It all started with the cover of a New York Times Sunday magazine in the late 1990s. Patty noticed a picture of a little Chinese girl on the cover, and read the article about China’s one-child policy and the growing number of orphans. That little girls’ image is still fresh in my memory. Patty showed it to me and told that she would like to adopt. I was struck by this and commented that, maybe one day after we were done raising our three biological children. Well, not long after that Patty became very ill and we soon realized that we would probably never be able to conceive children again. The struggle of dealing with a serious illness can be exhausting as a family wrestles with medical exam and doctor visits, more tests and waiting for results and, of course, bills. At the same time, you work hard to maintain a normal life for your children and we experienced this fully. In Patty’s heart, though, her greatest sadness was that she might not every be able to conceive another child. She talked with me about and prayed a lot as to what to do. Of course, her interest in adoption never waned and we discussed it from time to time. I won a promotion at work and we moved to Philadelphia where we were blessed by a strong group of friends and found an extraordinary doctor at the University of Pennsylvania. About a year later, I returned from work one day, and Patty simply told me to “freshen up”. We were going to an adoption seminar in Center City. The seminar was very well done and the speakers presented us a sweeping overview of the wide variety of adoptions couples could pursue. They presented us with the many countries involved in international adoptions along with domestic ones. It did not take me long to realize that my wife’s prompting of a few years back was now starting to blossom in my heart. I wrote two words on a piece of paper and quietly pushed the note to her. Those words? “China or Vietnam”. Patty smiled and circled “China”. We did not pay attention after as we were now anxious to get on with our decision. As soon as the talk was over we drove to Jim’s Steaks on 4th and South, ordered ourselves a couple of cheesesteaks and decided to name our next daughter Julia Rose.
Over the next few days, weeks and months we worked hard to select a good agency and process the paperwork as it poured in. We had started the process in the summer and, as Christmas approached, we started to worry about funds. The process stalled. In addition to that, we had the added responsibility of caring for a sick aunt of mine whom I convinced to move from Virginia so that we could help her in her final years. I was feeling overwhelmed and Patty patiently waited while we tried to figure it out. I knew she was disappointed. Right before Christmas, I decided that I needed to step up and take a risk for my wife and for the daughter we wanted to bring into our family. So, I secretly applied for a $20,000 loan without telling Patty. On Christmas Eve, I gave her a big box of fortune cookies and painted one red and green. Inside was a note announcing that we had the money. The restaurant owner even helped me by writing the note in Mandarin. Patty was ecstatic and I was so happy and confident because I knew we were operating within God’s Will. I knew he would help us somehow. In a strange twist of events, soon after the New Year, my aunt’s health took a turn for the worse and she passed away on January 15. In her trust, she had left me an inheritance that was more than ample for us to pay back the loan and even tuck away some savings!
Adoption had been a part of our family life for the past twenty years after Patty saw that little girls on the magazine. We are so blessed to have three biological daughters (Gemma 26, Grace 24, Kristia 21) and two adopted daughters (Julia 17, Anneliese 15) as we await little Zhou Gong Ru in China. We always tell people that once you open yourself up to adoption miracles happen all around you. For example, on our tenth wedding anniversary August 10, 2000, as we were awaiting our first adoption referral, we along with our three daughters, went to church, and our priest presided over a renewal of our marriage vows. The following summer, our referral call came for a little girl named Fu Jie Shan, our Julia. We were absolutely thrilled and excitedly asked when she was born. The agency told us August 10, 2000 and I gasped, “Are you sure? Can you check to be sure?” The same day we had renewed our wedding vows in Pennsylvania, our fourth daughter was born in a city called SanShui in the Guangdong Province of China! Now, that day is like a festival in our home.
In July, I traveled to China with my sister to bring home Julia Rose – who is now a 17-year-old beautiful young lady. Patty and I decided it would be best for her to stay home since we had three young children. I often tell people that “Julie” saved our family with her sense of belonging and deep attachment to all of us since the day I first met her. She and I were inseparable. She was always in my arms and even when she slept, I had to hold her hand through the bars of her little crib while we both slept. During this trip, we were allowed to visit her orphanage. While there I met a little four-year-old girl that followed me everywhere with a sad, sad face. I was struck deeply by my new little friend and kept mentioning the experience of meeting her in my e-mails to Patty. Not long after I returned home and Julia was safe in our home, Patty told me that she knew I wanted to go back to China and adopt that sweet toddler still in the Sanshui orphanage. Without delay, Patty and I started the process to try to bring her home. I remember telling Patty “Now that I know she is there how can I not try to bring her home.” Adoption was not just a concept now. It was an encounter with a person!
The paperwork and effort put forth to attempt to adopt a specific person in China was very arduous and our agency, Living Hope jumped into the task with courage, confidence and high enthusiasm. We were driven by this mission and filled with energy and excitement. During the wait, we gave our little Fu Jia Yin the name Anneliese (we always keep our daughters Chinese name as middle names). Patty was becoming an expert on international adoptions and was helping quite few couples sort through the process. One night during our wait, Patty received an email out of the blue from a lady in Michigan inquiring about the orphanage where our Julia was from. She told us that she received a referral of a four year old girl and was traveling to China to adopt her soon. As I read the email I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Could this referral be the little girl with the sad face that had followed me around and stole my heart? The same little girl we thought was our daughter and whom named Anneliese. We asked the woman if she could send us her referral picture, but never indicated our situation. Each child - until referred - does not belong to anyone. We were told that our initiation of paperwork had caused the Chinese to create a dossier on her and helped her be placed on the adoption list. As much as we loved her, she was not ours….and God had a plan. We waited for the picture to pop onto our screen and when it finally came through it was a picture of that same little girl four-year-old I had met. Under the picture her mom wrote: “Here is a picture of our little Anneliese.” Her mom had chosen the exact same name we had chosen for her and we had never ever communicated that with one another! It was confirmation that she was going where God had intended.
When we told our agency the story, our director who is a Christian pastor told us that two little girls received a family because you said yes to her adoption. Only because he told China that we would adopt her did the orphanage compile her dossier and matched her with the other family who specifically requested a four-year-old. At the prompting of our friend, the director, we made some changes to our paperwork and put in for another child. This time we lifted any specifications and said we would be happy to adopt another baby. In the Fall of 2003, our family travelled to China to meet our own Anneliese, Jin Wan Yi, who is now a lovely 15-year-old lady who brings us extraordinary joy with her happy spirit and her amazing musical gifts. In a beautiful turn of event, we moved to Florida for work during this process and not long after we had Anneliese in our family, we met the other Anneliese and her new family in Disney World. She was no longer carrying that adorable sad face. Now, she was smiling brightly and gave me a great big hug. Just thinking of that moment causes my eyes to moisten. Our own Anneliese is our sweet little buddy and is one of the funniest and most expressive kids we ever met. Another gift from God with unique talents that cause us wonder. Because of her musical gifts, our other daughters took up guitar and we love to sing together in our home.
Our heart has always been drawn to children. It is our life’s joy and mission to bring children into our home and help form them into responsible young Christian ladies. We have been drawn to China especially since we already have two Chinese daughters. Since our first adoption we have been aware of the many children with special needs that need families. Over the years, we continually received lists of children with special needs and have been encouraged by countless people who have opened their hearts and homes to these children. We considered quite a few other countries and for one reason or another, did not pursue them. I was the most apprehensive and Patty gently prayed and waited for me. Last year, she showed me the picture of yet another little Chinese girl and asked me what I thought. I asked if her if I could pray about it. She later told me that she was very encouraged and surprised by my initial response. A few weeks passed with little discussion and I was driving home on Christmas Eve when I suddenly thought to myself, “Yes!”. Driving the car that Christmas Eve, I was hit by such clarity that I knew we were going to do it.
I came to find out that my “Yes” that day brought with it many unexpected hurdles, detours, and rough terrain. It was not the easy road I envisioned, and it required a hearty positive outlook and a resilient and fighting spirit. Patty and I view Zhou Gong Ru as our daughter and, as we would if any of our other children were away from home, we pursued this without regard for money or any obstacles.
Well, those obstacles arrived not long after we started. We began this adoption last January 2017 and after much prayer submitted our Letter of Intent to Adopt. Our pre-approval was received a few weeks later and we began our homestudy. In February, I lost my job and worked tirelessly to obtain a new position. It was hard but I was on a mission. The unemployment period lasted longer than I had hoped or anticipated, but we pressed on. We missed some deadlines due to lack of funds but our agency worked closely with us to get extension. Over time, we incurred more costs since we had to do many of the administrative and legal processed more than once. During that time Patty taught swim lessons to children in our community, at first for helping to fund our adoption, but as it turned out to pay the bills through our unemployment period. At the time we had four of our five daughters living with us and each of them helped contribute to the finances during the summer by babysitting and teaching swim lessons. It was a team effort as I looked full time for a good job and they scrimped and saved. We needed a new dryer but still have not bought one because we want to make sure we have the funds along with some savings after the unemployment. Full of gratitude, I began a new and better job in August 2017, and we re-started the homestudy which now required new clearances and new social worker visits. We were able to receive two extensions from China to submit our dossier. Finally in January 2018, our dossier arrived in China. The savings we initially had for the adoption had dwindled to almost nothing since it was necessary for our monthly living expenses. We also incurred a financial setback when it was necessary to withdraw money from our IRA in 2016 to pay tuition for our daughters in college. We are now also paying back the early withdrawal penalty. We are willing to incur more debt even so, because we are committed to our new daughter who is counting on us. We are bouncing back and have re-established some savings while connecting with an excellent financial advisor who helped us put together a long-term plan but we still need help to complete this adoption.
Please allow us to close with a little bit of information about our new soon-to-be daughter. Zhou Gong Ru has Congenital Heart Disease (tetralogy of fallot, cardiac function II degree 2). We are tentatively scheduled to travel to China in April of 2018 and all paperwork is submitted and approved. This adoption journey is nearing its completion we know that God is guiding it. After committing to adopt her we have suffered job loss, financial loss as a result, delays and expired paperwork, but we continue to press on knowing that miracles abound and adoption is not just a process or a mere journey. It is the discovery of and the meeting of a daughter, a sister, a person! We have more love to share and want to give that love to another child. We always try to remember something an experienced adoptive mother once told us: “All these children really need is love and nutrition.” We have the love and we know all about nutrition! Zhou Gong Ru will receive loads of love from her parents, not to mention her five sisters….all who can cook! We are preparing for her by consulting the best heart physicians in our area. We have a top notch pediatric heart care center nearby and a friend who is a physician at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville who has reviewed her case. She will receive the best care available, and this grant would greatly help us to get back on track financially without incurring more debt.
I close with a verse from Scripture which is a source of great encouragement. It is also a verse that we, as a family, have come to understand in a deeper way due to our experience. At a deeper level, the adoption of our daughters shows us that we are adopted into the family of God if only we accept his invitation by grace to be his sons and daughters. Patty and I look at all our daughters now through this beautiful passage:
“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry, ‘Abba, Father!” Romans 8:15
