Journey for Julie: Witnessing God's Glory through Toddler Adoption in China
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ISBN-13: 9781456735746
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Publication Date: 03-25-2011
Pages: 140
Product Dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Soon after Chris and I were married, the subject of children began surfacing rather often. Ever since our childhoods, we had wanted to adopt our children. We both felt that, because there were so many children in need of families, we should provide a home for some of those children. But as we began to look into the adoption process, it all seemed so complicated and overwhelming. While we were still trying to work up the nerve to call an agency—surprise!—I became pregnant. Oh, how my heart filled with joy. Nine months later, the sweetest little bundle entered our lives. Jake was perfect. He was healthy, beautiful, and full of personality. But pregnancy did not agree with me, or with Chris, for that matter. The adoption process did not look so intimidating after childbirth. A couple years went speeding by. Jake's second birthday was fast approaching, and we kept hearing friends and family ask, "When are you having another baby?" God's calling was loud and clear. For just as God has adopted us into His heavenly family ("He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself ..." Ephesians 1:5), we were to adopt one of His children into our family. We researched both domestic and international adoptions. We looked into the United States foster care system. But because foster children often return to their biological parents, we had concerns about bonding with a foster child whom we would perhaps not be able to adopt. We weighed many international programs on the basis of the ages and specific needs of the children available for adoption, wait time, travel times, and cost. After prayerfully considering all of our options, we felt in our hearts that our daughter was waiting for us in China. As soon as we made up our minds to proceed, the devil began to pull our doubts to the surface. We questioned our decision and ourselves. We really didn't think we could afford an international adoption, and we did not want social workers and government officials invading our private lives. Besides, adoptions like this take a long time. I wanted my daughter right then. It was in this time that God first showed us He was in control. Through very generous gifts from our family and friends, we raised enough money to cover two-thirds of the total adoption cost. We also met two families who were adopting from China and who would be there to guide us through the entire process. With such promising providence, we said, "Happy second birthday, Jake. You're getting a sister." Through more prayer and research, we were able to find a Christian adoption agency that had great references and was close to our home. On February 22, 2005, we contacted this agency, and the great paper chase began. I invested in an expandable folder and, over the next year, filled it to maximum capacity with the paperwork that would become our dossier. There were preliminary and formal applications, notes from an orientation meeting, birth certificates, marriage certificates, physicals, tax returns, letters from accountants, letters from employers, financial statements, power of attorney forms, criminal record checks, citizenship and immigration letters, passports, fingerprints, a home study, letters of intent, and pictures of us and our home. At some point during all of this, we decided that our daughter needed a name. We could not keep referring to her as "the baby," so she became Julie and secured herself a place in our hearts. As in any legal process, we encountered holdups and complications. We met with an initial setback when our formal application was confused with that of a family with the same occupation as Chris. Then, we were waiting on approval from our agency, and unbeknownst to us, they were waiting on some more information from us. Additionally, we had delays in scheduling our home study, which took five months instead of one. We even experienced further complications when the notary publics we used all had to have commissions that would not expire for at least three years. Who would have known that notaries with such commissions were not easy to find? In addition to the paperwork delays, we had two eight-hour, round-trip drives to have our fingerprints taken for Homeland Security. Through ten months of work and every headache, I constantly reminded myself that everything would happen in God's time, not mine. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1) Finally, on a cold and rainy December morning, I pulled up to a FedEx store to send our dossier to the China Center for Adoption Affairs (CCAA). My heart pounded. In my mind, that paperwork was Julie. It was all we had that tied us to her, and I did not want to let it—or her—go. What if something happened to it? What if it got lost? Reluctantly, I handed the package to the lady behind the counter. "This is my daughter," I informed her. She smiled kindly and said, "A woman was in a few minutes ago, sending her file to Russia. Where is yours going?" "China. All the way to China," I replied with an exhausted sigh. With those words, I realized I had done all that I could do. I said a silent prayer over the sealed envelope, thanking God for getting us this far and asking Him to deliver the package—our Julie—safe and sound. Then I let it go. On February 22, 2006, our dossier was logged in at the CCAA. It was exactly one year after we had first contacted our agency. Then, the hard part began: the wait. With that, we said, "Happy third birthday, Jake. You're getting a sister someday." In a packet of information we had completed for our agency, one of the forms was a "Medical Needs Questionnaire." It was a list of all the possible medical needs a child could have. We were to complete the form by checking any medical conditions we would be comfortable accepting with our child. We carefully reviewed the list and then decided that we were only interested in a healthy child between birth and twenty-four months of age. Early in the spring of 2006, God placed it on our hearts to reconsider our decision, which would have kept us from ever being united with our Julie. We met some families with special needs children and were moved by the parents' unconditional acceptance and the ease of the children's transitions. We did some research into what the CCAA considered special needs. After some prayer and heart-to-heart discussions, we realized we could meet many of these needs. We felt we would be shutting doors on God if we did not keep our minds and hearts open to all of His children. After all, only He knew who our daughter was. We contacted our social worker and informed her that we wanted to consider any children younger than three years old with minor medical needs. Our agency received a Children of Promise (COP) list every three to four months. The CCAA would send this list of waiting children who had special needs to agencies in hopes of finding families for these harder-to-place children. During that spring and summer, we reviewed two COP lists. It was heart wrenching. We would scan down the lists of these precious children, desperate to find Julie. On receiving each list, we had high hopes as we requested more information and pictures. We studied them, trying to see Julie in the faces of the children, but she was not there. September rolled around, and it was time to redo our fingerprints and begin calculating when other forms would expire. Well-meaning friends asked, "When are you getting Julie?" and "How much longer?" I just wanted to scream, "I DON'T KNOW!" I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do. I had decorated her room as much as possible, considering I knew nothing about her, and all the chocolate in the world didn't help heartache like mine. All we could do was pray. We knew God had it all planned out, but sometimes even that was of little comfort. Our son was as anxious as we were. Jake would say, "I'm ready for Julie to come home," and "You need to go get Julie now." When we were in stores, he would point to girls' clothing and say that Julie would like this or that. He would ask if Julie would have to go sit in the hallway when she misbehaved, and if they both misbehaved, he wondered if they could sit in the hallway together. He thought she would be grumpy in the mornings, because "she does not have any food in her tummy." He wanted her to be three years old so she could come to his Sunday school class. He said he would teach her not to hit and not to step in dog poop. When I asked Jake if he would teach her to follow directions, he said, "No, I will be her family, and you teach her how to follow directions." On Monday, November 6, 2006, we returned home from a trip to Disney World with my parents. On Tuesday morning, I sat down to catch up on e-mail, and there it was: "Subject - COP List." My heart began to pound. I called Chris at work and told him that another list had come and that he had to come home ASAP, because I could not wait to look at it. And I didn't. I opened the e-mail to find a list of fifteen children, all needing families. There were eight girls and seven boys. The list gave their names, orphanages, dates of birth, and special needs. I read down the list until I came to the seventh child. I did not need to read any further. She was the age we were looking for, and she had a medical condition we knew we could handle. I printed off the list and waited anxiously for Chris to arrive. Chris was so relaxed about the whole thing. It was as if he knew something I didn't. He sat and looked at the list for what seemed like an eternity. Then, very casually, he pointed to the seventh child's name and said, "Let's get some more information on her." Oh, thank You, Lord! I thought. I was praying he would say that. Immediately, I called our social worker and asked if she could tell us more about Shen Wen Tian. She said she would e-mail us the girl's picture and assessment right away. Could it be that this two-and-a-half-year-old little girl was our Julie? Chris and I hovered over the computer waiting for the famous words, "You've got mail." Then there she was. What a face! I was overwhelmed, wondering if she really could be our Julie. The e-mail included two pictures, a physical examination, and a brief history. The latest assessment had been completed around her second birthday. It stated the date and place where she was found and that she was currently in foster care and gave her daily living schedule and developmental progress. She was described as "clever" and "stubborn." In the first picture, Shen Wen Tian looked to be about one year old. In the second picture, she looked to be about two years old. In both photographs, she had a stoic expression, but I could see a commanding personality hiding underneath. Clever and stubborn, yes, but in a good way, I was sure. Her eyes were long and drawn out; her lips were full; and her skin was flawless. Her face was perfectly round. The more I looked at her, the more I wanted to know her. I wanted to hold her and see what that serious expression was all about. Chris and I studied the pictures and assessments, passing them back and forth to each other. I was staring into her eyes, asking, "Are you my baby?" I was praying for guidance and a clear sign. Chris broke the silence. "She looks mad. Kinda like me." I agreed. They did share the same stern expression. I looked at him looking at her, and it was clear. He was hooked. That was the sign I needed. I immediately began working on our formal request letter. We wrote this letter to our agency asking to be matched with her and demonstrating how we could provide for her special need—basically pleading our case to them. We would find out one week later if we would be matched with Shen Wen Tian. I spent that week trying to do anything but think about this child and, at the same time, praying constantly for her. On some level, I knew she was Julie, but I could not let myself relax until someone official confirmed it. Our agency was reviewing countless requests for these children, and I had no idea how many other families were also praying that she would be their daughter. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6) Our agency would make a decision on Tuesday, November 14. I invited a friend and her two children over to keep me company and to prevent me from hovering over the phone. The morning went by without a single phone call. I checked the line several times to make sure the phone had not been knocked off the hook or the line damaged in some way. We had just sat down for lunch when the phone finally rang. I had been so busy trying to get everyone situated that I had almost forgotten about the call and was surprised when I heard the voice of our social worker. "Mrs. Sydes," she said, "I have good news." Then it all came back to me, and the tears began to form. "You were matched with Shen Wen Tian. Congratulations." I began to cry as I continued to listen. "Can you and Mr. Sydes come to the office tomorrow to sign some papers?" "Come to the office tomorrow? We can go to China tomorrow, if you'll let us," I blurted out. We had our daughter. Praise God. Two weeks after we received the wonderful news that we had been matched with Shen Wen Tian, our letter of intent was sent to the CCAA. This letter stated that we were formally requesting to adopt Shen Wen Tian. Soon our two files would be placed together in the CCAA's Matching Room. I had seen pictures of the Matching Room. The files were grouped by color and piled from the floor to the ceiling. For a waiting mother, pictures like those could really make the heart skip a beat. How can they possibly keep track of all these families and children? I wondered. How do these workers make any sense of this mess? At moments like that, I had to remind myself that those workers were not running the show. I believed and knew in my heart that God's hand would guide them in matching the children to their forever families. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. (Psalms 118:8) On January 12, 2007, we received a letter seeking confirmation from the adopter from the CCAA. This form stated that we had been assigned Shen Wen Tian and asked if we accepted her? We checked the box marked yes and signed it without hesitation. Did we accept this child? Are you kidding me? I thought. Then it was official. The CCAA had accepted our paperwork and matched us with Julie. The three of us were now in one big file in the great Matching Room. On February 1, we received our official travel approval from the CCAA, stating that we had been approved to travel to China. This was the letter that would send us on our way. It felt as if it was really going to happen. We were really going to have a daughter. As soon as our US consulate appointment was set, we could fly out. On February 20, we were notified of our US consulate appointment in Guangzhou, China, for March 13 and were given our actual travel dates. We would leave for China on February 27. During the time that our travel dates were being arranged, we received an updated assessment of Julie, completed in January 2007 by the Shenyang Social Welfare Institution. It described Julie as timid, shy, and fairly introverted. She could walk up and down stairs without any help, draw lines with a pencil, and speak in three-to-five word sentences (in Mandarin Chinese). She weighed about thirty pounds. Included in the assessment were three pictures in which Julie was riding a tricycle and having a snack with her foster brother, who looked to be about four years old. She was dressed in heavy clothes and was not smiling, but she looked content. My heart jumped when I saw those pictures. She was so chubby and cute. I just wanted to scoop her up and squeeze her. (Continues...) Read an Excerpt
JOURNEY FOR JULIE
Witnessing God's Glory through Toddler Adoption in China
By Stephanie Sydes
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Stephanie Sydes
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4567-3574-6
Chapter One
IN THE BEGINNING Chapter Two
OUR CHILD OF PROMISE Chapter Three
DAYS OF WAITING
Excerpted from JOURNEY FOR JULIE by Stephanie Sydes Copyright © 2011 by Stephanie Sydes. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface....................xi
Acknowledgments....................xiii
Chapter 1. In the Beginning....................1
Chapter 2. Our Child of Promise....................5
Chapter 3. Days of Waiting....................11
Chapter 4. Final Preparations....................15
Chapter 5. Taking Flight....................21
Chapter 6. Far from Home....................25
Chapter 7. Walking Beijing....................29
Chapter 8. History in Beijing....................35
Chapter 9. The Great Wall of Fog....................39
Chapter 10. Different Worlds....................43
Chapter 11. "Bad News"....................47
Chapter 12. Shenyang Blizzard....................53
Chapter 13. Lesson in Thanksgiving....................59
Chapter 14. Shenyang, at Last....................63
Chapter 15. Gotcha, Julie!....................69
Chapter 16. Red Book Day....................79
Chapter 17. Day at the Park....................85
Chapter 18. Abandonment, Adoption, and Foster Care in China....................91
Chapter 19. Finding Place....................97
Chapter 20. Shopping and Packing....................101
Chapter 21. Rushing to Guangzhou....................103
Chapter 22. Medical Exam and US Consulate Appointment....................107
Chapter 23. Adoption Oath....................111
Chapter 24. Final Journey....................115
Chapter 25. Home at Last....................119
Afterword....................121
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