How it all began

Our family was quite surprised when we announced we were adopting a 9 year old in 2006. Alison came home in January 2007 and has fit into our family quite nicely. She loves having sisters and she acts like the AUNT Alison (the social coordinator for all the nieces / nephews).

In the summer of 2006 we traveled to Louyang, China and played with many orphans (this was before we decided to adopt Alison). In January, 2009, I read on a web group that WACAP Adoption Agency was placing a large number of children from this orphanage. I logged into WACAP's website to view the children. We found a 13 year old that we had spent sometime with...her name was Emma. We spent almost a week trying to determine if this was indeed the girl we knew and it was. When we inquired about the possibility of adopting her we were told she was placed with another family. Over the next few weeks, I continued to watch for children I remembered.

Imagine my surprise when one night I was looking at pictures and I recognized the background as ZhuHai. I called Alison over to look at the picture and she announces this is MeiXin, her friend. And our journey began.

I contacted WACAP and we were told to put in an application. WACAP approved our application but there was no guarantee that China would approve. You see we are above the age allowed to adopt. It got down to a $500 gamble. No guarantees. If we wanted to adopt MeiXin, we had to do a formal application to China. The cost ... $500 and no refund if the answer is no. I did not have to think long. I sent in the money and within a week of our application arriving in China, the answer came back as approved.

Had to be a God thing. And why call her Emma? It was a family decision. That was the name we all liked and quite an honor to the other Emma. In finding our Louyang China Emma, I found our ZhuHai Emma MeiXin. Alison and Emma were together as children and will be forever sisters in America. They will be united in their Chinese past as children from the same orphanage and united as sisters forever in our family.

How wonderful that Alison can bridge the language barrier between English and Chinese. How comforting for Emma to have a friend here to get her through the transition. We are so blessed.

Brenda