Remembering Our Referral Day

It was week of prayer at Pisgah and Matt and I were busy with juggling programming and our classes. I had read the email the week before. Expect referrals within the week it had said. I was excited to say the least, but tempered it knowing how things go thinking it probably wouldn't be within the week. It was the early afternoon. I had just returned from a class and was in my office going over some papers with my reader (the student who worked as my grader and overall manager of my office space and time). My office phone rang and Jenny answered it. "It's for you. It's Hillary." My mind started to think, "Well, I only know one Hillary but she wouldn't call me at work..." Then, it hit me. Hillary!

I picked up the phone my hands shaking uncontrollably. I could hardly say hello. I can still hear her cheerful voice say, "Marca, this is Hillary. I have big news for you. I know it has been a hard journey for you and so I wanted to be the one to tell you that you have a little girl waiting for you. You're a mom." I could hardly speak. I was so overwhelmed. She said she was sending her picture to me right away and to open my email while she would tell me all about her. My hands were so shaky I could even type and then, I FORGOT MY PASSWORD. I couldn't believe I forgot my password. Jenn moved in front of me and effortlessly entered my password (how she knew...I don't know). I saw the email and clicked on it. The picture started with a small strip of bright red and slowly downloaded little bit by little bit. There she was. I was sitting at my desk with students backed up behind me surrounding my chair. The room was quiet. Hillary asked me if I was still there. I choked out, "she's beautiful...that's my little baby..." I looked at this little round face with such a serious expression and she was not a stranger to me. I can't completely explain it, but I knew her. I just knew her in my thoughts, my dreams, and my heart. I was choking on my own sobs of so much joy and release of other dammed up emotions. I could hear the whispers of Jenny shooing all of the excited students from my office and then I felt Matt's hands on my shoulders. A student had excitedly hunted him down to tell him the big news. We stood there looking at our daughter our ears pressed to the receiver gathering all the information Hillary could give us.

"Her name is Fu Li Xian," she told us. "It means, beautiful, wise and able. They call her Xian Xian. She is a sweet natured and determined baby who lives up to her name." She was found one year ago to that very day under a tree on a street corner in a basket with a bottle, no note. She was about a week old when she entered the orphanage that would be her home for 14 months. She was now 12 months and about 1 week old. Then, she warned us that the picture we saw was from 6 months old that she had since been very ill (pneumonia) and that the pictures we would get the next day in a fed ex package may be startling at first, but that she was recovering. She told us her current height and weigh, foot size, head circumference, and I wrote down every detail ready to prepare a care package to send to my little baby girl half a world away.

Behind us, students gathered in the doorway. It isn't often that you share such a personal, important moment in your lives with your students. But, they knew much about the long road we had traveled to reach this moment and the news spread through out the school. Fu Li Xian's picture made a mass emailing throughout the faculty. And that night at week of prayer, we shared our first picture of Fu Li Xian, with a church full of students, faculty and friends.

One year after she was found, we found her or maybe she found us. I guess we found each other. I told Gracie the story again today calling her my sweet Xian Xian as I often do. We cuddled and she said, "Mommy, you are so special to me. You are best mommy in whole wide world to me and so beautiful. We are all beautiful...except daddy, he is handsome."

Beautiful.