My Blog List
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Is it June yet?6 years ago
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Catch Up6 years ago
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Christmas in Deer Park7 years ago
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9 Years Old!8 years ago
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Beach Birthdays9 years ago
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(Not At All) Wordless Wednesday: Redeemed10 years ago
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Physical therapy10 years ago
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Three weeks home...11 years ago
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Story time in the Holland house.12 years ago
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GREAT NEWS!!16 years ago
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Sunday, April 6, 2014
A beautiful story...
Oh my! I have not updated my blog in
months….yikes! The blog gets the back
seat when things get busy. And needless to say, I have been busy. Yet, this is
my “scrapbook” for the kids (since no other scrapbooking is getting done) so I
really need to update, but that is not what I am doing today. For some time now I have been feeling the need
to write out the details of Harper’s story.
I have actually tried to write this out multiple times but writing just
does not come easy to me. I am not a
writer. But after last Sunday’s church
service, I found myself back into getting this completed.
Just a warning, it is long.
I do not share Harper’s
story often. Or I share only bits and
pieces. There are many reason’s why,
which I will not go into all of those, but I do feel as though I am not giving
God the glory when I keep quiet. So here
I am, stepping out of my comfort zone and writing her story…for us to never
forget what God did, for Harper to know God’s unfailing and awesome love for
her, and, more then anything, to give God all the praise.
So, here it goes...
Elon had been home about a year and a half. Our family was just getting in a groove. The boys were getting older, self sufficient,
helpful, even doing the dishes. Elon had
discovered who she was, her confidence had exploded, not only in herself but in
her family. Things were good….real
good. We felt full, comfortable, and
content in our family so we were not at all thinking about adopting again. In the back of my mind (and my heart) I wanted
to, but it just didn’t seem like the right time and I knew Cole was not there.
I would occasionally keep up with a yahoo group for parents who
had adopted from Shanghai, which is where Elon was from. One day, a mom I had never met before, posted
a picture of some children asking if anyone knew one particular child. I did not think much about it until she
posted this later…
“I didn't want
to send this info along with the email about the air purifiers. When I
emailed xxxxxx I
asked her to see if she could find out who a particular little girl is.
I have seen her
in several photos in the group and she is absolutely adorable....but
always looks
sad. I never read any mention of her so
I thought that maybe she was
being adopted by
a family outside the US. Wrong. :( Her paperwork was not submitted.
She has leukemia.
She is doing well now after treatment and her paperwork may be
submitted at a
later date. If you are a praying person,
please keep this little sweetheart
in your prayers.
I am going to find out her birthday and send a cake to her. She deserves
a celebration
too and there is no family waiting to bring her home.
She is the
little girl dressed in pink at the back of the group in this
photo. I don't
have her Chinese name so I am calling her Harper.”
This post eventually changed everything. After this post, I could not keep this little
girl off my mind. Not surprising since
the two passions in my life had been….
1)
Children without a mom & dad, and
2)
Children fighting cancer
Some history on Cole and I…while we were
waiting for Elon to come home, we had the privilege of being directors of Camp
Debbie Lou. This is a camp for children
with cancer and their families to come and have a fun long weekend
together. To get away from the yuck, the
doctor’s, the reminder of cancer, and just have fun. We had the privilege to meet so many
incredible families along with some absolutely AMAZING children…these children
truly changed our lives. These are some
of the bravest people I know…no one should have to go through cancer but
watching a child go through it is truly heartbreaking.
And then there was “Harper”…fighting cancer, all
alone. No mom to hold her or tell her
everything would be all right. No
parents to fight for her. No one to pray
for her. Knowing just the tip of the
iceburg about how hard cancer treatment is, this was too heartbreaking to
imagine.
I joined the other mom’s from this group to
pray for this little girl. I printed her
picture. I prayed her family would find
her...that the orphanage would give her a chance for a family and get her file
ready.
One night, Cole and I were talking and
discussing “life”. What were we suppose
to be doing? What is God’s plan for our
life? We knew there was something “else”…but what was it?
At that moment, another post came up about
Harper….In a jokingly manner, I handed the laptop to Cole and said “Maybe we
are suppose to adopt a little girl like her”.
He read her story, and handed me the computer back without a word. Nothing was discussed and we once again went on with our
lives.
Some more time went on, yet I still could not
get “Harper” off my mind. And obviously, Cole couldn’t either. He would come home occasionally and ask if I
had heard anything else about her.
Other moms would post pictures and I would get a glimpse of her. I would always show Cole any new
pictures. She was easy to spot now. I had fallen in love with her just by a few
words and a few pictures. But I had
never said or discussed adopting her.
Then one day….out of the blue…Cole comes home
and said “I think we are suppose to adopt again…but not just any child…we are
suppose to adopt Harper.”
First response…“What?”
Second response…“OK!”
What next?
Then the questions and concerns came…
She is not paper ready! We have not even begun to think about
adopting again! The paperwork!!! What adoption agency should we use? We did not even know if this was possible. This is not how adoptions work in China! Would the orphanage even get her file
ready? Is she really in remission? How long has she been in remission? What type of leukemia does she have?
<Insert scream here>
There were so many unknowns at this point. And all those unknowns, nerves, and fears
began to creep in….What if this was not
what we are suppose to do? What if Cole
heard incorrectly? What if she is
really sick?
And then the obvious….What if her cancer comes back?
Many questions went through our minds. BUT, ultimately, we felt this was how God was
leading us.
Only one way to find out….We must take a
step. We were given some of the best words of wisdom when we met a Bulgarian
Pastor on a mission trip several years back….
“God cannot correct inactiveness.”
We have to move and step in a direction for
God to be able to correct our steps. If
we stand still, He cannot correct, or direct, us in the way we should go.
So we decided to call our previous adoption
agency. Tell them this crazy story. They will most likely tell us “no”, this is
not the way things are done. We prayed
that if this was not God’s will then He would shut the doors, but if this was
His plan for our lives & for this little girl, then make the path
straight. Remove any obstacles.
The conversation went a little like
this….”Hi, we have this picture of this little girl. We are pretty certain she is in
Shanghai. We don’t know how old she is. We don’t know her name. We heard she had leukemia. And we think she is our daughter.”
Guess what they said….”You will not believe
this but we have just established a relationship with Shanghai (I believe she
said that the director had just visited their office a few weeks earlier, but
this may be incorrect), send us the picture and we will have our in-country
staff call them to see if they can find out about this little girl”
The next day, our adoption agency called us
back and said “they found her, yes she had leukemia, she is in remission, and
they will get her paper ready since there is a family interested”!!
REALLY???
Someone must have hit the easy button, because that sure was easy!!
But the best and most amazing part was what
God blessed us with next….
You know all those unknowns that were scary,
well they did not go away, they were still there BUT the peace that followed
truly was a peace that “transcends all understanding”. Just taking that first step of FAITH,
trusting God in the way we felt Him leading us, the peace we felt seemed
tanglible. I had never felt God’s peace
like this before or since. It was so
real. I felt as if He was in the car
with me at times because of the magnitude of the peace I felt in those months.
I would think, “I should be nervous”, or “I
should be scared”…but all I felt was Peace.
God’s Peace.
During these first moments of saying
“yes”…the word Faith really came alive to me.
We knew that just by saying yes, and knowing that God was placing this
child with us did not necessarily mean everything was going to be easy. I prayed for easy! But we prepared ourselves for all
situations. We knew, that no matter WHAT
came our way…God was with us. We even
felt it. He would be with us through any and
every situation.
We did not have to be afraid because He is with us.
We had been calling this precious little girl
“Harper” for 5 months now (thanks Sharon!!), and not realizing that we were praying for our own
daughter. We loved the name and knew it
was to be her name once she came to America.
I also felt very clearly that her middle name would be Faith.
Harper Faith…..
Then I remembered back to a moment, 2 to 3
years earlier, (I actually could not believe that I remembered this very small
detail)…..We were in the “waiting” stage to bring our daughter, Elon Grace, home
from China. We were close to traveling
and at that time the only thing we knew about her, was that her name would have
“Grace” in it. (“Grace” is a whole other
story J) We were at our new
church (we had recently moved to Statesville) and
this Sunday we were actually able to meet our pastor for the first time. At the same time, we met another mom who had already
adopted from China…her daughters name was Hope.
“Grace and Hope”, our pastor laughed and then
asked… “Who is going to go get Faith?”
Little did any of us know that it would be
Cole and I…only 4 years later.
There were no bumps in the road as we pursued
Harper. Everything went quickly and
smoothly. We started the adoption
process and all our paperwork, at the same time the orphanage got Harper’s file ready. Once it
was ready it was released onto the Shared List, our agency was looking for it
and they locked her file for us. The
rest is history. At this point, it did
not matter what that paperwork said, we knew she was our daughter.
We saw that first picture of Harper in June 2011, we made the first call to our agency in November 2011, and 11 months later we met our new
daughter on October 14, 2012.
Harper has now been home for a year and a half. She is amazing. She is a joy. She is smart and lovely and even feisty! I am so, so, thankful that we did not let
fear come in the way of one of the most incredible blessings we have ever
received. I am so thankful for God’s
peace to get us through those months that we could have turned around and ran
away from receiving this precious gift.
On April 16th we return to her Oncologist for
her FIVE year post treatment check-up.
That means she has been in remission for FIVE YEARS. Praise God!!
After this check-up, Harper will only see her Oncologist once a year! Her health is doing amazing, and she actually
seems to be the healthiest of our four children J
Things have gone very smoothly, but
of course, with all children, there have been a few challenges, but you know what…God
has been with us! He has seen us through
them all.
Harper’s story is full of miracles….
Miracle 1:
She could have died in China. She
didn’t. Her birth parents were faced
with a decision that if they kept her, they would have to watch her die….If
they abandoned her, she may get the treatment she needs through the
government. Most
people in China cannot afford to pay for minor health issues much less major
things. They do not have insurance and they often have to make payment
upfront. Their choice is one I could
never imagine being faced with. Their choice saved her life.
Miracle 2:
The government ACTUALLY provided the treatment she needed. Good treatment. Enough said.
Miracle 3:
We should not have even known about Harper. What are the odds that a mom in South Carolina,
would notice a little girl in the back of a picture and then start asking about
her, and then proceed to share that info…I know now that this was a part of
the puzzle of us finding out about Harper. But still miraculous in how it all fell into
place.
I see so many miracles throughout her story and I am thankful for each one.
Harper's story is still being written, but the most amazing part of it happened just this week. On March 3rd, Harper wanted to pray and ask Jesus into her heart. That is it, that is the ultimate! God had a plan for her, and He has a plan for her….and now this little pumpkin will one day spend eternity in heaven with a Father who loves her dearly.
I am so thankful that I get to sit on the front row and watch this story play out. I am so glad that I get to
be the one she calls “mommy”. I am so glad that fear did not win.
If God is leading you in some way, I would
like to encourage you to not let fear overtake you or stand in the way. You may miss out on one of the most
incredible blessings of your life.
Have Faith that God is ALWAYS with you! Have faith to take that first step & continue to have faith that God will see you through. If He is leading you to something, He will be
with you no matter what comes your way, even if it is not “easy”. He WILL be
with you and He WILL see you through.
And If you can see God's love for Harper in this story….just know that He loves you like that too!
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12 comments:
That was wonderfully written! And yes, what a miracle indeed!
Love,
Cathy (Naomi's Mom)
She is such a lovely child! She is a miracle and it is a miracle that she came to your family in the way she did! Sometimes it is so hard to take the leap of faith and listen to what God has in store for us, but when we do it really is more amazing then we could have ever dreamed for ourselves. I am so happy my husband listened to the Holy Ghost and answered the call of adoption. He is so in love with our new daughter. This is really a miracle because he told me he would never adopt and never thought he could not love a child who was not biologically his! He adores this new child of ours. She is such a blessing a such a joy! Thank you for sharing Harper's story.
Tears- that is such an amazing story! Thank you for sharing!!
KK @ www.preppypinkcrocodile.com
I can never say it enough...thank you for loving "my Harper" and for seeing what I could see in those sad little eyes. You will never know what you and Cole mean to me just for loving Harper.
Beautifully written and shared! Tears are a flowing!
I can't get enough of this story. So glad to know you all
She is so very precious!! Our story to Janie is similar as well. That peace, and the quiet confidence only God can give you is so amazing to experience!!
Dawn, that was Beautiful !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Love you Dawney
Your not supposed to make a grown man cry! I have an emotional attachment with a simple sharing of a name (my last name and her first name). Praise our Lord and Savior!
Wow!!! Simply wow!!! And look at Harper now! Love the pigtails!
This is such an awesome story. She is such a doll. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing your journey to Harper! I am happy for you family! Harper is such a pretty name and so is so daughter!
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