Posted July 11, 2001
And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Mat 18:3-4 NIV) Rose.
My wife, Beth, and I had talked about adoption
for a few years. We believe we have so much to offer, and that adoption would
be a way for us to be used by God. We have three daughters: Elise (now 6),
Carrie (5), and Allison (3), and we thought this was the best time for us
to make it happen, if we wanted a young child to fit in with the other kids'
ages. We started the process with adoption classes in November 1999 along
with our friend Patty Kellet, a true hero in our book. Traveling to China was quite an adventure. On Thursday, April 19, we left home to drive our three girls up to Beth's parents for the two weeks we would be gone. The next morning, we kissed the girls good-bye on a cold rainy day at the Toledo airport. We could see the kids standing in the terminal, nothing but doubts popped into our heads. Why are we doing this? Are we crazy? Just then, our friendly Northwest stewardess came on the speaker to greet us, and her name was Rose. We were quickly reminded of our new daughter thousands of miles away, and decided to trust that God would take care of our other three girls. After a short hop to Detroit, we flew directly from Detroit to Beijing, landing there on Saturday April 21st, in the afternoon. We knew we would have a guide to greet us, but we did not know who it would be. When we did find her, we greeted, and her name was Rose too. We thought this was another sign from God that He was in complete control of our situation. Big Rose, as she became known to us, stayed with us for the next eight days, and was our translator and guide through the paperwork system in China. On Sunday night, Big Rose, Beth, and I flew to the capital city of the Shanxi province, Taiyuan. We would meet baby Rose the next morning. We met another guide in Taiyuan. She had a long Chinese name that I could not pronounce, so she shorted it to "Me." Me took us to "best hotel in the province," and was our tour guide in the city of Taiyuan. On Monday, April 23, 2001, we drove to the civil affairs building in Taiyuan. It was there that we met baby Rose. We spent that day filling out paperwork and applying for Rose's Chinese passport. The people who took care of Rose nicknamed her Li-Li. Since we chose Li as her middle name without knowing about the nickname, again it became obvious to us that God had planned for this child to be a part of our lives. After completing a little more paperwork on Tuesday morning, we spent the rest of the week sightseeing in Taiyuan. We picked up Rose's passport on Friday and prepared for the journey to Guangzhou the next day to finish the U.S. part of the paperwork and meet with the people at the U.S. Consulate. That first week had some challenges in it: Rose had a hard time with us at first and was frightened that we didn't speak Chinese. We found out that she had been taken care of by foster parents (really grandparents as they were in their 70s) who worked at the orphanage. It was obvious, by how much she missed them, that she was very loved. Although we would never go to meet them, or see where she had lived (that was in another city five hours away), we could easily see that she was well taken care of and had been loved very much. On Saturday, we journeyed to Guangzhou. There we met Jophy, our guide for this part of the trip, who also works for Hope for Children. She helped us complete Rose's health check-up and finish up some other paperwork before going to the U.S. Consulate on Monday morning. Overall, we had a great time in Guangzhou. By Wednesday however, we were ready to go home. That night we flew back to Beijing to spend the night. Rose, our original guide, met us there again, and she accompanied us to the airport the next morning, on Thursday, May 3rd. Rose is a very friendly and affectionate child, she made friends with about 25 people during our flight back to Detroit. Both Chinese and American people thought she was very cute. It was a 12 ½ hour trip, Rose slept about 2 of those. It was not the most pleasant of experiences, but the thought of arriving back in Detroit, where Beth's parents and Elise, Carrie, and Allison were waiting, made it okay.
The girls and Beth's parents were waiting for us right outside the customs area as we deplaned in Detroit. When I first saw them, we couldn't help but smile. It was so good to be home again and to begin the bonding process of our family. Elise, Carrie and Allison had flowers for us all. Carrie exclaimed, "Is that Rose? She's so cute!" The emotions flowed for all of us as our family was finally together again. Beth and I had talked and prayed with our girls for months about our new baby from China. She was finally here, the beginning of a lifetime of adventure to come. We feel truly fortunate to be able to adopt Rose. God has blessed us tremendously and we believe it has always been His plan to have her in our family. When she runs across the lawn to greet us with a big hug and smile, we know how special we are and that every child in the world deserves to have a family.
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