Granger Gotcha’ Day

I tried to get a good look at him out of the corner of my eye. When I took a peek, I saw that he was peeking at me from the corner of his eye, I almost laughed out loud. I was so curious to find out all about this Chinese boy that we were about to adopt, I’m sure he was ten times more curious about what was going to happen to him. But that wasn’t possible, at least at the moment, he had never seen us before and didn’t speak a word of English and my Chinese was limited to a few phrases of greeting.

It was August 8th, 1999. My husband and I and our 10 year-old son were seated on a plastic covered couch in the office of Social Services in Urumqi. Xin Jiang Province of the People’s Republic of China. Within the hour we would sign the papers that would add to our family Wang Chen age 9 years old. It would certainly change our lives, but it would turn his world upside down, and back again.

My husband and I have been married a long time, over thirty years. On and off over our married life we had discussed our desire to adopt. We have two biological children who are grown and in 1991 we adopted our son Benjamin from Romania. But the desire to have more children in our family was still there, so we began praying that the Lord would lead us in the direction He would have us go. When we read about Christian World Adoption’s China Program we knew that was what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go.

Most people who adopt from China do so because of the availability of infant girls, but because we were both in our early fifties, it seemed wiser for us to adopt an older child.

We met with more than the usual resistance. Why would we want to adopt another child? And from China? Didn’t we realize that an older child could have a lot of problems? Isn’t that expensive? Why don’t the two of you just enjoy the children and grandchildren that you have, before you know it you will be of retirement age? But how can you ignore your heart’s desire?

All of the proper paperwork was filled out and sent to it’s designated place and we were in the “waiting mode” when CWA sent out some information they had just received concerning some special needs children. We had not considered a special needs child, but one of the little girls was the same age we were asking for, so we sent for more information.

When the flyer came we realized that the little girl was younger than we had thought, but turning to the back side was a picture of a 9 year old boy who had been abandoned. I scanned the paragraph that described him, what was his special need? His special need was that he was nine years old and considered too old to be adopted! That outraged me, to be healthy and intelligent and eager to have a home and a future and be considered unadoptable simply because you are nine years old was too much!

That outrage led us to be in the far Northwest of China in the city of Urumqi on the edge of the Gobi Desert (in the month of August, no less). In the Urumqi Social Service Office with a nine year old boy that was so nervous and excited that as I peeked at him way over at the far end of the couch, he was holding his legs down with his hands to keep them from shaking.

Wang Chen had been a resident of the Urumqi Children’s Welfare Institute for two years after being found abandoned at the Police Station in the downtown area. He entered the orphanage on his 7th birthday. That was all the information that we had about him. In the year and a half since his adoption Wang Chen, now Brian Chen, has told us his story.

His parents divorced when he was a baby and Wang Chen lived with his father and grandmother. At one time they lived in an apartment in the city of Urumqi, but they also had lived in a much humbler dwelling, a mud brick one roomed house with a dirt floor.

His grandmother died when he was 5 and his father tried to care for him by himself. His mother had re-married and had a son by her new husband. Wang Chen was often left by himself while his father went to work or out. One night a neighbor woke him up to tell Wang Chen that his father had been shot by a policeman and was dead.

After the funeral, Wang Chen’s mother picked him up in a taxi and took him to the apartment where she lived. But since a Chinese couple is only allowed to have one child, she was not able to keep him. Wang Chen’s stepfather took him to the police station with instructions not to tell anything about himself but his name and birthday.

Life in the Urumqi Children’s Welfare Institute was not bad for Wang Chen. He and the other school aged children walked down the dirt road that bordered the Institute to the local elementary school early every morning and walked back every afternoon. He shared a dormitory type room with twenty other children. Occasionally he would go on field trips with the other children for picnics into the hills that surround the city.

It was the efforts of the Institute’s director that brought Wang Chen to the attention of China’s Committee for Adoption Affairs, and finally to our attention.

We had the privilege of touring Wang Chen’s orphanage two days after we signed our adoption papers. He had a chance to say good-bye to his friends and the Institute’s staff. It was very apparent that the staff cared for the children and they were very happy that Wang Chen had found a family.

From Urumqi we flew to Beijing for a few tourist days before meeting the rest of our travel group in Guangzhou. We toured the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and many others, but for all the wonderful sights and sound and meals, it was apparent that what Wang Chen wanted most was to finally be in his new home.

The day before we left for home was a day of relief and celebration. We had completed all the paperwork requirements of the Chinese government and now had finally completed the requirements for the American government. We celebrated by doing some shopping. To tell the truth I had failed miserably in my Chinese shopping effort. Traveling with three men (my husband, son Benjamin, and new son Brian Chen) didn’t help the situation. Now that the stress of paperwork was over I realized that I had no souvenirs to take home. Going to China and not shopping is like going to the grocery store and not getting food!

I was standing in a little shop in the White Swan Hotel and one of the ladies in our travel group showed me a set of beautifully carved wooden combs. When I asked the saleslady about the combs, she said she was sorry, they were all sold out. A voice in the back of my head said, “Don’t worry, you’ll be back.” Now if that wasn’t crazy, I don’t know what was, be back! We hadn’t even gotten home yet, how would my husband react if I told him that I wanted to go back! It was just nuts!

Two months after we got home my husband casually remarked, “Would you ever go back to China to adopt again?”

October 23rd, 2000 is the adoption day for Rose Lee Granger age 7 years, our Beijing girl. Is God good, or what?!

Bonnie Granger