Children of Dreams, An Adoption Memoir (27 page)

She received Jesus into her heart when she was young and asks many questions—she is my deep thinker and shallow thinker, my creative one and challenging one. Give her paper and pencil and she’s happy. I learned early on how much she loved to draw when walls had scribbles that appeared from nowhere and books had marks that I knew weren’t “copyrighted.” Her love notes have inspired me to someday make a book of “Love Notes to Mom.” I wish there were a way I could bottle up her creativity and sell it. I could make a fortune. With great creativity and talent come great challenges. I am sure my hair will be a beautiful shade of silvery gray by the time I get her through the teenage years.

I wouldn’t trade my children for anything in the world (although they might trade me in for a younger version because, in their words, “you are old”). As God’s precious gifts, I am amazed, especially now that I wrote Children of Dreams, how God did what was humanly impossible—without an awesome God, I wouldn’t have either of my daughters!

Parenting is the hardest job in the world. Imperfect and full of flaws, my ability to be a single parent has been harder than anything I could have imagined. My kids could give plenty of examples of all my foibles, but love covers a multitude of sins, fortunately.

I never set out to be a homeschooling mom. It just happened because both my children do so much better academically with one-on-one teaching, as shown by the Iowa Skills test scores each year. But my main goal has been to give my children a Christian worldview. If I accomplish that, I feel my most important objective will have been reached and the academic achievement will be gravy.

My favorite line for “keeping on” is something I heard a few years ago at the Homeschooling Convention in Orlando: The worst day homeschooling is better than the best day in public or private school. I have done all three and truly believe it.

Both my daughters would receive an “A plus” in Americanism. I did westernize Manisha after all my worries to the contrary. They have adjusted well to growing up in a single-parent family (they don’t know anything different, unlike children from divorce). As far as I know, they have never experienced any prejudice. I don’t even think Joy would know what it means. On the surface, an outsider would never know the depravity from which they came.

…I am the Lord who heals you

Exodus 15:26

Praise the Lord that Manisha has been off seizure medicine for six years and hasn’t had a seizure in eight years. Hopefully neurocysticercosis will never raise its ugly head again. As I told the insurance company, the parasite died and can’t come back to life. Good riddance!

He will respond to the prayer of the destitute

Psalm 102:17

There was one bit of unfinished business that haunted me. It was so deep I never shared it with anyone because I didn’t think anyone would understand. In some ways I couldn’t understand, except in quiet moments, light, wispy thoughts would drift into my consciousness from the past, dream-like, from deep within my soul. Just like the little dog, Fifi, that many years ago I rescued, I wanted to know that the little girl, Thi My-Sa, whom I prayed about for so long, was happy and loved. The image of her sitting in what looked like a steel cage with bars never left me even after I came home with Joy. I never got over the fact that I had left her there with an uncertain future.

Even when Anne mentioned to me in passing, while I was at her home in Ho Chi Minh, that she was being adopted in March, I struggled emotionally, for I felt that I had let her down. I had prayed concerning Thi My-Sa for months after she was found in a store being beaten by somebody that was not her mother and taken away to the orphanage by strangers. I wanted to ask Anne more, but every time I tried, something prevented me from finding out anything. Perhaps Anne was unwilling to talk about it, but I had loved this little girl that had such a difficult beginning.

I was glad she was eventually adopted, but there are always the “what if’s”? Suppose I had waited just a little bit longer? I knew that Joy was supposed to be my daughter, so why did I have such a hard time letting go of Thi My-Sa? Could it be that my prayers were meant to “keep her,” like I had kept Fifi many years earlier until her new master arrived? Maybe my prayers had protected her, given her a chance, even as she waited month after month.

Several months after Joy arrived home from Vietnam, Jackie, the adoptive mother from Canada, whom I had met in Hanoi, emailed me asking if the person who had adopted Thi My-Sa could contact me. She knew someone that knew her, and through the grapevine of Vietnamese adoptive parents, had somehow tracked me down. I wondered, could this be God’s way, in His mercy, of bringing me closure? Of letting me know that Thi My-Sa was loved, was being raised in a Godly home, and that my prayers had made a difference? Could I be sure I had done the right thing in relinquishing her and not feel guilty about it?

I knew Anne would never tell me the name of the family or give me their contact information. Anyway, who would understand how I felt? I had my two children, so what difference would it make? It made a difference in my soul. Once you have a place in your heart for a person, that spot belongs to them, whether it’s a child, a friend, or a mentor. No other child can replace that child. Every child has her “special place.”

When I received the email from Jackie, I was stunned. Strangely enough, they lived in Gainesville, Texas. I was thrilled to think the family wanted to contact me, but reluctant to think it would ever happen. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. After all that I had been through, I didn’t want to be disappointed.

I will let Kris speak here as she says so well how God in His mercy called her to get in touch with me:

I said to Anne, “Well, Joy is the name I want to name her.”

Anne laughed. “That is a coincidence. The lady who was going to adopt her named her daughter that she adopted Joy.”

I said, “A coincidence?”

She said, “Well, she was destined for Gainesville, but not Florida—Texas.”

I asked her for your email or address, and she wasn’t forthcoming, pleading disorganization. She didn’t want us to get together, for Abbey had two different sets of documents and was two people. The birth certificate you had put her three months older than the one I had, with two different names.

Interesting.

I was compelled to find you.

I knew I had to find you.

I knew in my heart you hurt from it, at least then.

I had to see you. I had to show you.

I had to let you know she was happy with us.

I knew instinctively you were like me, and when you could find her happy, any leftover feelings would dissipate.

I knew when we drove thru Gainesville the first Christmas and I didn’t know how to reach you [by phone], I grieved for you.

For me. For her.

I knew she had to make that connection.

I felt empty for the whole trip, for you to be with us for a brief time.

For you to see us. For us to see you.

For her to know that she had people pulling for her, even if she was never to know her bio mom.

When we were invited back to Orlando the second Christmas by our-brother-in-law, he paid for our trip and motel. I told Kirk, “We have to meet her.”

He understood as a man would, but I felt it deeply. He goes along with what I think is right, as he did to see her Dong Nai Orphanage and the market where she was found and abandoned. Now she talks about it quite often.

It was the right thing to do in both instances, because with the orphanage, the director had gone home, and he drove back in to see her and hug her. We took pictures of him and his wife. It was a God thing. Like meeting you.

I still have the papers you sent me somewhere in Abbey’s file. I want her to know her whole story, because only then can she honestly resolve it.

I emailed you a couple of years ago (Kris contacted me by email initially, but I didn’t receive her email on their first trip to Florida. It wasn’t until another year had passed, when she emailed me a second time that they were passing through Gainesville that we met) and asked you if Abbey and I alone could come and visit you, and you never responded. It hurt me a little. I thought, well, maybe you have a boyfriend, a live-in or maybe you don’t want to clean house, or some random thoughts. Maybe you didn’t like me.

I just let it go. I thought, well, maybe you didn’t get my email. I just thought, there is this connection, and Abbey and I talk about you. She has a place in her heart for you, because she knows when she was too little to understand or control anything, you were praying for her.

She has a love for the thought of you.

I wanted her to have a knowledge of who you were, and a trip, or a halfway meeting someday, would be so good for her (and you), and your two daughters… we would probably not have her had you not held onto her until you couldn’t any longer, and had you not been there to pray for her constantly.

Love, Kris

Every child is a precious gift from God. Some of us are called to give birth. Some of us are called to adopt. Sometimes our role is to pray and intercede for those who can’t speak for themselves. Sometimes we are called to sponsor children in Third World countries. If we all do our part, we can make a difference in the life of a child. God knows the beginning and the end. We can rest assured His plan is perfect.

Abbey and I did meet, and Kris and I shared a few special moments as we watched Joy and Abbey play together. I could now have complete peace and assurance that I had done exactly what God had called me to do; in His infinite wisdom He gave me Joy. But before Joy, He had given me the high calling of praying for Abbey for an entire year so she could be adopted by Kris and her dear husband. Abbey was their first daughter following six boys, and very much wanted and loved.

Even in today’s fallen world, there are flawless pictures that create perfection, if only for a fleeting moment, but we grab hold of them knowing they are a foretaste of the heaven that awaits us, where there will be no more beatings and cries of the destitute, where God will heal every bruise and wipe every tear. I hope to see Abbey and Kris again next year in February when we travel to San Antonio for one of Joy’s gymnastics meets. God continues to work out ways for our paths to cross and for that I am thankful (see pictures at back of book).

…and the truth shall make you free

John 8:32

One thing I look forward to when I get to heaven is learning the truth about things I will probably never know here. I will never forget the feeling I had when I arrived in Vietnam and was told the baby I was adopting was “kidnapped.”

Eight years later, after someone came up to me and asked, “What happened to the baby that was kidnapped?” I realized I couldn’t gloss over things. I needed to delve into what happened so the truth could set free my frozen emotions. I didn’t want to reveal that part of what I experienced because it was so painful, but those who read my story wanted to know everything.

There are many warnings in Children of Dreams for would-be adoptive parents—beware of who you work with and bathe your hopes and dreams in prayer to the only wise God who is all-knowing and all-powerful, “… for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:15).

Since being asked the question about the little girl who was kidnapped, I prayed and fasted, and this is what God has led me to believe. I can’t “prove,” the following, but based on circumstantial evidence, the likelihood is that it contains some measure of truth, but only the Lord knows everything.

I don’t believe Nguyen Thi My-Duyen was kidnapped. When I failed to make the original trip to Vietnam due to Manisha’s illness, I believe Anne, fearing the mother might change her mind, or perhaps another parent’s referral fell through, gave my child to someone else.

Perhaps Anne thought I would never come to Vietnam. My documents were on the verge of expiring anyway. She also probably didn’t want to risk the baby not being
adopted. I’m sure there was a monetary component involved, and she didn’t want to lose the several thousands of dollars that would go into her pocket. A baby was available and that was all that mattered. She was willing to take the risk and deal with the consequences later.

Even if I showed up on her doorstep at some point, she could explain away my referral—after all, I had already been through four—just offer me another child. What difference would it make as long as I got “any child”? People have lots of ways to justify wicked schemes.

I believe when I arrived and Anne had been unable to find a replacement baby, she made up the story about the kidnapping. She probably could have gotten away with it, except Jenni and I put the notice in the paper. She was already under investigation by the U.S. Embassy for baby selling and forgery of documents. Putting the ad in a public place would have put her at risk of having her license pulled as an adoption facilitator either by the U.S. Embassy or the Vietnamese government.

The police would have been called in for a missing person that really wasn’t missing, and once someone told the mother, she would have reported that her baby was placed with another family. Anne would have been caught in a scam and subject to prosecution.