needed more time to discuss things and upstairs we could relax and not feel pressured to make a quick transfer.

Joy continued to be fretful as Luu made several attempts to breast feed her. With the two men translating back and forth between the three languages, we tried to come to a consensus. It didn’t look like I would get Joy that night, but I wasn’t willing to wait until the ceremony. After much discussion, Luu agreed to let me have Joy the next day in a quick exchange. She would simply hand Joy to me and leave. We felt like Luu’s presence and hold on her was making it harder for everybody.

I had yet to hold her, but I could tell her skin was in poor condition. It was apparent she needed some ointment for open sores on her arms that she kept picking at. The first thing I wanted to do was take her to the doctor, have her dewormed, and get some ointment and Band-Aids to cover the wounds.

I was ready to be her new mother, longing to make her life better. Now if I could just wipe away those tears and make her “joyful,” but to use an old cliché, that would be easier said than done.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Another good article on inter-racial adoptions

2010-11-04T13:04:00.002-04:00

Ilie Ruby has posted another wonderful article. Read it here.

Oversharing a Child's Story ~ by Ilie Ruby

2010-11-01T13:46:00.000-04:00

Ilie Ruby, author of The Laguage of Trees, says of her family, "We are a transracial family in a New England town and our adoption story spills into so many other socio-political-societal discussions, it really becomes less about adoption than about adjustment and life as a family. This article first appeared in the New York Times Motherlode blog.

A recurring theme here on Motherlode is the intersection, overlap and separation of our children’s lives from our own. Where is the line between helping and hovering? Between caring and smothering? Protecting and snooping? Letting go and abandoning? Sharing and betraying?

A number of readers have suggested guest posts on facets of this subject lately, and I’d like to spend the day exploring these questions through their words.

First up is Ilie Ruby, the author of The Language of Trees, and the mother of three children whom she and her husband adopted from Ethiopia nearly two years ago. Theirs is probably a fascinating story. I wouldn’t know, though, because Ruby won’t share it with me. She won’t share it with anyone but the closest of friends, she writes, even though complete strangers ask often. It is her children’s story, she believes, and theirs alone to tell.

MY RIGHT NOT TO TELL

by Ilie Ruby

Everyone wants to know the story of how we adopted three children from Ethiopia. But do I have a right not to tell it, existing as I do right out here on the front line, looking as I do, a Caucasian mom with three African kiddos? Taking my children to the grocery store or to the library without announcing where they came from? Do I have a right to live in the world, fully and enthusiastically and not announce my history or that of my children? I think, yes.

Adopting a child is a lot like opening a big thick book right in the middle. There are already several stories unfolding: the children’s, the birth parents’, and of course, ours, the adoptive parents’. After we have opened the book, we begin the process of creating a new beginning right in the middle of the book. That is how it starts.

The word “story” has come into play in many different ways since we began our adoption journey. When we started talking adoption, especially interracial adoption, with other adoptive parents we were told that we would be shocked at the number of people that would ask about our child’s background, effectively his or her life story.

I naively didn’t believe that this would happen. After all, you wouldn’t randomly knock on someone’s door and ask them to share with you private traumas and personal struggles. We were advised to say, “That is private information” or “That is my child’s story to tell when he/she is ready” or “None of your business.”

Truth be told, I have used all of these. My children have told me the stories of their lives, as much as they remember. Or as much as they have chosen to share.

And new stories spring forth at the most random of times, even now, two years later. It is sacred ground. Still, not a week goes by that I am not asked if my children’s parents are dead, if they are orphans, what happened to them, whether they are “related,” how we “got” them, whether they suffered starvation or other forms of trauma or abuse and how long they were in an orphanage.

I am routinely followed by a well-meaning librarian throughout our local library as she tells me stories about orphans. I am stopped at least twice a week by strangers who ask if my kids are “mine.” I am asked all these questions and more and while I have grown a bit weary, I try not to be offended. I know that my children’s story is compelling. I understand that mine is as well. Most people don’t adopt three children from Ethiopia at once. And we are a sight because we are a multiracial family.

While I subscribe to the philosophy that educating people and enlarging the circle rather than closing it is ultimately what is best for the world, I am admittedly secretive when it comes to sharing my children’s personal stories. Because it is my children’s private information we’re talking about.

In our world, intimacies are only for close friends and close relatives, and even then there are boundaries. I have found that, at least right now, there is no way to tell my own personal story without broaching promises that were made when I decided to adopt my children.

It has taken me some time to realize that explanations as to their origins, their histories, their relationship to each other, and how we “got” them, are not obligatory. When it comes down to it, stories belong to those who live them.

I just say what they tell us in adoption 101, as unfulfilling as it is: there are many children who need homes in Ethiopia and each of them has a different story. I can’t take credit for the comeback. It was gifted to me from a very experienced adoptive mom of six Ethiopian children. Yes, there are more of us out there.

Ethiopia carries with it a lot of baggage — poverty, orphans, AIDS — you will see all of this if you travel there. My husband took many beautiful but heart-wrenching photographs while we were there, but I’m not sure that the world needs to see more of these types of photos. Maybe that’s why I am compelled to talk about the beauty of Ethiopia that no one knows about.

You have a good conversation, you are kind, you share a bit about your life, you show you are a good person, and someone wants to give you what little food there is, to hand-feed you. It is an act of love and one of the most meaningful gifts a person can give to another person. This is what I experienced first-hand.

These are the stories I am willing to share, at least right now. I will also tell you that my eldest daughter has this sort of warmth. People comment that they can see it in her eyes. They can feel it when she smiles. Maybe one day she will tell the stories of her life. I’m not sure. At 10, she has just announced that she wants to be a writer like her mom, but it is her decision.

I promised to protect my daughter from the get-go, just as any mom of biological children would. The same goes for all of my children — their lives, their pasts, and their futures. As a mom, new to the business or not, it is my most important obligation. So I’ll be cagey, secretive, boring. But my children will still happily show up — to birthday parties, to soccer games and to campouts. They can stand on their own and are happy to engage and make people fall in love with them. And then, curiously, people stop asking to know their story.

The Language of Trees

Painter and short story writer Ruby debuts with a haunting, lyrical novel of love, loss, and second chances set in upstate New York and greatly informed by the Seneca Indians, whose lore imbues the book with spirituality. In 1988, the Ellis children set out on a stormy night in a canoe borrowed from the Songos next door to escape their brutish father. Luke, the youngest, drowns, and his older sisters are never the same: Melanie turns to drugs while Maya suffers bouts of catatonia. Years later, Grant Songo, 32, returns to his family's lake cabin after separating from his wife. While running in the woods, a wounded wolf trails him, and when Echo O'Connell, Grant's teenage flame, crashes her car to avoid hitting the wolf, she and Grant reconnect and are drawn into the mystery of the recently missing Melanie. Many locals believe Melanie's back on drugs, but Lion, the father of her baby boy, is convinced she's in danger. These characters face real and psychological fears to endure the transformative experiences needed to become whole in a worthwhile story filled with mysticism and symbolism.

Children of Dreams, by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 24

2010-10-29T06:00:00.007-04:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

...Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble...

Job 2:10

Back many years ago, my ex-husband and I lived in Augusta, Georgia. He was in medical school at the Medical College of Augusta and I worked as a court reporter putting him through medical school. One morning on my way into work, there was a long line of cars backed up on Greene Street. Brown Court Reporting, Inc., the company I worked for, was at least several blocks down the road. People had turned off their engines and were meandering around on the road waiting.

I got out of my car and walked up the street to where some people were hanging out and asked, “What's going on?”

The man said nonchalantly, “Apparently a dog got hit by a car.”

Being a dog lover, my heart welled up as I wondered how badly the dog was hurt, who he belonged to, and if he would be okay, but the man didn't know anything more.

I waited a few more minutes, not sure what to do. When it didn't look as though things would clear out any time in the immediate future, I turned around and went a different way to the office.

But throughout the morning, I kept thinking about the little dog that had been hit by a car. I wanted to know more. I walked downstairs and started checking around with some of the people in other offices on the street to find out if anybody knew what had happened. Someone told me they thought he had been transported to a local veterinarian. I scoured around and found the vet to which the poor little dog had been taken. I called to inquire.

“No,” said the person on the other end. “The owner hasn’t been located.”

They didn't know who she belonged to, but she needed immediate medical attention or she would die. Her leg had been badly injured and needed to be amputated.

“How much would that cost?” I asked. “About $200,” the woman replied.

That was a lot of money back in those days, but now that I had involved myself this much, how could I hang up the phone and not help.

“Okay,” I told her. "I will pay the $200 for the surgery if she will live.”

“Are you sure?” She asked me. “It's not your dog.”

I was sure. My only worry was how I would explain it to my husband and what would I do with Fifi after the surgery. I knew he wouldn't want another dog.

We already had a little dog, Shelley. She was a stray who showed up on our back porch in Atlanta one day a few months after we were married. Not that much different from my childhood dog, Gypsy, who had walked into the house one evening with my dad when he returned home from buying milk. I wasn't sure if the two would get along. Shelley had never had to share us.

“When can I come by and meet her?” I asked.

“Why don't you wait till later this afternoon after the surgery?”

I spent the rest of the day imagining what the little dog looked like and how I would explain to my husband that I had rescued a dog from certain death, that the dog was an amputee, and I had paid $200 for surgery on a dog I had never even met.

Finally the veterinarian’s office called and said the surgery had been successful. Fifi's leg had been amputated without complications. I could come see her but they wanted her to remain overnight for a couple of days until she was well enough for me to take her home.

“Have you heard from anybody claiming to be her owner?” I asked hopefully?

“No,” she said. “We don't know who she belongs to.”

Late that afternoon, I dropped by the animal hospital on the way home from work. I told them who I was, and they were glad to meet me. I gave them the check for $200 and thanked them for taking care of Fifi.

“Do you want to see her?” The tech asked me. “She is in recovery.”

“Sure,” I said.”

They took me to an adjoining room and I poked my head in the door. Before me was a scroungy-looking tan and white terrier, with large floppy ears and strands of hair covering her closed eyelids. Fifi aptly described her, a hurt, orphaned dog in need of love and a home. She lay curled up in a little ball with one huge bandage where her back right leg used to be.

I left the vet's office with mixed emotions. I was glad I was able to save her life and give her a home, but I was wondering when I got home how I would explain it to my husband.

“You did what?” He asked me, as I was about halfway through my prepared speech, when he realized I had something more important to talk about than just the weather.

I tried to justify everything I said, saying we would find a home for Fifi and I didn't plan on keeping her. Of course, he knew me better than that, but by the time we went to bed that night, he had acquiesced and given a half-hearted yes to the new addition to the family, provided that Fifi and Shelley got along okay, which I was more than willing to accept. I would make sure of that.

Two days passed and we were able to bring Fifi home. We made her a bed and slowly introduced her to Shelley, just a few minutes at a time, several times throughout the evening. At night we crated her to keep her safe. Fifi was still wearing a wrap where her leg used to be and was still hobbling around getting used to having only three legs. After a few days we settled into a routine. I was elated that things were working out. Even my husband had quit complaining about the extra work involved.

A couple of nights later, the phone rang. It was the veterinarian's office.

“We wanted to ask you a personal question,” the woman said.

“Okay,” I said, not sure where this was going.

“We just wanted to know how things were working out with Fifi.”

“They are working out fine,” I replied. “Fifi is starting to get along well with Shelley.”

“Why do you ask?” I wondered. “Did you find the owner?” Not really wanting to know.

“Oh, no,” she said. “It's just that we had a client in today with his sick dog that passed away. There was nothing we could do for him. It's just a strange coincidence that Fifi looked like their dog. The old man is heartbroken,” she went on, “and we thought if things hadn't worked out well, maybe you would be willing to let him have Fifi.”

“We could meet and talk,” I offered, “and see what happens.” After I hung up the phone, I wondered if she had told him that Fifi only had three legs. Not everybody would want a three-legged animal.

The old man called me the next day and I promised to come home early from work to meet him. By this time, I wasn't sure I could let Fifi go. She had become a part of our family.

I arrived home and waited. A short while later a car pulled up in the driveway. I walked outside to greet the old man. As I watched him exit the car, I noticed something different that forced me to do a double take. He had a cane. He put the cane out to steady himself and then dragged his bad leg behind him, pulling himself out of the car with a great deal of effort. The man was a cripple.

How could I ever doubt God's providential hand? I was only the keeper of Fifi until her new master picked her up— someone that could understand what it was like to have three legs. Fifi's story would live on as a testimony to God becoming a man, fully human and fully God, but one who understands our hurts and weaknesses.

For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning (Hebrews 4:15).

***

As I paced the shoreline of the Hoan Kiem Lake, I poured my heart out to God. “You know, God, how I feel. You know.” I cried for at least an hour beside the lake that had become my sanctuary. Here, among the canopy of willows, soft grass, and brightly-colored flowers, I could feel close to God and sense His presence.

Silently I told Him, “If You don't want me to have another child, I will go home and love the child that You so graciously gave to me. After three years of trying to adopt, I give up my dream. You are my God, You know best, I will not pursue this any further, and I won't be angry or bitter toward others or You.”

A calming peace came over me as I sensed God’s Spirit taking control of my raw emotions. He had shown me once again I must give Him my dreams. I must not let a root of bitterness take hold. I must forgive and let go. If I kept trying to force things to happen a certain way, He couldn't transform me or my dreams into something far bigger and better.

I would embrace the other adoptive parents and support them in their adoption journey. I would quit blaming Anne and the adoption agency for all the things that had gone wrong. I would be a more compassionate roommate to Jenni. I didn't understand at that moment, but God had a different plan for me. He wasn't finished, but I had to give up my dreams before He could give me His.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 23, Part 2

2010-09-24T06:00:00.025-04:00

Children of Dreams

Chapter 23, Part 2

by Lorilyn Roberts

Later that night back in my hotel room, the phone rang. I picked it up and it was Anne. I had hoped to hear words of encouragement but instead I was accused of causing the problem.

"If you hadn't postponed the trip, this wouldn't have happened,” she berated me. “The mother was ready the last time for the adoption if you had come. Why don't you go out and have a good time sightseeing and maybe she might turn up.”

I was livid! How could she suggest I go out and go sightseeing? I had waited three years and traveled nine thousand miles to adopt a child. I hung up the phone feeling outraged. “God, where are you?” I cried.

Sleep eventually overtook me but I was awakened by nightmarish, consuming anxiety. Kidnapped! In my dreams I saw myself alone in Vietnam, my arms empty. The baby that had brought me halfway around the world was gone. Visions of her being stolen flashed through my mind. I grabbed my Bible and tried to pray, but I was too consumed with anguish. I couldn't.

The next morning Jenni and I went downstairs to the restaurant inside the Lillie for a late breakfast. Between haunting dreams, jet lag, and defeatism, I was not very good company for anybody. I poured some coffee and tried to wake up.

It was all too painful to think about. Three years of waiting after filling out papers that seemed as voluminous as Florida cockroaches in the summertime, followed by refilling out the same hated documents after they expired; sharing with my friends and family my hopes and dreams; traveling halfway around the world and spending thousands of dollars; telling my daughter I was bringing her home a baby sister; all the planning, anticipation, and trusting that God would hear and answer my prayers.

I also couldn’t help but think about all the people that were so negative about me adopting again. I pictured myself returning home to the humiliation and embarrassment of coming all the way here and falling prey to a kidnapping and scam—every cell in my body wanted to fight back, “No, you can’t do this to me. This is evil!”

“Anne isn't doing anything to help the situation,” I told Jenni. “She thinks we should go out and do some sightseeing, like that is really going to make me feel better.”

“I think she is blackmailing you,” said Jenni, “or it’s something illegal she's not telling us, or she's already given up the baby and she's making the whole thing up. I don't like her and I don't think you should depend on her to find the mother.”

“What do we do?” I asked. I didn't know whether to listen to Jenni because I wanted to believe Anne would come through for me.

“It just doesn't add up. I can tell by the translator's body language that he's withholding information and not being straight with us, not to mention he was quarreling with that other man. I assume he's another messenger. I did not like that Anne was difficult to get a hold of, and after your conversation with her, it confirms my suspicions.”

“Yeah, I know,” I lamented.

“Last night I couldn't sleep and really wanted something to feel connected to home,” Jenni continued, setting down her drink, “and on my dresser was a paper in English that I picked up and looked at. I got to thinking and had a conversation with God. "Why not put an ad in the paper to try and find the mother ourselves?”

“Yeah, let's do it,” I said. It actually sounded like a good idea and at least we would be something rather than sitting around the hotel doing nothing.

“Maybe we can ask the lady at the desk which would be the best newspaper,” I suggested. We quickly finished breakfast and hurried back to the hotel lobby.

Jenni asked the receptionist, “What newspaper has the largest distribution in Hanoi?”

We explained what we wanted to do and she listened intently, showing excitement as she caught hold of our idea. She had been privy to the previous conversations with Anne’s messenger and understood my desperation to do something.

The young lady showed us three or four different newspapers published in Hanoi but held up one in particular and waved it at us as she explained. She spoke only a little bit of English, but what she lacked in communication skills she made up for in kindness.

“I do what I can,” she said. She handed us the newspaper and showed us where we might be able to advertise for the missing birthmother.

My lackluster opinion of Anne for the time being was put on the backburner now that I had a way to channel my frustration and anger. The bits and pieces I knew of things that happened before I arrived in Vietnam came more into focus with my raw emotions being pushed aside. I now felt angrier with myself than her because I had ignored warning signs I should have heeded, but at least now we were doing something.

By the time we came up with the wording for the notice and chose the newspaper out of the several the clerk had showed us, it was approaching the late afternoon.

“It’s too late to do anything today,” I told Jenni, but let’s go first thing in the morning to the newspaper office.”

“Sounds good,” Jenni replied.

The next morning we took a taxi to the Lao Dong Newspaper with the name of the “mother” of Thi My-Duyen in a carefully worded Vietnamese caption. After the cab dropped us off, we walked around for a while as we had been taken to the wrong location. Jenni had bought a translation book and was trying to speak Vietnamese to get directions from passersby. I was glad she was doing the hard work and letting me be passive.

We eventually found the right office and walked into a dimly lit room where a Vietnamese man sat at an entrance booth. We explained to him our problem and presented him with our little notice written in Vietnamese. After paying him a small amount of money, he told us it would only take a day or two to appear in the newspaper. Having finished the task, we returned to the hotel feeling satisfied.

We had now been in Hanoi for three days without hearing any encouraging news from Anne. All Jenni and I could do was wait patiently to see if our missing person’s notice produced results. That evening following our trip to the Lao Dong Newspaper,, I emailed the adoption agency and called Anne to let them know what we had done. Neither was very happy with me.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Anne said. She was very agitated and upset about it. “I told you we are doing everything we can. You need to let us handle it.”

“Why not?” I asked.

She couldn’t give me a good answer. Every time I asked what she was doing to find the mother, she was very evasive. The adoption agency said in an email it might cause more harm than good. I felt it was worth the risk.

As our time in Vietnam dragged on, I asked God to reveal Himself in a miraculous way. I sent out emails to friends and family asking them to join me in prayer and for God to prevail. While in Hanoi this didn’t come naturally because I didn't feel like praying or spending time with God, but I did feel a sense of evil lurking behind the walls of silence that Jenni and I couldn’t bridge. I also sensed the evil wanted me to feel isolated, alone, and abandoned. I felt like locking myself in my room and not showing my face to anyone. I was depressed, and humanly speaking, didn’t think praying would do any good.

The one thing I had in abundance in Hanoi was time. What else could I do but pray? God was waiting on me to surrender the little girl I had come to adopt and the three long years of waiting. God knew I was a sheep in need of a Great Shepherd. I had to believe that His love for me was higher than the highest mountain, which I had seen, and deeper than the deepest ocean, which I had almost seen.

Could I believe He knew my hurt, my pain, and my anger—an adoption fiasco filled with lying, deception, and greed? I had heard about it on the Internet and television— children being stolen and sold to desperate would-be parents. I never thought it would happen to me. Jesus Himself was betrayed by one of His closest friends. Could Jesus bring redemption to this horrible injustice?

The next morning when I walked down to the lobby, I sat down and looked out the large window overlooking Hue Street. One of the adoptive mothers caught sight of me and walked over with her baby. I had intentionally avoided the other adoptive mothers because I didn’t want to talk about my misfortune or tell them what had happened. It was too painful.

“Did you hear about the woman from the States who is here in Hanoi, and the ‘mother’ went into hiding and wants money?” She exclaimed. “Isn’t that awful? It’s all over the web that her baby was kidnapped! That poor lady came all the way to Vietnam for nothing—isn’t it terrible? I wonder who she is.”

I stared at her in disbelief. I never went to those web sites, but it angered me that so many people knew and were talking about it. How could they know more than me? After that I couldn't bear to see the other mothers with their new daughters.

As Peter denied Jesus three times and ran away in deep distress, I needed go to God and pour out my raw emotions. Did I believe that God understood my sorrow and pain? Did I believe He wouldn't leave me in this dark dungeon of doubt and depression? I was inconsolable and unfit to be around.

I left the hotel disillusioned and scurried down Hue Street to the Hoan Kiem Lake. Alone and hurting, I trudged around the lake with tears falling uncontrollably. I sobbed in anguish fearing that my dreams were gone. Passersby stared at me and a couple of women asked if they could help. I shook my head and scurried off.

As Jesus spoke to His followers in parables, I need to tell my own personal parable.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 23, Part 1

2010-09-17T06:00:00.005-04:00

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part 1

This last deception will be worse than the first

Matthew 27:64

December 6, 1999, 5:00 P.M.

I felt exhilarated to have landed safely. All of our bags arrived in one piece, including the one with the broken zipper, and we checked into our room, number 504, at the Lillie Hotel without any problems. I had no tours of the red light district of downtown Hanoi as I had in Bangkok.

Aside from being tired and hungry, my adrenaline had kicked in as I anticipated receiving my baby. I walked back downstairs to the lobby to get more information from the desk clerk on when that would be. The young woman at the registration counter knew Anne, my contact person, as many adoptive mothers had previously stayed at the Lillie Hotel. I was surprised to see the other two ladies from the airport already in the lobby. They were crowded around a young man that I did not know.

The young Vietnamese lad spoke very broken English. “Your baby be here soon,” he said to the young lady I came to know as Jackie. She had a husband and five-year-old son back home in Canada.

So that’s how it worked, I thought. Anne had a contact person at the hotel that would have the babies dropped off after the adoptive families or mothers arrived.

He looked at the second Canadian lady, who was an older woman, and said, “Your baby be here soon, too.”

I was excited for them and could hardly wait to hear the same words spoken to me. My heart fluttered in anticipation to meet my new baby. This was the moment for which I had waited so long. The other mothers cleared out of my way so he could address me with news about my baby.

“There is problem with baby,” he said to me.

“What?” I asked. “What problem with my baby?” I thought he meant some sort of medical problem. My excitement to be in Vietnam and anticipation of receiving my baby evaporated into worry and fear. He started to explain more but because of his poor English I couldn’t understand most of what he said. I briefly reflected back to Nepal and how fortunate I was that Ankit spoke English so well.

“When will I receive my baby?” I asked. I could feel my blood pressure rising as I tried to control the tone in my voice. The receptionist at the desk tried to help with translation, but the most I could get out of either of them was that he didn’t know. Anne would call me tomorrow.

“Tomorrow?” I repeated. That was totally unacceptable. “Please have her call me tonight,” I yelled at him, “immediately!”

I was visibly upset that I was talking to him and not to her. How could she do this to me? How could she not let me know what was going on and send this guy who spoke such poor English to be the bearer of bad news? Being fatigued and jet lagged from the trip did not help. I felt slighted that the other ladies were receiving their babies and I wasn’t.

The time difference made communication back to the States difficult. It was too expensive to call so we had to rely heavily on fax and email. No one had met us at the airport and I didn’t know who this young man was that was speaking to me. In my anger the only word that seemed to fit was “crony.”

I sent an email to Jill, the International Adoption Coordinator at the adoption agency, notifying her that we had arrived safely but there was a problem. Could she please contact Anne and have her phone me. I related to her what I knew, which wasn’t much, and asked her to please find out what was going on. Nine thousand miles away, I didn’t know what help she could be. The Midwest wasn’t that much closer to Hanoi than Gainesville.

Because the hotel was so small, it was easy to detect other activities of the guests. I discovered the two women whom I had met earlier had their babies dropped off within the hour. I could faintly hear the sounds of a baby crying down the hallway from my room. Jenni and I sat in our hotel room not knowing what to think. I felt badly that she had accompanied me all the way to Vietnam on what was supposed to have been a wonderful experience of adoption and Vietnamese culture. We emptied our suitcases and watched Vietnamese television without interest. The excitement of being in a foreign country had lost its appeal and dissipated into emotional survival, one hour at a time.

“Maybe we will hear something good tomorrow,” Jenni tried to encourage me.

“Yes, maybe,” I responded, still feeling unconvinced.

Jenni quickly dozed off into sleep land but no matter how long I closed my eyes, my mind kept replaying the scenes of earlier in the day. At 3:30 a.m., wondering if anybody had sent me an email or fax, I gave up and went downstairs to the hotel lobby to check, but I found no faxes. I asked the night attendant if I could check my email using the computer in the internet room. In the middle of the night there wasn’t a line waiting to access it. He turned it on and gave me the password, making a note on my account to charge the nominal fee for email use. In comparison to phone calls, it was a pithy penny, but no emails had been received in my inbox either.

I felt like we had been abandoned and forgotten. If it was 3:30 a.m. in Hanoi, it was 3:30 p.m. in Gainesville. The adoption agency would have received my fax, so why hadn’t they responded? I went back up to my room and climbed into bed.

I finally succumbed to a restless sleep with lingering thoughts of the other women with their babies and fear that I may never receive mine. It seemed like only moments later that I was awakened to Jenni moving about in the room. My nightmare returned as I came back to reality.

“I am going to go down to check my email again,” I told her. I grabbed some clothes, quickly dressed, and hurried back downstairs to check the computer.

I found this email sitting in my inbox from the adoption agency:

Dear Lori, I emailed Anne right after I got your fax. She has emailed me back and told me that she has been in touch with her staff person in Hanoi and the staff person staying at the hotel with you. Anne stated that their information regarding the birthmother is she is asking for money. Anne has not confirmed that so she did not want to inform you of hearsay until she has all the facts...it may be nothing, which she sincerely hopes is the case. She says it is a frequent occurrence with the distances and difficulties in communication to get misinformation and also for there to be last-minute delays. Anne assures me that they are doing everything that they can to tend to the situation. Anne said she will inform me once she has concrete information. [The director] said that oftentimes in these situations God is given the opportunity to prove Himself strong and overcome difficult situations. We are praying for God to prevail. Jill.

I had assumed I would be working with Anne when I arrived. It was upsetting to me that she wasn’t in Hanoi, but as I found out later, she lived seven hundred miles south in Ho Chi Minh City. That meant I had to rely on the “crony” who spoke no English.

I shared the email with Jenni without saying anything. “This is horrible,” she replied. “I know.” “What are you going to do?”

“Wait to hear something from Anne or Jill. What else can we do?”

Later that afternoon when we walked down to the hotel lobby, we found Anne’s “crony” in a heated argument with another man. About five feet eight inches tall with medium tan skin, he wore beige slacks and a black leather bomber jacket. He couldn’t have been more than twenty to twenty-five years old. The arguing was disconcerting, and I could tell he was not happy to see me. He and the other man quit arguing when they saw Jenni and me approaching.

I tried to ask him one more time for more information, but it was like asking one of my six cats to tell me which one had left an unpleasant present on my front doorstep. If anything, he only exacerbated the situation because he didn’t appreciate my emotional state of mind. The young lady working at the desk tried to translate for me.

“They can’t find the mother. She is hiding,” is all I could understand.

“Come on,” Jenni said. “Let’s go get something to eat in that Italian restaurant.”

We walked down the stairs to the Ristorante Roman just below the Lillie Hotel and sat down in the first booth by the window facing Hue Street. The hostess greeted us and asked us what we were doing in Vietnam, questions I didn't feel like answering. I let Jenni do the talking. We sat for a long time and I didn't say anything. Jenni let me think, and I stared out the window watching the cars and motorcycles motoring up and down the street.

The waiter brought us our food and I said a half-hearted grace, wondering where God was in all of this. Lots of things went through my mind, some of which seemed irrational. I wondered how much Jenni would understand if I tried to share some of it.

I finally put my tea down, looked her dead in the eye, and said, “Jenni, I really feel like there is an Evil that is preventing me from adopting a child.”

She listened intently and I wondered if she thought I was crazy. Again we didn't speak for a long time and I picked at my spaghetti and slid the meatballs around my plate. It was normally my favorite meal, but I had no appetite. Even though Jenni didn't know what to say, just her presence was comforting, knowing that she cared and was willing to listen.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 22

2010-09-10T06:00:00.027-04:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

...In this world you will have trouble

John 16:33

Time passed quickly leading up to the travel date. In one week, we celebrated Thanksgiving and decorated the house for the holidays. I wrapped presents for Christmas, packed for the trip to Vietnam, gathered Manisha’s clothes and toys to stay with the Murphys, paid bills, made arrangements for the care of our animals, and confirmed last-minute preparations before leaving.

I was excited to have Jenni Murphy join me on the trip. Bright and inquisitive, Jenni embraced the diversity of Vietnamese culture in a way that amazed me. Every meal was a new adventure for her in tasting the exotic. On a practical level, she became quite adept at reading Vietnamese maps—a good thing, since I was notorious for getting us lost.

I hope someday God will use the trip to reveal Himself to this talented young lady who is trained in film production. God never wastes or squanders opportunities to teach us something we wouldn’t otherwise learn.

The big day finally arrived. We took two cars from Gainesville to Jacksonville. Curtis, Jenni, and Linsey rode in one car; Sylvia, Manisha and I followed them in the other. After stopping at a McDonald’s for coffee, we lost each other. I figured we would eventually connect somewhere along the way, but the humor of it didn’t escape me. We hadn’t gone twenty miles and were already separated. How would we ever manage not to lose each other traveling halfway around the world?

After arriving at the airport, Jenni fixed the broken zipper on my suitcase that I had discovered shortly before leaving home. I could imagine all my clothes being strewn about in the baggage compartment of the plane at thirty thousand feet. We checked in my luggage and picked up our tickets, walked through the carry-on baggage check, and found the departure gate. Already fatigued with anticipation, we sat down in some empty seats and waited.

Jenni, dressed casually in her red Adidas T-shirt and jeans, had her dark brown hair cut short for convenience. Unlike me with volumes of suitcases, she had only one backpack that she carried around easily on her back. Talk about traveling light, she could be in the Guinness Book of World Records.

It was hard to believe the long-awaited moment was here. I tearfully hugged Manisha and said good-bye multiple times. I wished she could go with me. She told me later she cried all night the first night, but if she wanted a sister, there was no other way. I knew it would be hard, but it was harder than I imagined.

The plane began boarding and we grabbed our carry-on and stood in the long line. Jenni gave her mother and father a last hug. At eighteen, she acted grown up about it, but good-byes are always hard. I gave Manisha one more embrace with tears in my eyes, offering a silent prayer that God would bring us home safely. I blew her several kisses as I stepped up to hand the attendant my ticket, waving quickly as I distractedly followed the boarding procedures. He tore the ticket in half and handed me my seat stub.

It happened all too quickly. As Jenni and I entered the door to the gangplank, we both waved until Manisha, Sylvia, Curtis, and Linsey were lost from sight. I wanted to run back over and give Manisha one last hug. I couldn’t. If Jenni hadn’t been with me, I might have dashed back into the airport lobby throwing boarding protocol to the four winds. I might have changed my mind. I will never know. As I boarded the plane, my only reassurance was I knew God had called me to go to Vietnam and He would comfort Manisha while I was gone.

I also knew Curtis and Sylvia loved Manisha almost as much as I did. I laughed and thought to myself, she may have so much fun she won’t want to come back home. She was getting a break from school and chores and I told Curtis and Sylvia she could watch all the television she wanted. “Uncle Curtis” was one of her favorite people. They could spend hours putting together puzzles or swimming in the local YMCA pool.

We found our seats, 21A and B, strapped ourselves in, and readied for takeoff. Our first stop was Atlanta. In Atlanta I called my mother from one of the pay phones as we waited. It helped to pass the time which ticked agonizingly slow. I hated uncertainty and with everything that had happened in the preceding few weeks, it was hard not to worry about the future. After the hour and fifteen minute layover in the Hartsfield International Airport, we flew to San Francisco.

In San Francisco we had two and a half hours to get a bite to eat and feel tired. From there we boarded a Cathay Pacific jet. It was a large state-of-the-art luxury jumbo jet. In three words, it was beautiful. Each of the seats in front of us had a pull-down screen with a wide variety of entertainment choices. I was fascinated with the one that showed our location in the air—our altitude, how far we had traveled, how fast we were traveling, how cold the air temperature was, the wind speed—I was mesmerized as I watched the numbers change as the plane slowly made its way toward Hong Kong.

With air time and layovers in Atlanta and San Francisco, it was about twenty hours before we landed in Hong Kong at 6:30 in the morning on December 6. Jet lagged and fatigued, we stretched our legs. I was relieved to have landed safely on solid ground.

Security at the Hong Kong airport was tight, which reminded me of when I traveled to Israel. In New York's LaGuardia, before they would let me board the El Al plane, I had been pulled out of the line and drilled for over an hour by a senior official. He along with others wanted to know why a young, blonde female, who obviously was not Jewish, would be traveling alone to Israel when the United States was fixing to launch an attack in the Middle East.

Who had packed my bags? Had they ever been out of my sight? Where was I going? How long would I be there? I wondered why other countries had so much tighter security than the United States.

In England I had been pulled out and frisked. In Switzerland they dumped out all of my belongings going through customs and demanded an explanation as to why I was carrying around a Nikonis underwater camera when Switzerland was in the middle of a snowstorm.

As we all learned on 9/11, the United States was lured into a false sense of security. This day, though, things followed a logical course and after disembarking, we found a good place to eat. The airport was spotlessly clean and beautiful. After leaving customs, the crowds thinned and we were left with a feeling of wonder at the modern, white architectural design of the building. Airy and open, adorned with much Eastern-flavored artwork in the form of sculptures and paintings, the airport was a major hub for international travelers making connections on smaller carriers.

The back side of the airport was all glass. Through the raindrops on the windows, I could barely make out the coastline of China, with the outline of huge mountains largely covered by clouds and mist. It would have been nice to see more. The little bit I could make out made me curious about what I was missing.

Before exiting the plane, the pilot had told us there were several places travelers could go in the terminal to take a hot shower and freshen up while waiting for a connecting flight. We walked around exploring in a daze and eventually found an “oasis” for relaxation. I opted for a massage in a chair that rolled bristles up and down my back and tickled my feet. I quickly settled into a couple of hours of pampering myself and enjoying a little freedom. It seemed odd not to have to worry about anybody but myself. Jenni found several shops to buy souvenirs.

“I am so excited,” she said several times. “Even if we turned around and went back now, just to see this has been worth it.” Her enthusiasm was contagious. She reminded me that even with weary legs, I could still feel young at heart. I had forgotten what it was like to be a college student with a zeal for the “eccentric.”

After a hot shower, I sat down at a computer and typed some emails. I sent one to the Murphys letting them know we had arrived safely in Hong Kong and one to the adoption agency. “We're Almost There,” I titled it. Soon it was time to leave our little pampering and board for the final leg of our journey. It was a much shorter trip to Vietnam but after flying for two days, we were both exhausted.

Upon landing and disembarking at the Hanoi airport, we stood in a long line to retrieve my bags. As we were waiting, we met two other women from Canada that were also adopting. Their adoptions required two visits and they were on their return trip to complete the Giving and Receiving Ceremony. They had already met their new daughters a few weeks earlier.

After going through customs and finding all of my bags, we dragged everything outside into the wet, humid Hanoi air to take a taxi to the Lillie Hotel. There were many vans waiting outside the airport to provide transportation for foreign tourists. We motioned for one, and a driver came over and loaded our bags into the back. I turned on the video camera as we pulled out into the overcrowded streets of Hanoi.

It had been raining and the wet streets sprayed moisture on the cab, making everything look distorted and blurry. The roads were clogged with cars, vans, motorcyclists, bicyclists, and funny-looking vehicles called xichlos. A xichlo is a three- wheeled, pedal-powered rickshaw where the driver “pumps” the rider along the road seated in the front.

Honking horns created a cacophony of noise that screamed back at me from the past. Within me an overwhelming sense of familiarity arose as I stared out the back of the taxi. I can't believe I am doing this again, my emotions shouted, recoiling as fear set in, and my mind, fatigued from lack of sleep, cried out, I'm in a foreign country adopting another child! Somehow out of this mix of chaos, fear, worry, and exhaustion a spirit of peace enveloped me. I knew God would be with me and would calm my anxious heart.

The taxi driver dropped us off on Hue Street at an inexpensive hotel. Located up two flights of brown marble-like stairs, a sign written in English advertised the “Lillie Hotel” in large tan letters. A tall Philodendron in a ceramic pot stood by the stairs. At ground level beneath the Lillie Hotel was the Ristorante Roman where we frequently ate. Jenni helped me carry my bags up the stairs, and we entered through a solid glass door that opened into a sparsely-decorated, brown-tiled foyer.

Although the hotel accommodations were rather plain, the location was attractive since Hue Street is one of the major arteries into downtown Hanoi. The hotel was also situated just a few blocks from the famed Hoan Kiem Lake, which symbolized politically and geographically the epicenter of the quaint capital of Vietnam.

Exuding warmth and charm and more conservative than South Vietnam, Hanoi had the feeling of an old-fashion town. On the north side of the lake was a labyrinth of little shops where the storeowners sold their wares. It was enjoyable to walk along the streets strolling in and out of shops. The Vietnamese women were always ready to help me find whatever I needed with a warm smile and gentleness so characteristic of their nature. They particularly catered to Western tourists and adopting families offering baby clothes and accessories at very affordable prices.

I was surprised by my first impressions of North Vietnam. I had expected to see more than just vestiges of communism as a result of the Vietnam War. Quite to the contrary, the Vietnamese had adopted a lot of our Western culture—selling our music, speaking our language, and owning their own shops, resulting in a vibrant, capitalistic economy. My uneducated mindset of a people living in apathy or without freedom was turned on its head as the North Vietnamese appeared to be hard- working and content. They showed an endearing love for their children, were kind to me, and harbored no ill-will toward Americans.

Against this backdrop of normal everyday life, having been a teenager at the height of the Vietnam War, vivid images from the past still lingered in my mind of the bloodshed spilled. It was hard to forget the nightly newsreels splattered across our television screens showing dead bodies blown apart. The horror of a country devastated by the ravages of war was seared into my consciousness. I didn't expect it to affect me so deeply after I arrived.

Everywhere were stark reminders and memorials of an era gone by. It seemed surreal to be in Hanoi. I kept waiting for a “bad guy” to show up and handcuff me. I had to remind myself that was another world, another time, and another place. A forgiving spirit over the devastation wrought on their land just a few decades earlier had brought renewal and hope. Vietnam was a land of dreams and vision for the future. Now I had come in search of mine.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 21

2010-09-03T06:00:00.012-04:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart...

Colossians 3:23

I have always been fascinated with trains. My adoptive father, Gene, was a train collector. He liked what I call the “oversized” ones that were antiques. Although many in his collection had chipped paint and dents or otherwise looked “used,” their battle scars didn’t take away from their sense of intrinsic value. They represented something from the past worth remembering. Shortly after mother and Gene married, my new dad wanted to have a special father-daughter day for just the two of us. A one-day “Fall Leaf Special” train trip from Atlanta to the North Georgia mountains had been advertised in the newspapers.

Dad purchased the tickets and I counted off the days. I told all my friends in school that I couldn’t wait.

At last the day arrived and Mother woke me up early that morning to see us off. She packed us a brown paper sack lunch and bid us a good time. We drove in Dad's 1964 white Chevy to the train station in downtown Atlanta on an early Saturday morning in September. Just as we arrived, the sun poked out from behind the clouds, promising to be a beautiful sunny day.

We gave the train conductor our tickets and climbed aboard. Dad let me sit in the window seat, and I peered out waiting impatiently as other people made their way to their seats.

Eventually everyone was seated on the train and we waited. We waited some more. Nothing happened.

Suddenly we heard the crackling of the intercom and a loud voice speaking, “We are having some problems with a coupler, but we hope to have it fixed soon.” More time passed. I sat in the train staring out the window, imagining what it would be like to leave the station behind. In my mind I could hear the revving of the loud engines, the whistle blowing, and feel the lurch of the train as it moved forward, while things outside would start to peel away.

But the minutes stretched into an hour or more and the train remained still and quiet. My hopes began to fade as the long anticipated train trip seemed to slip away. The crackling of the intercom broke the silence once more as we all listened for the final verdict on the broken coupler.

“We're sorry to report that we can't fix the problem and the trip has been canceled. We deeply regret any inconvenience this has caused and hope to have it fixed soon. Please come again.”

That day I learned life isn't fair. We drove home disappointed and disillusioned. In the years that followed, I thought many times about my dad and I making the trip once more, but as often happens in life, the important things get pushed aside by the “tyranny of the urgent.”

In more melancholy moments, I lamented about the train trip we started but never finished. It bothered me because it was a special day set aside with Dad that never happened.

I was eight years old at the time. When I was thirty-seven, Dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor. It was a difficult time for all of us. My red Firebird must have left grooves in the pavement of I-75 from Gainesville to Atlanta as I made many trips to be with him.

One afternoon while I was in Atlanta, mother noticed in the newspaper an advertisement for the one-day “Fall Leaf Special” train trip from Atlanta to North Georgia to enjoy the beautiful fall colors in the mountains.

“I want to make that trip,” I told her. “Let’s do it this fall while he is still with us.”

I reminded her about the train trip we tried to take thirty years earlier that was canceled because of the broken coupler. After much prodding, she agreed. We purchased train tickets and a few weeks later I drove up once again to Atlanta from Gainesville. This time Mother would come along, also.

Snacks were prepared in brown paper bags and we made sure Dad had his medicines, along with his cowboy hat to protect his head from the sun as a result of radiation treatments.

We arrived at the train station and I parked the van. It was a beautiful day. The darkness had given way to sunshine and I looked forward to the long anticipated event, albeit thirty years later. We made sure Dad was comfortable, had his hat on, and proceeded over to the station platform. Dad laughed and gave me a wink and a smile. I felt like time had rewound, except he had become the child and I had become the parent. I grabbed his hand to make sure he didn’t get lost or fall. In so many ways it seemed like it was only yesterday that we had been at the station.

I handed the train conductor our tickets, we climbed the stairs, found a train car we liked, and sat down. I let Dad have the window seat. We sat and waited, and I stared out the window that had become like a portal looking back thirty years, waiting for the revving of the engines.

At last, the whistle blew, the train lurched forward, and the view of the outside world began to disappear faster and faster behind us, until we had left the station far behind and the world outside the train was a blur.

Dad and I shared a quiet, unspoken moment and remembered. Even though he could hardly talk, he didn’t need to speak. Today we would finish our long-awaited train trip.

As we left the noise and crowded streets of Atlanta behind, suburbia was replaced by large open fields and an occasional farmhouse. The red clay became a green countryside of rolling hills and valleys, and the chugging of the train was the only thing that could be heard. Soon the world outside became an array of blurry reds and yellows as the flaming, vibrant colors of fall blanketed the trees.

***

There is satisfaction in never giving up and completing something one begins. I often tell my children, “Never give up on your dreams. Even if you don’t accomplish everything that God sets before you, He has a plan and a purpose. The world is filled with mediocrity. Don’t be like the world. In everything, you should do it as if you are doing it unto the Lord, and then give God the glory.”

Like the seasons that come and go with predictability bringing saneness to our chaotic world, God brings completeness. In Isaiah 55:11, He promises that His word “will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

As Manisha, Mother, and I left the New Haven Hospital to return home, God had given me the truth to finish the race. In John 8:32, Jesus said, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free;” and in Proverbs 19:21, Solomon wrote, “People can make all kinds of plans, but only the Lord's plan will happen” (New Century Version).

We returned home to Gainesville with wedding bells at 30,000 feet. Manisha married the two Coke bottles as husband and wife that our stewardess had given us to drink, which promptly gave birth to baby water bottles. No matter how difficult life gets, children have a resiliency that defies logic. She never said if they were baby girls or boys, but I bet they were little girls.

To view the map, read more or see photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 20, Part 2

2010-08-27T06:00:00.003-04:00

Chapter 20, Part 2

Children of Dreams

by Lorilyn Roberts

This poem hangs in my home as a reminder to me that I must give God my dreams. If I hold on to them, God can't fix them, and if anybody has a laundry list of broken dreams, I would surely fit the bill. Not because I am “bad” but because God is not done yet. The final chapter hasn't been written. For some of us, it won't be written until we get to Heaven.

Everybody has heard the cliché, “God has a wonderful plan for our lives.” My life did not seem wonderful, but that was also because God wasn't done. My ex-husband told the judge in our divorce hearing, “I took away her dreams.” Maybe he thought he did, but I refused to give him that much credit. God had to delay fulfillment of my dreams until I was ready to receive them, gift wrapped by suffering, that could only be opened by willing, submissive hands for His purposes.

***

I had always wanted to be a writer. I wrote poetry all through school and wrote my first unpublished book when I was fourteen. I relished the thought of writing a term paper and never received less than an “A.”

My dreams to be a writer were dashed when I was told by my parents, “You have to do something where you can make money.” The old, well-played tapes still threaten to drown out God’s quieter voice that speaks to my soul. I have to turn the volume down on the world to make sure I don't miss what God is speaking to my heart.

After my dreams to be a writer were crushed, I dropped out of college and enrolled in court reporting school. I was writing, just not the kind of writing I had envisioned, but God wasn't finished.

I spent a few minutes with my calculator to discover something interesting besides how much I owe in taxes. After twenty years of court reporting and ten years of captioning, I figured I have written about one million pages in the last thirty years.

Meaningless! Meaningless!' Says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

Probably ninety-nine percent of all those words, flowing from ten fingers that thump effortlessly on a magic keyboard turning funny-looking symbols into words, will burn up in the final days of God’s judgment. Many of them are words I don’t want to remember dating back to my court reporting days filled with depositions of people I have long forgotten and never wanted to know in the first place. I also wish to forget intimidating lawyers who argued over exhibits ranging from where to store backyard dirt to a dead cricket uncovered in a can of beans.

I have always lamented that so much of what I wrote would burn up when God cleanses the earth of sin. It was and still is a rather depressing thought that most of my court reporting or captioning is so displeasing to God6. I long for the day when I won't have to write sensational stories designed to tickle the ears of gullible listeners and satisfy the insatiable desires of appetites gone awry, stories that we fancy only perverts enjoy.

Broadcast captioning opened my eyes to a suffering planet that groans under the weight of greed, lust, and envy, along with a host of other sins that creation as well as human kind must endure a little while longer until Jesus’ triumphant return. I could no longer turn the channel to avoid unpleasantries that I didn’t want to see. I suffered immensely and still do from stories of tortured animals, murdered children, and governments who care nothing for their people. I felt in my bones the horror of 9/11 as I captioned the New York news, tears falling on my overworked hands as I tried to remain composed long enough to do my job, numbed by the evilness of terrorists who could fly planes into tall buildings.

I wanted God to take my dreams and refine them and turn them into something that would not only be bound on earth but bound in heaven. Words of hope, words of redemption, words that wouldn't burn up, wouldn't be forgotten, and would eventually reach the uttermost regions of the earth, no matter how corrupt the government. I got a glimpse of what that might mean when I was in Nepal.

God gave us His word, the Bible, so we can remember. We need to remember God's little miracles that happen every day and not be ashamed to give Him the glory. It’s only through His Son that we can dream, live, hope, and breathe. We all deserve death. Now that’s a story I would like to see make news headlines.

***

Today I have my chance to write what God wrote on my heart nine years ago at the New Haven Hospital, Yale College of Medicine. I was called down to Dr. Hostetter’s office around 4:15 p.m. in the afternoon. I left Manisha with my mother and went alone. I had no idea what to expect. When I walked into her office, she welcomed me and asked me to sit down. She cut to the chase without any delay.

“The edema is gone!” She said. “There is only one small lesion with no edema whatsoever. There is no reason why you can't either take Manisha with you to Vietnam or leave her here and go pick up your new daughter.”

Dr. Hostetter detailed in a letter written on January 3, 2000, her expert medical opinion, in consultation with experts not only at Yale but from around the country, including Patricia Wilkins at the Centers for Disease Control, and Dr. Clinton White, Chief of Infectious Disease at Baylor College of Medicine: Manisha's medical history was consistent with neurocysticercosis and not anything else; among the differential diagnoses being TB and tumor. Something happened in my heart. I was changed and became a believer in miracles. God used Manisha's condition to bring glory to Himself. So many people had prayed for her, I wanted to tell everyone what God had done. I did not want to be like the nine lepers where of the ten that Jesus healed, only one returned to thank Him. Not only did he thank Jesus, he praised Him loudly and threw himself at Jesus’ feet. (Luke 17:11-19). Jesus said in response, “Your faith has made you well.”

I could never have gone to Vietnam if Manisha had swelling or edema on her brain. As long as she stayed on anti-convulsants, Dr. Hostetter said she would be fine.

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us (Romans 5:3-5).

I had given Manisha the middle name Hope when I adopted her. I believe God speaks to us when we name our children. As I told the doctors that night in the Shands emergency room, she was named after Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true at least, there is life and joy.” Joy was soon to follow, but not in the way I expected.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Story From “Children of Dreams” Featured on Animal Planet

2010-08-23T09:08:00.000-04:00

The Animal Planet show Monsters Inside Me will feature the story of Manisha, one of the children author Lorilyn Roberts adopted and chronicles in her book Children of Dreams. Episode 210, “Shape Shifters,” will air on August 25, Wednesday, 10-11pm EST.

Manisha, a little girl from Nepal, seizes while watching an ice-show. Her distraught mother, Lorilyn, rushes her to the emergency room, marking the beginning of their long journey to find out what is making Manisha sick.

The doctors speculate Manisha could be suffering from a tapeworm infection of the nervous system. In Manisha’s case, the larvae could have traveled to her brain, causing seizures. However, doctors cannot make a definitive diagnosis if she has a tapeworm infection or if something more deadly is making her sick—a brain tumor.

Being more than a story of adoption, Children of Dreams tells of God’s redemptive love, His everlasting faithfulness, and His healing power in the most difficult of circumstances.

Having been adopted as a child, Lorilyn comes full circle in her adoption journey. She allows the reader a peek into her own life through adoption by her earthly father, her daughters, and what it means to be adopted by the Heavenly Father.

Lorilyn is available for interviews related to Monsters Inside Me, with a message to equip parents in preventing the medical risks of international adoption. Also available for other interview themes, as found in her book Children of Dreams, including single parenting and homeschooling. Contact Lorilyn through her website or at http://www.llhroberts@yahoo.com.

Children of Dreams by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 20,, Part 1

2010-08-20T06:00:00.027-04:00

Chapter Twenty, Part 1

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted

Matthew 5:4

One evening Manisha felt insecure so I told her she could sleep in my room on a spare cot. The next morning I was awakened by a shrill, scratching noise and asked her to stop because the noise was bothering me. She continued scratching.

A little annoyed, I woke up and said it louder, and as I did so, I glanced over to make sure she heard me. To my dismay I could see she was staring off into space with one arm draped off the side of the cot, her fingernails scratching my dresser as she breathed. I screamed in horror, “No!”

I jumped out of bed and scooped her up in my arms, as she sleepily came to. Half carrying her and half helping her to walk, I managed to scoot her over far enough in the front seat of my red Firebird to shut the door, and drove as quickly as I could to the hospital ignoring red lights and speed limits.

By the time we arrived at the emergency room, she woke up but was disoriented, not knowing where she was or what had happened. We went through another several hours of waiting until they could get to us.

After checking her Tegretol level, they discovered it was a little low. Her pediatric neurologist also wanted to do another MRI just to be sure nothing else was going on.

I was reluctant to do the MRI because it meant we would have to postpone the trip to Vietnam, but I also knew I had to do the right thing for Manisha. I cringed as I remembered the deadline looming of December 31 when the Vietnamese dossier would expire. If I did not go and complete the adoption by the end of the year, I would have to start all over. The documents were not something that could be done quickly or inexpensively. It meant I would never make it to Vietnam.

The trip was put on hold and another MRI was scheduled. The “...repeat MRI showed that the lesion had virtually disappeared, the enhancement was absent, but the edema had returned to the level of November, 1998.” This prompted Dr. Carney to want to do a biopsy.5 The only part that mattered to me was that they wanted to do surgery. I called my mother in a panic and told her what the doctors had told me.

Once again I contacted Dr. Hostetter to get her opinion, considering the pending trip to Vietnam. I was worried about Manisha and hated the thought she had swelling on her brain. There was still the possibility she could have a brain tumor. I couldn't bear to leave her behind while I traveled to Vietnam knowing things weren't right, but I couldn't risk taking her with me. I wasn't sure I wanted to adopt a second daughter if Manisha were ill. It's stressful enough to adopt a child. The bottom line was: I wouldn't do the adoption unless Manisha was okay. I wasn't sure what “okay” meant.

I also didn't know what was going to happen with Y2K. Naysayers were predicting doomsday. All I knew was that I wanted to be back to the U.S. before January 1 came around in case the computers that kept the planes from falling out of the sky froze. I didn't want to be stranded in Vietnam.

I Fed Ex'd Manisha's latest MRIs to Yale along with the original ones done a year ago, and in October, I shared with Dr. Hostetter all my concerns. She was warm and receptive in trying to help in any way she could. She made herself available on weekends and at night to talk over things and review Manisha's case in as expeditious a manner as possible.

Dr. Carney, who had recently taken over as Manisha's pediatric neurologist, was helpful in providing all the medical information needed. An accurate timeline of events was required for the consults Dr. Hostetter had called in for the workup of Manisha’s case.

I also offered to bring Manisha to Yale. She thought it would be helpful to examine Manisha personally and we scheduled a trip to New Haven, Connecticut, on November 16, 1999. Dr. Hostetter had arranged Dr. Sze, Dr. Cappello, Dr. Otez, and Dr. Baltimore, all experts in infectious disease and neurocysticercosis in childhood, to be available as consultants from November 16 through November 21.

We booked our plane tickets and I prayed God would do the impossible. I didn't know what that was. I could see no way for everything to work out. I wanted Manisha to be well and I thought God had called me to adopt another child. It didn't seem that either one was possible, at least not before Y2K, January 1, 2000.

Many years ago when my ex-husband was doing his residency in radiation oncology, I had been a volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House. I was told there was a House near the hospital so I made reservations. I never imagined that I would need to stay in one. The Ronald McDonald House was under renovation so they put us up in a hotel. The blessings I had given years earlier to so many families I was now to receive ten-fold in return.

My mother offered to fly up also and planned to meet us at the airport. Shortly before we left, the elders and pastor of my church laid hands on Manisha for healing and I prayed for a miracle.

We left early in the morning and arrived at the New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, around 9:00 p.m. An hour later, a whole entourage of students and medical faculty walked in, following Dr. Hostetter on her “rounds,” as she came to meet and talk with us about what would happen over the next few days. There were many tests she had scheduled. The most important was another MRI with CNS imaging, including thin cuts of the area. I was thankful to have my mother with me for emotional support.

Manisha was a trooper undergoing some complicated and at times painful tests, but the big one was the MRI. I accompanied her as they wheeled her downstairs. She did not need to be medicated, which enabled the test to be done more quickly. The MRI machine was built differently from the one at Shands. The tube was much narrower. After she had been inside the tube for a couple of minutes, she became claustrophobic and scared. Because of the thin cuts, it took longer.

I prayed as I stood outside the clanging machine, clasping her foot that protruded from the enclosure, “Dear, God, please get her through this test without moving.” If time could be measured, it would have been called “The Longest Minute.”

The banging mercifully stopped and the scan was done. The nurse rolled her out of the MRI and I hugged her as she cried in my arms.

“Thank you, Lord,” I spoke softly in my heart, “for helping us to get through this.”

All the tests were done within two days so the third day was a long day of waiting. The doctors needed time to go through the results and examine the MRI. I knew I had done all I could. I had to leave it with God...

There is an old poem written by an unknown author [Ane: the author is Robert J. Burdette] called “Broken Dreams.” It goes like this:

As children bring

Their broken toys

With tears for us to mend,

I brought my broken dreams to God

Because He was my Friend.

But then instead Of leaving Him

In peace to work alone,

I hung around

And tried to help

With ways That were my own.

At last I snatched them back

And cried, “How can You be so slow”

“My child,” He said,

“What could I do?

You never did let go.”

To read more or see photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 19

2010-08-13T06:00:00.002-04:00

Chapter Nineteen

There are many plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails

Proverbs 19:21

Winter passed into spring and I worked hard homeschooling Manisha around my captioning schedule. The Prednisone course was tapered and stopped the first week of March. On March 29 a follow-up MRI was done that showed “significantly decreased size of a previously seen enhancing scan right frontopolar region lesion as well as significantly decreased surrounding edema,” according to Ronald G. Quisling, M.D., of Shands.

Easter arrived two days later after I received the results. I praised God and thanked Him for His healing. From all appearances, it was neurocysticercosis. The second course of Albendazole had worked.

I had Manisha privately tested by her first grade teacher upon completing the second grade homeschooled, and Mrs. Adams was impressed with Manisha’s academic progress. She jumped by two grade levels in both math and reading and was on grade level going into the third grade. I felt like we had gotten over the hump, and I was ready for my second daughter to join our family.

In May I took Manisha camping at the Manatee Springs State Park for a one-night camp-out. It had been a long time since we had fun together. I packed our camping gear and bought food to cook tacos on our outdoor Coleman stove.

Manatee Springs is about an hour’s drive from Gainesville to Chiefland. When we arrived, I wanted to set the tent up before we headed for a swim in the cold 72-degree freshwater spring. I was worried that I had forgotten how and didn’t want to be thinking about it as we swam.

I laid out the four corners of the tent several times with no success. As I was getting more and more frustrated with my ineptness, a red shoulder hawk sat on a perch a few feet away and watched. Normally hawks don’t want anything to do with humans, but this one took a special interest in my activity. Maybe we were close to his nest. Maybe he was comparing me to all the other intelligent campers who knew how to put up a tent, or maybe God was reminding me “...the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous” (I Peter 3:12).

I will never know, but his piercing eyes made me feel like I was being watched. I kept my cool and eventually the tent was all in one piece. As soon as it stood tall, the red shoulder hawk flew away and I never saw him again.

A few weeks into the summer, we hosted a Japanese student who came and lived with us. We drove to Crescent Beach so Rika could experience the Atlantic Ocean. We made sand castles, jumped salty waves, and bought ice cream which melted in the hot July sun. Rika introduced us to Sushi and spoiled me with her unselfish babysitting of Manisha. When it came time for her to return to Japan, we mourned as if we had always been together.

On a whim Manisha and I went to an exotic animal show and came home with a Jack Russell puppy. After nearly a year, things were returning back to what was “normal” chaotic living for us, where I was always doing at least one too many things. In the back of my mind, however, I was antsy about my little girl who sat in a Vietnamese orphanage waiting on paperwork. Over a year had passed and nothing had been done.

One afternoon I received an unexpected letter from the adoption agency. The agency was informed a couple of months earlier by Anne, the Vietnamese facilitator, that I had to start paying $250 per month in orphanage fees. The adoption agency had paid it for two months and now they were passing the cost on to me. I was livid. It seemed like Anne was asking for money to keep Thi My-Sa in the orphanage when her job was to get my referral out of the orphanage.

I wondered if Anne was doing all she could to process the paperwork or if there was something else going on. I also knew the adoption agency was no longer working with her on adoptions and had hired a new facilitator. Because I had already paid the total fee, I couldn’t switch to the new one unless I wanted to pay another six thousand dollars, which I didn’t have. A year had gone by and nothing had happened on the documentation.

By this time my I-600 Petition was on the verge of expiring and my home study had expired. I went to my church and asked some of the elders to pray. I could renege on the adoption and ask for another referral, but I was worried about what would happen to Thi My-Sa. She might spend the rest of her life in an orphanage. If I renewed my I-600 Petition and paid $250 a month for her care in the orphanage, what motivation would Anne have to make sure the officials ever processed her documents?

After much prayer, I asked the adoption agency for a new referral. I began the laborious process of redoing my I-600 Petition and updating my home study. I came close to giving up, but I still felt like God had given me the dream of a second child.

One last time I resubmitted all the documents. I went directly to the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Jacksonville to have my fingerprints redone. I was able to do the process quickly and complete it by the end of the summer.

It had been over two years since I had started the Vietnamese adoption. I received a new referral shortly after the documents were resubmitted. The referral was for a three and a half year old. Her Vietnamese name was Nguyen Thi My- Duyen,4 and she was born on July 15, 1996. I was excited to have another referral so quickly but mentally it would take a while for my emotions to follow.

A picture via the Internet shortly arrived on my computer. The Vietnamese girl was dressed up like someone had taken the time to make her appear like a “little Vietnamese doll.” I accepted the referral and began to talk with Manisha about another new baby sister. After so much time had passed, I was not sure she believed me. I was also leery about getting my hopes up. I had to trust God that this was the child He wanted me to have. In my heart I was still thinking about the little girl I had prayed for over a year.

September 18th came and went, marking the one-year anniversary of The Wizard of Oz on Ice and the fifth year since my dad's departing. Plans for me to go to Vietnam progressed quickly. The Vietnamese officials in charge of adoptions set my date for the “Giving and Receiving” Ceremony, and Kim’s World Travel in Denver, Colorado, purchased my plane ticket for me to travel in the middle of October.

The Murphys agreed to take care of Manisha while I was gone. I could picture them over the holidays baking cookies and enjoying other things that I neither had the time to do nor talent for. I encouraged Sylvia to do as much homeschooling as Manisha wanted to do (which probably wouldn’t be much), but I figured we could catch it up when I returned. Although I hated to leave Manisha behind, I didn’t feel comfortable taking her with me. I was fearful of her having a seizure either on the plane or in a third-world country where the medical care was suspect.

It seemed as if everything was falling into place until something happened.

To read more or view photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Lorilyn's daughter's story will be featured on Animal Planet's show "Monsters Inside Me" on Wednesday August 25, 10-11pm EST. The episode number is 210, Shape Shifters

To celebrate her incredibly inspirational adoption and healing from a devastating illness, Lorilyn is offering a free copy of Children of Dreams on each of her websites from now until the end of August. All you have to do is leave a comment on the devotional, "Many Lessons for a Life Worth Living," on her website or blog to be entered into a drawing for a signed hard copy of her book. If you go to both websites and enter a comment in both places, your name will be entered twice.

The drawing is on September 1st.

Every Life Has a Story

2010-08-07T15:40:00.001-04:00

I meet every couple of weeks with a small group of writers. We meet at a Chik-Fil-A. This is one of the reasons we chose to meet there.

Children of Dreams by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 18

2010-07-30T09:00:00.000-04:00

Chapter Eighteen

I will search for the lost

Ezekiel 34:16

Before my mother remarried, she wanted to give Gene, her new husband-to-be, a special gift as a token of her love, but Mother was never known for her creativity. Even a mockingbird would have had a hard time imitating her off-key singing. A poetic piece about her Prince Charming would have been a comedy at best. A delectably good steak she prepared one night had Gene reaching for the Band-Aids because it was so red.

“Let’s put a Band-Aid on this cow and we can get him on the road again,” he said. Her lack of depth perception in avoiding cars in parking lots removed all doubt of any kind of ability to draw a three-dimensional romantic picture.

My mother wasn't blessed with a lot of originality, but there was one thing she could do well. She could knit. One day Mother arrived home with her knitting needles and bundles of yarn in an assortment of colors—reds, browns, yellows and blues, with two well-used brown soles.

“What are you going to do with that?” I asked her.

“I am going to knit a special present to give to Gene on our wedding day,” she said.

Night after night I watched her work tirelessly with the long blue needles moving back and forth. Slowly a beautiful geometric shape of white and yellow diamonds emerged framed by several inches of dark brown stitches that tapered to the bottom part of the top of the slipper. When the slippers were almost complete, she attached the soles with strong black stitches so the slippers would never tear or come apart.

After weeks of knitting, a beautiful pair of hand-made slippers emerged. Sewn in love and given to Gene on their wedding day, the slippers never lost their specialness. One summer day a couple of years after my mother and father had married the next door neighbor's dog was seen carrying one of the slippers off into the woods. Much effort was made to find the slipper the neighbor dog had stolen. A local Boy Scout troop scoured the woods with us looking for it. A week past and despite all of our best efforts, the slipper wasn’t found. We continued to look for it the rest of the summer but it never turned up.

The hot humid nights of summer came and went. The winds of autumn blew brightly-colored orange and yellow leaves off the trees leaving them naked and exposed. Winter rolled in and the woods around our house were silent, gray, and cold. Snow blanketed the frozen landscape like white ivory pearls and the lost slipper was forgotten.

Spring arrived once again and the harsh, gray winter receded as signs of life brought renewal. The woods around our house, adorned in the spectacular beauty of layers of white-blooming dogwoods, meant hot summer days would soon follow. The whippoorwill would once again serenade us as we caught lightening bugs in peanut butter jars.

One summer evening was different from all the rest. As we relaxed on the porch in the coolness of the day, we caught a glimpse of Gypsy as she ran out of the woods. At first we didn't notice anything unusual, but as she got closer and slowed to a trot, we could see her carrying something. It was brown with diamond geometric designs. Gypsy strode up with her head held high and plopped down the long lost slipper in front of Dad as if to say, “This belongs to you. It was stolen by a thief, but I found it and am restoring it to you.”

We stared in disbelief as the slipper lay at Dad’s feet after being buried under dirt and snow for a year in the woods. We never knew where she found it, but that was Gypsy. She had quite a reputation for doing the impossible.

As Dad’s wedding slipper was carried off by a marauding dog, so I found myself being swept away by fear and separated from God.

...even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalms 23:4).

Once I was willing to trust God in everything, I had peace. It did, still does, and always will require a daily refilling of God’s Spirit through reading my Bible, prayer, and fellowship with God and other believers. Dad passed away in 1994 and Mother gave me the slippers. For the last fourteen years I have kept them in the top of my closet. Every once in a while I will bring them down to look at them. They help me remember not only about the lost slipper, but how God restored that which was lost.

To read more and see photos, go to Lorilyn's website.

Children of Dreams by Lorilyn Roberts, Chapter 17-Part 3

2010-07-23T09:00:00.000-04:00

Children of Dreams

Chapter 17, part 3

2 Corinthians 1:4

One night Sylvia came by to drop off my mail. In the mail were more pictures of our referral from Vietnam. I opened it up with mixed feelings. I hope I am not replacing Manisha with this baby if she dies, I thought. It disturbed me. My feelings were as raw as a piece of uncooked meat. I knew God was in control but I had not surrendered my anxieties to the Great Physician and Healer.

Using the protocol that Jim and I found on the Internet, the doctors started Manisha on Albendazole treatment and waited along with us for the results of the MRI. Surgery for the time being was cancelled. God had answered my first prayer!

The MRI results came back as inconclusive. The doctors discharged Manisha and asked me to bring her back in a month for a CAT scan with contrast.

Happy to be discharged, the real battle had just begun. Joyce Meyer wrote a book called Battlefield of the Mind. The image in the title says it all as I was battling dragons and fears that stole every ounce of joy from my life. I was terrified of another seizure. Insecurity as a single mother sapped all my energy for living and made life overwhelming. The Prednisone Manisha took to reduce swelling created a feeling of isolation because it lowered her resistance to illness and we went through several bouts of unexplained fevers. Fevers increase the risk of seizures.

I was fearful for her to be around other kids that she might catch something. The Depakote they gave her for seizure control made her sleep all the time and she was difficult to arouse. The doctors switched her to Tegretol. Tegretol can cause liver damage so she had to have routine blood testing. I was afraid she would be one of the few to have a serious reaction.

By far the hardest thing to give to God was the “not knowing.” Were we giving Manisha the right treatment? If she had a brain tumor, by not doing surgery or giving her chemo, was it growing and could she mentally become like my dad? One morning when we were in the hospital, the chief resident in neurology gave me his opinion of what she had. He called it stage two astrocytoma. I dismissed it thinking what does he know? Not even the attendings would say, but it still upset me.

Well-meaning friends came to me in the next few weeks and remarked, “I didn't even recognize Manisha. She looks so different.”

The comments hurt. One night we went to church and some of the kids were smirking and talking in whispers about her appearance. I was worried that Manisha would overhear and be too embarrassed to go back to church. I snuck up behind every one of them and whispered that it was because of the medicine she was taking and not to talk about it.

One evening I dropped Manisha off at church for the Sunday evening service and drove to my prayer group that was meeting in someone’s home. I received a call a few minutes later that Manisha laid her head on the desk and fell asleep. I was worried she had a seizure. Could the tumor (if that’s what it was) be growing? Every time she had a headache it sent me into a tailspin. The doctors finally told me it was okay for Manisha to have headaches.

Every little thing made me worry. If she was hyperactive on a particular day, I wondered if there was increased pressure in her brain and if it could cause brain damage. I was afraid to let her out of my sight in case something happened. Suppose she went swimming with some friends and had a seizure? Manisha’s seizures were not petit mal seizures; they were long and protracted, partial complex seizures, requiring immediate care.

The steroids made her mean and difficult to parent. I didn’t want to discipline her when she was already going through so much—with all the IVs, multiple blood draws, the long hospitalization, and the change in her appearance—how could I? And what if she died? I didn’t want to remember disciplining her.

One afternoon we went for a walk and Manisha rode her bike. As we headed back to the house her breathing was labored. We paused to give her a chance to catch her breath. I worried that her weight gain was putting too much stress on her heart. She developed asthma-like symptoms and I contacted a pulmonologist to have her checked. We returned to Shands for a full pulmonary workup. It eventually went away on its own.

One night we were sitting in the pew at church and I glanced down at her and noticed a bulge on her neck. I panicked and quickly took her to the restroom. I massaged her neck and found a swollen lymph node. Two things came to mind—cat scratch fever or cancer. Our cat gave her a good scratch a couple of weeks earlier. I hoped that was all it was.

We made several trips to the doctor until it was finally decided we didn’t need to biopsy it. I worried over it for too long. Manisha would kink her neck in rebellion every time I wanted to check it.

One weekend I had the grand idea to spend a couple of nights at the beach on a campout. I bought all sorts of treats and goodies and stacked them up in the living room.

The next morning Manisha woke me up. “My neck hurts,” she said. I took her temperature and she had a fever. I quickly dressed her and took her to the emergency room fearing she had meningitis. She didn’t; so much for a weekend camp-out. Many fun activities were sabotaged. I gave up trying to have any.

My fear paralyzed me and depression consumed me. My emotional state made me feel like a failure as a Christian. Prayer and reading the Bible were both difficult. There was no joy in either and my guilt over it compounded my feelings of isolation and defeatism. I resigned myself to being a joyless Christian and hoped no one knew how I felt deep down inside.

There was only one verse out of the Bible that quieted my anxious spirit. I would say it over and over to myself. It was the only verse that gave me peace. “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you” (I Peter 5:7).

A month later we returned to Shands for the CAT scan with contrast. It showed a good result so the doctors felt like we were on the right track.

However, in November, Manisha woke up one morning with a sore throat and began running a fever. I took her to her pediatrician. The nurse took a swab for strep throat and left the room, leaving us for a few minutes. As we were waiting, Manisha had a seizure. I ran out of the room in a panic yelling for her doctor to come quickly. He hurried in and Manisha acted fine, but I knew she had one. He didn't believe me.

He performed a couple of breath-holding tests to see if she would have another one. She didn't. He left the room again to check the results of the throat test. Manisha seized again. I ran out and yelled for him to come. He walked back in and saw it for himself.

The nurse called Shands to consult with her pediatric neurologist. Dr. Kohrman wanted Manisha admitted back into the hospital for observation. The nurse got an ambulance and we rushed her to Shands.

This time Manisha was admitted to the pediatric floor and was in a room with three other children. I spent the night down the hall attempting to sleep on some chairs in the waiting area. All night I recited every Bible verse I could remember from memory. My anxious heart deprived me of sleep. The following day it was discovered her Tegretol level was too low.

“We need to double her dosage,” the doctor told me, “and we will recheck her level in a month.”

Her doctor also recommended another MRI to see how things looked. After a one-night stay in the hospital, Shands discharged Manisha with a return date the following week for another MRI.

The results of the MRI were devastating.

“No change, no change,” replayed in my mind all the way home from the hospital. The doctors began questioning the diagnosis.

Manisha was placed back on a second course of Prednisone to last for four months. A second course of Albendazole was started.

The scientific literature stated for the Albendazole to be most effective, it had to be taken with fatty foods. I went to the grocery store and bought several containers of whipping cream and gave it to her three times a day with hot chocolate. I cringed because I was giving her so much fat when she had already gained over ten pounds, but because the first treatment of Albendazole had been ineffective without the fatty foods, I wanted to make sure this time it worked. I was still clinging to the hope that she had neurocysticercosis and not a brain tumor.

The next MRI wasn't scheduled until March and five long months followed October. Feeling isolated from the rest of the world physically, emotionally, and mentally, we continued with homeschooling. Nothing had happened on the adoption referral I received in August for Thi My-Sa as she waited in an orphanage. I wondered with all of Manisha's medical problems if I had made a terrible mistake. Even if things had been moving along, I didn't see how I could go to Vietnam to get her.

Emotionally I struggled. Trusting God, homeschooling, ongoing medical issues, the uncertainty of the diagnosis, and fear about whether I should continue with the adoption left me feeling overwhelmed.

In the back of my mind were financial worries. The Vietnamese adoption was a stretch. With all that had happened, I wasn’t able to work as much. The bills were coming in from her nine days in the hospital, and it was time consuming to make sure every bill was accurate and my insurance paid the correct amount.

One afternoon it was raining outside and I was particularly down. I got a chair and scooted under the eve of the house and sat for several minutes watching the rain fall gently on the deck and flowers in the back yard. It was a peaceful rain and the air smelled misty. It had been a long time since I had taken a few moments to relax and have a conversation with God.

I told God how depressed I was, how uncertain I was about the future, and how worried I was about Manisha. I was tired of doctor's appointments, medicines, fevers, isolation, and homeschooling a cantankerous child on steroids. I wanted Him to end my pain and make it all go away. I knew that wasn't going to happen, but it made a difference to tell God how I felt.

Little by little God didn't take away my pain, but he helped me to realize that I had to trust Him for Manisha, I had to trust Him about the second adoption, and I had to trust Him for my finances. I had to be content in my situation. I Timothy 6:6 tell us “... godliness with contentment is great gain.” I had forgotten what that was like.

So much of my worry was about me. I didn't want to be alone again. After being abandoned by my father and husband, I didn't want God to take my child from me. Could I still love God regardless of the outcome or would I abandon Him, my first love?

After Jesus' feeding of the five thousand, many disciples turned away from Him because they could not accept the costs associated with being His follower.

“You do not want to leave me, too, do you?” Jesus asked the twelve. Simon Peter answered him. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the holy one of God” (John 6:67-69).

When my husband left me in 1985, I pleaded desperately for God to save my marriage. “I can’t live without him,” I cried out to Him. “I will do anything You want if You will just bring him back to me.”

I lost all respect for myself and the dignity that God bestowed on me because I was created in His image.

To give that much power to someone or something is to make an idol out of it. Whether I consciously realized it or not, I had to choose who or what I loved the most. To choose anything besides God is to be deceived by the “Father of Lies” who promises happiness but delivers death.

I couldn't bargain with God. I had no rights. “The wages of sin is death...” Romans 6:23 tells us. My lack of trust in God made me feel like death had already ensnared my life because hopelessness and despair became a living hell. My joy was gone. My life was like a gymnast on a balance beam precariously in limbo of falling. If God was the beam, I had to focus my eyes on Him and keep my eyes on the beam the whole time.

A great cloud of witnesses was watching. My life was a testimony, perhaps the only testimony that some would ever see. A few nights later, after a quiet time with God, I released my greatest fear to Him.

“Dear Lord,” I cried, “No matter what you choose to do with Manisha, I will love You and trust You in my pain.”

Nothing extraordinary on the outside changed, but in my heart God had work to do. He had to claim back territory that I had given over to the enemy.

Jesus told John in the Book of Revelations to write to the Church in Philadelphia, “I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”

To illustrate this in another way, I must tell an old family story.

To read more and see photos, go to Lorilyn's website.