Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption
When you laugh, you laugh with friends. Walls come down, and memories are made. Memories that have staying power and even multiply afterwards with every “Did you see when…?” and “Wasn’t that so funny when…?” and “I couldn’t believe when…!”
So, every time we go to this school, you’ll find us here one evening in front of hundreds of Chinese students putting forth our best effort to make them laugh. Somehow, we always do. Which I take literally no credit for.
They’re everywhere. So everywhere that they are quintessential China to me. Shiny with funny English phrases. Weathered and worn but much younger than they look, I’m sure. I’m enamored by them, knowing that each one holds a story about the person whose hands and feet power it.
I’m looking at the clock on my screen as I type this, taking way too much time thinking about when we should try to actually go to sleep tonight given that we need to wake up at 3am in the morning for our 26-hour-long journey. Let me know if you have suggestions. Any way I look at it, it isn’t looking too pretty.
We are going again to a university a few hours from Beijing for what is known as English Week. The going again is significant. We’ve had teachers at this school for nearly 9 years now, starting back in 2008 when two young guys took a big risk and said yes to moving to the other side of the world to do big things. Those who led this whole thing before us trusted that the one who cracked those doors open the doors to work there to begin with would sustain and grow it too. Here we are. Going again. Packing our bags to lead a team of 18 to go serve up a camp-like week to hundreds and hundreds of students, coming alongside the 5 full-time teachers there now.
The school administrators are excited. The students are buzzing. And, the teachers are ready for some reinforcements to work alongside them and encourage them in what they do everyday.
It’s all good, especially for me because my hubs is leading the team and leading me. I’m a little anxious…of course, I am. I always get nervous before these trips. Every. single. time. (okay, so I may be entirely predictable.) I don’t know what shakes me up more–the fact that I’m leaving three of my babies here at home or the fact that I’m taking my 11-year-old baby with us for his first trip to China. Oh, it’s going to be a wild trip experiencing it with him this time. Maybe more than that, we are very aware that we are on the cusp of significant work this coming week and, therefore, very likely a battle.
Here we go…again.
On this morning, two years ago, I was holding my breath. So was the woman before me. She clutched her side and tried to convince us all that she wasn’t as far along in labor as she was. The next 90 minutes were like an episode of Amazing Race with the end goal being a brand new baby girl.
We fought against a family planning policy that limited this family to two children or one son {meaning, if their first child was a girl, they were allowed to have a second child to try again for a boy. Their first child was a boy.}. We fought against immigration policies and all sorts of policies that make it hard for a woman and a child to leave their country and enter ours. We fought against our own selfishness and self-protection and inclination to say mine mine mine with our home and our food and our things.
And, we won. With help from a lot of people, we won. And, as a result, one of the most beautiful little creatures ever created entered the world…here…in the land of the free and the brave…to a mama who is one of the bravest people I know.
Today, that beautiful little creature turns two.
And, she’s just as marvelous as she was then…especially when she sends me messages on WeChat saying “Aunt Kelly.”
Two days after Grace turned 7 months old, China announced a big change to their family planning policy that had been in effect for three decades. As of the start of 2016, families across the nation would be allowed two children regardless of the children’s gender. Unfortunately, the law is not retroactive. So, over a year after the law change, Grace is still considered an illegal birth. Despite the fact that she holds U.S. citizenship, in order to register her in China for her ID card so that she can go to school, receive benefits allowed to their citizens, and even buy train tickets, her parents are still being told they will need to pay an exorbitant fine not required for second children born only 9 months after her.
We will keep praying for more changes, better changes, and for this child who He’s going to use for big, big things. He already has.
