I pray regularly and irregularly, and at different times of day or night. Sometimes ten seconds, or ten minutes. Sometimes writing prayers, sometimes thinking them.
This story is about my friend Leslie Masterson and her Chinese daughter Jillian. Leslie found Jillian on an adoption website in late 2010. Adoption is a long complicated journey much like that game I never liked, "The Game of Life." where things are always sending you back to the beginning and it never ends. Ever.
International adoption has a 43 step game board and she was on about step ten or so when I told her I had a dream. "I had a dream that you were with your baby on Easter." Leslie just nodded nicely and said something very reassuring like, "We are still a minimum of 12 months out from actually getting to travel to China. It is a long process." She seemed sorry to disappoint me. Now I also had in this dream a vision of her Chinese daughter growing up and she was doing ballet on a stage in a pink tutu and also one of her wearing a red dress and playing violin. I prayed about it that week and said "Leslie, I keep feeling like you will have your new babe by Easter. I see an Easter basket and plastic eggs." and she and Sean just reassured me that couldn't happen.
Well not only did they have Jillian by Easter, but their "Gotcha Day" was on Easter Sunday. It was Monday morning in China, but it was Easter Sunday in Pekin, IL at the first moment they laid hands on their precious, so precious girl. Only six months from the time I had the dream. It was impossible (not) but at least highly unlikely, that a first adoption, from China, could go through like silk. Every one of those 43 hoops was jumped in record time. At least this is how I remember it, now, five years later, and on my blog, we get to hear from my fragile memory.
When they were handed her, Jillian was over 2 years old, severely underweight, bruised, with an awful ear infection and sadly neglected. They knew they were adopting a girl with cleft-palate. They discovered within a few months she is low-verbal autistic. On Easter Sunday 2011 she became a member of an amazing family.
And little did we know then, but now we do, that Leslie and Sean would go on to adopt two more Chinese babies. And perhaps my dream covered all three. One of them might play the violin on stage one day. And I did get to see Jillian dance a ballet at Gull Lake one year. She was off to the side shadowing the movements of a beautiful young lady who was doing ballet for the talent show. And Jillian was entrancing, dancing in her silent land.
This dream is one of my God Things and I love it.
Here is Jillian's picture from her pre-adoption days and a picture of her today-- Miss Joy!
The Chinese government said she would never walk. This girl climbs mountains!
My memory fails me more and more and I don't have any recall of some pretty wonderful experiences that I did, darn it, experience. I am going to record them here occasionally.
p.s. If you want to read about Leslie's adoption adventures in more detail, here is a link to her blog.
Well not only did they have Jillian by Easter, but their "Gotcha Day" was on Easter Sunday. It was Monday morning in China, but it was Easter Sunday in Pekin, IL at the first moment they laid hands on their precious, so precious girl. Only six months from the time I had the dream. It was impossible (not) but at least highly unlikely, that a first adoption, from China, could go through like silk. Every one of those 43 hoops was jumped in record time. At least this is how I remember it, now, five years later, and on my blog, we get to hear from my fragile memory.
When they were handed her, Jillian was over 2 years old, severely underweight, bruised, with an awful ear infection and sadly neglected. They knew they were adopting a girl with cleft-palate. They discovered within a few months she is low-verbal autistic. On Easter Sunday 2011 she became a member of an amazing family.
And little did we know then, but now we do, that Leslie and Sean would go on to adopt two more Chinese babies. And perhaps my dream covered all three. One of them might play the violin on stage one day. And I did get to see Jillian dance a ballet at Gull Lake one year. She was off to the side shadowing the movements of a beautiful young lady who was doing ballet for the talent show. And Jillian was entrancing, dancing in her silent land.
This dream is one of my God Things and I love it.
Here is Jillian's picture from her pre-adoption days and a picture of her today-- Miss Joy!
The Chinese government said she would never walk. This girl climbs mountains!
My memory fails me more and more and I don't have any recall of some pretty wonderful experiences that I did, darn it, experience. I am going to record them here occasionally.
p.s. If you want to read about Leslie's adoption adventures in more detail, here is a link to her blog.
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