Children of Dreams, An Adoption Memoir Read online

  After checking out my room, I took my six sets of documents back downstairs and waited for him to return. A few minutes later, he arrived on his motorcycle.

  “We need to go to the U.S. Embassy to drop off some paperwork.”

  I glanced at his motorcycle and stared back at him. I looked down at my new blue skirt and black heels. I didn’t want to picture myself riding on a motorcycle with someone I hardly knew dressed in my Sunday attire. I had ridden on a motorcycle only once before in Bermuda many years earlier. What if I dropped the notebook containing all the adoption papers, or worse, fell off?

  Sensing my concern, he said, “We can rent another taxi, but we’ll be doing a lot of traveling in Kathmandu and it will get expensive.”

  I reluctantly hopped on the back, maneuvering my skirt so it wouldn’t clog up the engine. I stuck the heavy black binder between us and wrapped my arms around his waist as tightly as I could. He revved up the engine and we took off down the clogged streets of Kathmandu.

  Most people rode on bikes, but every conceivable type of wheeled transport could be seen. Many of the roads were dirt or gravel, and the air was thick with dust. The Nepalis wore scarves and face covers over their nostrils to keep from inhaling the dirt. I didn’t have one.

  When I arrived back at the Bleu Hotel after our excursion to the U.S. Embassy, my blue skirt was covered in road grime. My skin stung from the debris hurled from the motorcycle and I could taste muck on my lips. The odorous smell of Nepal was now on me. I was repelled and overwhelmed at the same time. I had only been here a few hours and I was already thinking about when I could leave.

  One of my suitcases was filled with an assortment of things I had brought to an American family serving as missionaries. The Reeses had been in Kathmandu for quite some time. The mother was a physician, and their children ranged in age from six to twelve. They had called and wanted to know when they could stop by the hotel. The only way they received items from America was when someone brought them. Most mail would not arrive without being pilfered. It had been six months since they had received any packages.

  I unloaded my suitcase, wishing I could meet Manisha. Was she in the city? Ankit said we wouldn’t be able to see her until tomorrow.

  Scattered among the Reeses’ things were gifts for Manisha, including a pink doll, Play-Doh, blocks, a yellow toy telephone, and a stuffed dog that made noise when I pushed in his nose. I had also brought a few clothes, some big and some small since I didn’t know her size. They were clean and unsoiled by the Nepali air.

  The Reeses called and said they would be over in a few minutes. I gathered their things and walked down to the hotel lobby. A short time later they arrived and I was surprised to see three blonde-haired, fair-skinned children show up on bicycles with their father. I wondered how they could seem so American when they lived in such a different culture.

  They were excited to receive the gifts. As we sat and chatted in the lobby, an American-looking man walked in with a Nepali girl. I found out he was from Canada and was making plans to return home.

  “I got my phone call from India,” he explained. “We waited a week. That was the last thing we needed to finish her adoption. We have been here a month.”

  I felt a twinge of jealousy that they were done and I was just starting. I couldn’t imagine being in Nepal for a whole month.

  The little girl uttered a few words in Nepali.

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  The motel attendant said, “She called her father an uncle.”

  Everyone laughed and I relaxed a little.

  “How old is she?”

  “She’s two,” her father said.

  I tried to imagine how big Manisha would be compared to her.

  “When are you leaving?”

  “We are leaving on Tuesday.”

  So soon; few people spoke English here so my time in Nepal would be lonely. It was reassuring to see that his adoption went through. I hoped mine would be the same. We visited for a few more minutes until the Reeses had to leave.

  “I hope to see you again,” I told them.

  “We’ll have you over for an American meal one night,” they promised, “and you won’t have to worry about the food.”

  I could look forward to that. I asked them for tips on good restaurants. I had been warned: Don’t eat salads, don’t eat meat, don’t eat vegetables, and don’t eat fruit unless it’s contained in a peel.

  As I left the Bleu Hotel and took my first walk in Kathmandu, I tried to take in the world that opened before my eyes. Poor, dirty, spiritually dark, and oppressive for women, it was a place where hope seemed nonexistent. It was hard for me to believe that my daughter would come from here.

  Nepal, home to so many children who would never make it to their fifth birthday; who lived in severe poverty and suffered from lack of nutrition and disease; children who had little hope of ever knowing what it would be like to have a full belly at night or a chance to live life to the fullest. Perhaps most dared to not even dream.

  In a country thousands of miles away from my home in Gainesville, Florida, most knew nothing of the God I loved and worshipped. Nepal, a world apart and a world within my heart, the two would be linked forever.

  Never again would my heart not skip a beat and my ears not perk up when I heard the name Nepal mentioned in the news. Never again would my mind not be drawn back to these days when I walked its darkened streets.

  Chapter Two

  For my thoughts are not your thoughts

  Isaiah 55:8

  I exited the Bleu Hotel, walked a few blocks, and turned left to explore a couple of streets I had not seen. I was careful not to stray too far for fear of becoming lost. Each road looked the same, lined with small, open air bazaars on each side, with people selling their wares. The tourist trade from Europe and the Middle East helped families eke out a small living. Beautiful silver jewelry hung in the open air along with marionettes used for religious rites.

  As the evening drew near, the Nepalis dumped their garbage out along the streets, and the starving cows, now becoming a familiar sight to me, foraged for food from the leftovers. I vacillated between wanting to rub and protect my sleep-deprived eyes from the dirt in the air to not wanting to miss anything, no matter how gross or unsightly. Fascination with the strangeness of the culture whet my appetite to see more.

  With shoulder length, wavy, blonde hair and fair skin, I was as much a curiosity to the Nepalis as they were to me. Questioning eyes stared back at me. I represented wealth and money. Shop owners wanted rupees from me to feed their children. Every few minutes a Nepali man would wave at me as if to say, “Come here and buy something.”

  Nepal is the forty-eighth poorest country in the world. Out of a population of eighteen million, six million drink water we wouldn’t give to our dogs. Four years later, I would find out what drinking contaminated water could do to a seven-year old child. Trying to ignore the stares, I picked up my pace to find a suitable restaurant.

  After a while, all the eating establishments began to look the same and I arbitrarily picked one that seemed friendly. A small sign outside the restaurant written in Nepali displayed their menu. I knew I wouldn’t be ordering a hamburger.

  I was greeted by a smiling, young Nepali lad who handed me a menu and seated me at a table. The menu was meaningless and the waiter spoke no English. I smiled at him and he smiled at me. At last I pointed to something and he nodded and left. Looking around the dimly-lit restaurant, I was greeted by more stares. Feelings of insecurity crept in as I wondered, sitting all alone, what the future held.

  I reflected on how my journey to Nepal really wasn’t that unique. I was just a sojourner traveling to a distant land to fulfill what turned out to be only the beginning of my dreams. As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

  God knew my heart-felt desire was to become a mother. As God longed to have a relationship with me, I wanted a little gir
l that I could hug, hold, kiss, teach, and spoil. God had promised to wipe away my tears when I met Him in Heaven, but I wanted Him to wipe away my tears now. It was a longing that consumed me, that spoke to my heart with every little girl I saw on the street, in the mall, or in a restaurant.

  Did God care about my dreams? Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick but when dreams come true at last, there is life and joy.” Could I trust God, half a world away, that He would not abandon me? If I left Nepal without the little girl that danced in my dreams and filled me with hope, would I still love God?

  My thoughts were interrupted by the waiter laying a tray of food on the table. I couldn’t tell what it was in front of me, but I thanked him and smiled to show my approval. He seemed satisfied and proceeded to the next table. I took a few bites and my mind continued to wonder.

  I reflected back to some of the events that had brought me to this point. When I was young, my birthfather left my mother and me. I wouldn’t meet him again until many years later. Eventually my mother remarried and her new husband, Gene, adopted me when I was ten.

  A few years following my painful divorce, I fell in love with a wonderful Christian man, but broke off the engagement when I realized that I was more content to remain single than to marry again. Instead, I poured my energy into obtaining that long elusive college degree. A month following graduation, my adoptive father was diagnosed with a brain tumor. His impending death forced me to examine my own mortality. What would my life be like in ten years? What did I really, really want?

  My desire to be a mother remained unfulfilled. No amount of involvement with children at church had quenched my desire and longing to have children of my own. I believed that if God was who He said He was in the Bible, there was no hope, no want no desire, and no dream that was so big that God wasn’t bigger still.

  Now I sat in a restaurant as different in culture from America as the East is from the West. In Romans 8:37, Paul writes that “...in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

  Would Manisha be willing to love and accept me? I was probably the least likely person to adopt a child as a single woman. It would have been hard to find a person more insecure than I was just a few years earlier. I had spent a lifetime believing Satan’s lies that I was no good, that I would never amount to anything, that God didn’t love me, and that I was unlovable. Unwanted memories would flood my mind, stirring up buried emotions.

  I would later meet Manisha in a dingy, dirty motel room halfway around the world. I would bring her out of filth, depravity, and hopelessness for a better life in a new country. She would be given full citizenship and the rights of every other American. She would leave her country of birth for a better place.

  Had God not done the same for me? Had He not purchased me with Jesus’ shed blood? Did I not long for a better place, an inheritance, where there would be no more pain, sickness, or death? Where my adoption papers were already sealed, waiting for the moment when, as portrayed in Revelation, Jesus would break the seal and open the scroll?

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

  That God chose me, as weak as I am spiritually and mentally, to go to Nepal and adopt a daughter and later adopt a child from Vietnam, is a testament to His faithfulness and unconditional love. I always thought I would have to do something or give up something or suffer something that in my own strength I would cry out, “No, God. I will do anything but that.” I had to lay my life down before God could give it back to me.

  The rich young ruler was unwilling.

  Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me” (Mark 10:21).

  Was it my dream to be a mother that took me to Nepal or was it God’s plan for me to adopt Manisha? This side of eternity, I may never know completely, but when I met my daughter for the first time, I knew I was standing on holy ground. Lest I get ahead of myself, night was falling and I needed to return to the Bleu Hotel. I gave what I learned later was a humongous gift for a tip and proceeded on my way.

  As I departed, my waiter was immensely pleased, beaming and inviting me to return anytime. Even in his broken English, sign language, and Nepali, it came through clearly that I had made him a rich man, at least for one evening.

  Chapter Three

  There is a time for everything

  Ecclesiastes 3:1

  There was so much to do and so little time. If God had made a day to be twenty-five hours long, I could have filled that extra hour up with something. When a woman gets pregnant, she has nine months to prepare for her new bundle of joy. I only had two months.

  Our U.S. international adoption laws were never written for the faint of heart. Not only did I have to meet the U.S. international requirements, I had to meet Nepal’s requirements as well. Each country has its own set of documentation that must be filled out, submitted, and approved.

  I had to fill out an application for an I-600 Petition that permits a person to classify an orphan as an immediate relative, allowing the adoptive parents to bring the child into the country. I had to complete a notarized affidavit of support and provide a copy of my marriage certificate and divorce decree. I had to submit employment letters, plus my 1040 since I was self-employed.

  My bank had to provide a certified letter stating what my average balance was for the previous twelve months. I had to show proof of citizenship by providing a certified copy of my birth certificate. I had to type up a cover letter stating I wished to complete filing of my I-600 Petition and attach my fingerprints to the document. I had to have a home study performed by a licensed social worker approving me as a prospective parent. The police department did an abuse registry check to make sure that I didn’t have a criminal record. I had to pass a physical and show verification of health insurance. It seems like there was more, but I blocked it out. I don’t want to remember.

  With international adoptions, individual countries can open and close adoptions without notice or make changes in requirements. When I initially began the adoption process, I was looking at Guatemala. While gathering my documents, Guatemala closed adoptions and I had to find another adoption agency and country.

  After filling out all the required paperwork, I had to make sure my passport was valid so I could travel outside the country. Then I prayed that I would stay sane because I hate filling out documents. International child referrals can take a long time because of the voluminous paperwork, or worse—political upheavals, greed, corruption, baby-selling, and deceitful scams. Sometimes it takes years to jump through all the hoops. For God to accomplish Manisha’s adoption in two months was nothing short of miraculous, but then again, we have a God who is in the business of doing what, humanly speaking, seems impossible.

  Even before I left, God was taking care of every detail that would require His intervention for Manisha to be my daughter. I had no idea how close I would come to not getting her.

  God had always put extraordinary people in my life to accomplish His sovereign purposes. A couple of days before leaving, as I was packing my six sets of documents, I called the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Miami, Florida, to see if they had received my dossier.

  “You must be psychic,” the woman on the other end of the phone said. “Your packet was just placed in front of me.”

  “No, I am not psychic. I am a Christian and I think God wants me to adopt this little girl.” She wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she continued to go through a list of things.

  “I don’t see your home study,” she said. “They never gave it to me,” I told her. “It was mailed by the adoption agency that did my home study, to the adoption agency in the Midwest that was coordinating the Nepali side of things.”

  “You must have that document,” she insisted. “I will overnight a copy of it to you and make sure you take it with y
ou.”

  The next day, the home study arrived by Fed Ex, and I made a copy and packed it in my suitcase. Neither adoption agency made sure I had it. A lady from the INS gave it to me overnight by Federal Express.

  I could not have adopted Manisha without the home study in my possession.

  After dinner and having returned to the Bleu Hotel, I climbed the three flights of stairs to my room and filled out a couple of faxes to let people know I had arrived safely. This was back in the prehistoric days before email. I walked down the stairs again to hand the papers to the receptionist. As I waited for him to finish sending the fax, another Canadian man whom I had not met earlier walked up and gave me one of those looks that makes a woman feel uncomfortable.

  I tried to turn away from him, but he persisted, “Why don’t you come up to my room tonight...”

  I thought I would be nauseous. The last thing I wanted to do was spend an evening with some guy I didn’t know. I tried to explain to him I was adopting a little girl, but he had no interest in hearing about that.

  I quickly finished my business with the attendant and once again climbed up the three flights of stairs making sure he didn’t follow.

  Ankit later told me, “You know the wickedness of man. Man is even more wicked here.” I had no reason to doubt him. More than once while in Nepal, I felt an evilness that I associated with Hinduism. It was like a coffin being lowered into the ground, a veil covering the truth, the darkness of a bottomless pit full of people with no hope.

  Chapter Four

  A longing fulfilled is sweet to the soul

  Proverbs 13:19

  The next morning I awoke at 5:30 a.m. Back home, it was 5:30 p.m.—a twelve hour time difference. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I got up and took a walk in the opposite direction from the previous day. Shops were beginning to open and people were sweeping the dust off the streets in front of their stores with small hand held brooms. I grabbed something to eat and arrived back at the hotel about 8:00.