Tell Me A Story: HE IS GREATER THAN THE MOUNTAINS

HE IS GREATER THAN THE MOUNTAINS...

and CONTINENTS and CULTURES and COMMENTS and PAPERWORK!

By Marcia Norwood, STORYTELLER

Tuesday, January 17, 2012, we celebrated our daughter,

Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood's 18th birthday.

Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood

She doesn't remember anyone celebrating her first six birthdays. Her birth family gave her life, but they were not able to keep her. Some parts of her Life Story may remain a mystery this side of Heaven.

She was discovered on October 9, 1994, at 246 Hou Jia Tang, Yu Hua District, outside the Dong Tang Local Police Station in Changsha City, Hunan Province , China. Someone guessed her to be nine months old. Officials chose January 17, 1994, as the birthdate for her paperwork.

Zheng-Kang's Baby Photo ... an extraordinary gift from Schmid Family of Switzerland,
who visited the Changsha orphanage every year,
and prayed for over five years that Zheng-Kang would have a family.
Daniel Schmid was in Changsha in December 1999, when we arrived to adopt Sarah ZK.

"Her birth parents and other relatives have not been found up to now,"

declared her official Chinese papers.

She was given the name: "Zheng-Kang." (which means health) as a wish that this little baby (blind in one eye) would become healthy. She was sent to the Changsha First Social Welfare Center, and lived at the orphange for 5 years-2 months-54 days-15 hours - until she became our daughter through the miracle of adoption.

My husband, Ed, and I, had no guarantee we would be granted permission from the Chinese officials to adopt Zheng-Kang. I saw her photo in the Children's Hope International newsletter, and impulsively wrote beside her picture: "This is Sarah Norwood," and the date, "2-13-99." The writing was smeared by the tears that rolled down my face. She was blind in one eye - just like my brother, Terry.

It seemed like God was waving a flag and saying: "This is the one! She's waiting for you! You can handle the blind-in-one-eye-thing. Think of your brother, Terry!"

God clearly called Ed and I, and equipped us emotionally, financially, physically and spiritually to become parents again through the miracle of adoption. We were both over 50 years old and already grandparents. Some (a very few who really didn't know us) praised us as saints. Most of our friends and family thought we were nuts to adopt at our age. They accused us of trying to recapture our youth by becoming parents again. Others reprimanded us because we already had our time to be parents in the 1970's with our biological son and daughter. We were chastised for not saving this time in our lives for each other.

We just didn't fit into the "Baby Boomer" paradigm
some pictured in their minds.

Ed & Marcia (1995)
25th Wedding Anniversary

Ed and I rejected the hurtful, unsolicited comments and chose to obey His small voice. It was clear we were not even to lean to our own understanding or submit to the chastisement of our friends and family. God gave us friends who shared our DREAM and our JOY during our Adoption Journey. He gave us strength and wisdom in His Word.

"Defend the weak and the fatherless;

uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed." Psalm 82:3

"Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow." Isaiah 1:17

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:

to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." James 1:27

"In the very place where it was said to them,

'You are not my people,' there they will be called

children of the living God." Romans 9:26

"...For in you (God) the fatherless find compassion." Hosea 14:3

"He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow..."

Deuteronomy 10:18

"A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,

is God in His holy dwelling.

God sets the lonely in families..." Psalm 68:5-6

God proved to be greater than the mountains and continents and cultures and comments and paperwork that once separated us from our chosen child.

Once she was a photo I held in my hand,
and nine months later she was our daughter.

The Great Wall of China

Ed and I flew to China on November 28, 1999, our 29th wedding anniversary.

Zheng Kang was the tiniest little six year old girl I'd ever met. She weighed just 37 pounds soaking wet. I hardly noticed her bulging, blind eye as I looked into the soul of a terrified child who - until now - had no one to wipe away her tears. Her silky, black hair was cropped close to her head - nearly shaved - in a pixie cut. She was dressed in seven layers of tattered, handmade clothing, and a red backpack held her only possessions: a bottle of milk and a small framed photo of herself. Her arms clutched the picture book with images of Ed, me, and our family that we had mailed her weeks before our arrival.

Ed meets Zheng Kang for the first time.
He is wearing a button with her photograph on it.

The "auntie" (helper from the orphanage) who brought her to our hotel room pointed to Ed and me and said, "Zheng-Kang's Mamma and Ba Ba!" Ba Ba is Chinese for Daddy.

Zheng Kang began to cry.

"Tell her I will cry when she cries," I said to the interpreter, but I looked directly in Zheng Kang's eyes.

First Meeting: Marcia shows Zheng-Kang her photograph.

I coaxed her into our room by blowing bubbles and toys. I offered her Cheerios. She accepted our gifts until she realized she would have to stay with us.

She gave back all the toys and began to shake her head and said: "NO!" (The only English word she knew.) She kept the food, and was inconsolable when the "auntie" from her orphanage left.

She wanted nothing to do with me, and gestured for me to go sit in a chair away from her. I did...for a while. She needed to control something on the day that her entire world was spinning out of control. She liked Ed much better than me. Our interpreter advised us to lock the door so Zheng Kang didn't escape and run one block from the hotel to the Changsha First Social Welfare Center (orphanage) where she spent the first six years of her life.

I opened one suitcase - full of clothes and toys - and offered them to her - one at a time. I gave her new shoes - but not until she relinquished her old ones. And so it went as we exchanged the old for new. We carefully saved the clothes she wore that day, and treasure them more as the years go by.

I drew a bubble bath for her, and she actually smiled when she smelled the fragrance of the shampoo and conditioner. She played with the fishy washcloth and the bath bubbles. I hugged her for the first time as I lifted her out of the tub and wrapped her in a towel. I gently massaged her with Baby Magic, and thought my heart would burst from pure JOY.

After nine months, and thousands of miles... I embraced our new baby in my arms - and she let me! I combed her hair and added butterfly hair clips, and she put some in my hair, too. We ordered room service (pizza, rice and vegetables) for our first meal together.

She learned two more English words:

"Pizza" and "Shopping."

This was indeed, a girl after my own heart.

First Meal Together: Room Service...Pizza and Rice!
After Bath: New PJ's and Butterfly Hair Clips

We learned later - that this was not only her first meal with us -

it was the first time she ever had supper in her entire life.

Orphan Table
Zheng-Kang (2nd from RIGHT) at Changsha Orphanage
(Photo is a gift from the Schmid Family of Switzerland)

"I was hungry every day until you came to get me, Momma,"

Zheng Kang said when she learned to speak English.

"We ate two times a day: a bowl of rice in the morning

and a bowl of rice in the afternoon.

Sometimes farmers brought us vegetables.

We never had supper.

I went to bed hungry every night until you adopted me.

What took you so long?"

I still don't have a good answer.

What took me so long to hear the cry of the 163 million orphans around the world? What took me so long to see her as more than a statistic, more than a photo on a piece of paper? What took me so long to realize that with God's help - I could make a difference in the world - one child at a time?

We kept her Chinese name as her middle name.

Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood
Chinese Characters for her name are in the right background.

Sarah ZK's First Anniversary of Her Happy Adoption Day
December 1, 2000

She became Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood, with all the love, legal rights and privileges as our homemade (bio) children: Kristin and Benjamin. The Chinese and American governments recognized this - but most Americans were-and-still-are absolutely clueless.

I know because I still get those unsolicited comments: "Who is her REAL mother? Will you ever be able to love her like you do your REAL children? Why didn't you adopt a kid from the USA?"

I answer them from a heart that reminds me I was once ignorant too - until God broke my heart for His children around the world who still wait for their Forever Families:

"I am her REAL mother...thanks to the miracle of adoption,
and I'm about as REAL as it gets.

Would you like me to tell you the story of how God

supernaturally brought us together?

He is greater than the mountains and continents and cultures

and comments and paperwork that once separated us.

Oh! You mentioned the children of America.

Do you want to adopt one of the 100, 0000 children

available for adoption in the USA -

or give your time and money like we do -

through organizations here in America?

Or did you just want to criticize me?"

Most people don't want to listen to anything else I have to say.

But occasionally - some do.

So I tell them true stories of our adventures with God. Stories of our journey to China in 1999, and again in 2002, to bring home our youngest daughter, Faith Fu Ju Norwood.

Dang Fu Ju
Benxi Social Welfare Center, Liaoning Province, China

We are now in our 60's - raising two teenage

Chinese/American daughters: both born in China in 1994.

They might not have known each other if not for the miracle of adoption.
People remark that our daughters are lucky.
It's not luck at all.
Our family needed them - just as much as they needed us.

Sarah Zheng-Kang and Faith Fu Ju
at the Shengyang Palace, Liaoning Province, China
October 2002

Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood was born in Changsha City, Hunan Province, China, in January 17, 1994, and adopted into our Forever Family on December 1, 1999.

Faith Fu Ju Norwood was born in Benxi City, Liaoning Province, China, on July 2, 1994, with cleft lip and palate; abandoned and discovered at a railway station on July 5, 1994 - my 45th birthday; and adopted in to our Forever Family on October 13, 2002..but that's another story!

Would you like to hear more?

Sarah Zheng-Kang Norwood & Faith Fu Ju Norwood seem lost
in the streets of Shengyang City, Liaoning Province, China....
when I stepped a few feet away to take this photo.
October 2002

NOTE:

Marcia's story about Sarah ZK was published in...

Chicken Soup To Inspire The Body and Soul
Edited by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen,

Dan Millman, Diana von Welanetz Wentworth
ISBN # 0-7573-0141-X
Marcia's Story: The Beautiful Girl in the Mirror" - Page 233