A Trip to China
／Dorothy Yang
This past fall I had the opportunity to visit China with my niece, Tina. Tina, the older daughter of my sister Lily was going to China to adopt her daughter, Emma and needed a travel companion to help her. In His omniscient way God provided for all out needs, expected and unexpected, big and small.
My first need was for a visa. Tina's itinerary to China was finalized while I was on an Alaska cruise, and I had my passport with me. When I returned home in Philadelphia, I had less than a week to acquire a visa. To make matters worse, Tina lives in Chicago and she had arranged to have my passport processed there for the visa. With God's providential care and courier express, my visa came through in time. I flew to Los Angeles to join Tina and six other couples from Chicago, going to China to adopt new babies.
In China, we first stopped in Beijing, where we visited some of the sights, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and Tiananmen Square. I also had the occasion to visit some Chinese friends that I had become acquainted with earlier in Philadelphia. From Beijing we flew to Guangzhou to register with the Ministry for Foreign Adoption. Many uncertainties lay ahead, for example would we run into any bureaucratic obstacles? or did Emma have any mental or physical disabilities that had not been reported? And how would Emma react to us? I speak Mandarin and Cantonese so that communication with the authorities was not a problem. For their part the adoption officials gave us no difficulties. When we saw Emma and I had a chance to examine her, I found her to be physically and developmentally normal for her eleven months. "Thank God" slipped silently from my lips. Next, we met Emma's foster family, a lovely couple with a nine year old son. They had raised Emma as their own child and the heartache of separation was evident on all their faces. Again, God was at work behind the scenes. After some initial adjustment, Emma now fits into our family as though she had been born into it. I thank God also for the opportunity to be Emma's adoptive grandmother, for Lily and her husband both died prematurely. Like Paul, I too can say, "In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
