The Advocate July - August 2006
Reflection - Lessons from the Sisters of Dianbai
By
Jul 28, 2006, 12:49

The nine little girls ranged in age from just-turned-two to 15. They were brought to the Fort Mitchell Best Western by nine sets of parents, including two single moms and a couple of blended families. Five adolescent brothers, a male computer devotee’ and two teen-age older sisters rounded out the crowd. They had come from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky to a Midwest reunion of “sisters of Dianbai” – children who had been adopted from the same orphanage in the Guandong Province of China, on the South China Sea.

Getting acquainted was the order of business for the weekend. The red silk banner on a meeting room door welcomed the families to a wonderland of craft activities carefully geared around information about the homeland. Above a small “beach” area was a sign and photos of Dianbai’s location on the South China Sea. If they dug deep into the sand, each child would find a rock and a shell for the “Memory Boxes” they were making. A dragon parade in the afternoon was followed by an ice cream surprise — ice cream was first known in China! (Although certainly it was not the Cincinnati-based Graeter’s gobbled down by all.)

There were DVDs of Dianbai — the city, and the three different buildings that had served as the orphanage over the years. The local markets, hospitals, rural areas and Buddhist shrines were pictured, with Asian music transporting the watchers beyond the meeting room to the place where they had first become family. “There’s the room where we got the babies!” “Remember….” The adult eyes were glued to the screen, re-living their own experiences in this far-away land that now touches their lives every day. The children continued to play, periodically staring at the screen with an intensity that belied their years, and made one wonder what deep connections might be tapped. Two Chinese families were interviewed on camera about their domestic adoptions. One family was involved with the children of Dianbai, encouraging their own daughter to know her story, and value this part of her life. The other family had chosen to “protect” their daughter from any knowledge that she was adopted.

Quietness pervaded the room as the screen showed the small, mattress-less steel cribs where these same children had once slept.

As the lights came up, a mother wiped her eyes, and spoke of her thoughts of the love of their children which drove these Chinese parents to leave them in a safe place, where they might be given a better life. “I want my child to know and value her heritage,” she said.

Others nodded their agreement. “Yes,” said one father. “But she will not know Buddhist temples and shrines. All she needs to know is that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. And then a mother spoke.

“If we had not adopted Lian – if she had spent her life at Dianbai – the God I worship would not punish her. That same God created Lian, and the people of China. I believe it is part of the ongoing mystery of the Incarnation that we must figure out as our world grows closer and closer how to love these neighbors — not how to expect them to be exactly like us.”

That evening, the children and parents marked the spot on the map of the world where they were born, and with a red thread, traced the paths they had taken to their American homes, and back again. In Chinese culture, there is a belief that when a child is born, invisible red threads extend from the child’s spirit and connect to all the significant people who will be part of the child’s life. As the child grows, the threads shorten, drawing closer those people who are destined to be together. Holding a small wooden star in their hands, the children sang a song blessing the people of the land of their heritage — and the people of their family, and extended family.

The words of a children’s hymn echoed in my mind:

“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world;
Red and yellow black and white, they are precious in his sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

And the grown ups. The grown ups He created, in all their diversity. The world He created, in all its diversity. The sparrow. The lilies of the field. The leper. The rag-tag band of men whom Jesus chose to travel with him — men the world would have rejected.

That loving God — the one that Lian’s mom knows – tells the story again, and again. Like every parent, He must wonder how many times His children have to hear it to make it a part of who we are, and how we are in the world.