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A testament to God’s perfect timing.
On a cold December day half-way around the world, a mother made the heart wrenching choice to leave her newborn baby girl, her little mouth misshapen by a cleft, at the main gate of the local quarry. Did she hide behind the bushes to make sure her baby was found before she froze? Or did she have someone else take the baby? We’ll never know. We do know that she was found and taken to the local orphanage where she began to thrive.
At the same time and same city, another little girl was turning two years old. She wasn’t able to hear the celebration around her for she lived in a world of silence.
Fast forward one year to December 2003 – the little baby quietly celebrated her first birthday surrounded by other children waiting for their mommies & daddies to come for them. The other little girl just turned three, but her family was also about to make a heart wrenching decision. A few days later, on December 24th, the family went for a ride to the local train station. I could just imagine the excitement she felt, as she anxiously thought about her trip, while sitting on the bench where she was told to wait. Soon, that excitement turned to fear when she discovered that her family was gone. She couldn’t even cry out for them as she never spoke a word. She too was found and taken to the local orphanage.
God blessed us with two wonderful boys, but I had a strong desire to add a daughter to our family. I prayed, begged, pleaded and cried for 3 years for our little girl. I asked God to take away the desire if it wasn’t His will, but mine. The desire just got stronger.
In February, 2004 God showed us our new daughter  . She was 14 months old and lived in an orphanage in Hefei China. We started the paperwork to bring her home and finally left for China in November. On the 23rd, we met our newest family member – Alanna Lynn – the baby left at the gate of the local quarry. On Thanksgiving Day, we visited the orphanage where Alanna spent the first 23 months of her life.
During this visit, the sweetest little girl with pony tails sticking straight up on her head captured my heart. When we left the orphanage, she was standing at the top of the stairs waving bye. Oh, how I hated to leave her there. I made a silent vow to her, as tears fell down my cheeks, that I would be back for her one day.
We safely arrived back home with our new daughter and adjusted to life with a two year old. Many days I thought and prayed about the children left behind, especially the little girl with the pony tails. I often found myself looking at her in the pictures we took, remembering her precious smile.
About nine months later, I got the desire to adopt again. I would look at sad face after sad face on the waiting children lists. We viewed several files, but none of them just grabbed me and said “Hey, it’s me. Your daughter!” In the meantime, I had talked to several agencies about finding the little girl with the pony tails. They all had the same response – no name, birth date, or information. You’ll never find her! I continued on the quest of finding our daughter, all along praying for the little girl with the pony tails. I was starting to think that maybe another child wasn’t in God’s plan for our family.
One day, I went to a waiting child list of an agency that we had reviewed a file of a beautiful little girl, curious to see if her family had found her. I waited as all of the pictures came onto my computer screen, when the most precious smile appeared!! It was the little girl with the pony tails! I called the agency to find out, if in fact, she was from Hefei. When they confirmed it, I yelled “She’s our daughter!!” Twenty-one months from our first meeting and my vow, God reunited me with our daughter, now known as Leah Jade.
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