hearing her story

Annabelle has made some incredible jumps in learning this crazy English language.  She’s starting to speak in complete sentences.  Before she was using simple noun+verb combos to get her point across.  It’s really amazing to think that she’s only been at this for a few months.

She and Kim were in the van yesterday, dropping Levi off at yet another musical rehearsal.  Kim was asking Annabelle about Mother’s Day, seeing what she understood and explaining how wonderful it was to celebrate MD with Annabelle as part of our family.  Kim asked if she had ever celebrated MD in China, and Annabelle opened chapter 1 of her story.

She told Kim (and later, me) that she was in her mommy’s belly, then the baby came out.  The mommy didn’t have money to take care of the baby–buy clothes, food, shoes, school–so she put the baby in a box, took the baby/box to a place with a big door, and left the baby where someone would find the baby.  A woman with a gun (policewoman, we guess) found the baby and took her to the school where her teacher could take care of her.

It wasn’t as quick as I wrote it.  Kim had to ask lots of clarifying questions along the way.  But it’s pretty clear that Annabelle knows her mommy couldn’t take care of her, and that she did the best thing that she could–she got Annabelle to a place where someone could find her and care for her.

I had the HUGEST lump in my throat tonight as I listened to her tell me her story.  With tears in my eyes, I told her that I was so glad that her mommy got her to a safe place, and that she was my daughter.  We told her (again) that we had been praying for her for 5 years, that we had planned to adopt a baby girl, but when we saw her picture, we knew that Jesus was re-directing us.

She asked, “Jesus told you to adopt me?”

Yes, baby, we believe that he did.

Ooooh, cool.

And with that, she was back to working on some leftover chicken leg.

Amazing.  Hearing her story, in her own words…it’s starting to come together.  As she learns to give words to her story, I am sure that there will be more moments of revelation, and more teary conversations.

I am amazed at what God has done in our lives through this process.  Amazed and grateful.