A lot can happen in a day’s time.  Twenty-four hours normally fly by, often unnoticed in it’s significance.  And yet, twenty-four hours can make all the difference.  When a decision is made in that short span of time, it has the possibility of changing the world.

April 28, 2010 was one of those twenty-four hours, which changed the world.  At least it changed my world and the world of each member of my family.

April 28, 2010 also changed the world of another, and my heart hurts for her.  You see, the contrast in the type of change in my world and her world is as vast as the ocean, which separates us.

April 28, 2010 was the day my precious daughter was born.  It was a normal day in my life, or so I thought.  And yet, a grand event took place on the other side of the world, which I would only discover months later.  For years, I had prayed about adoption.  In fact, the seed of adoption was planted in my heart before I had even married.  I prayed about it on many days, as I joyfully lived among the five adorable children that the Lord had graciously allowed me to give birth to.  I even dreamed about it—a vivid dream of an addition to our house, a room beautifully appointed with luxurious Chinese wallpaper, and a beautiful white baby bed in the center of the room.

April 28, 2010 was the day my daughter was born, and it began a lifetime of joy for me.  And I am sure it was the day, which began a lifetime of regret for another woman, if she is still living.

I will never know the details of that day.  Was she poor, sick, alone?  Did she see the tumor on the back of her tiny, beautiful neck and realize she could not take care of her like she deserved?  Was she overcome with fear?  Did she die giving birth to this child so full of life?  I will never know.

The woman carried the baby within her for nine long months and endured the pain of childbirth, in a country where abortion is easy and accessible.  And so, she must have wanted this child, loved this child.  So, no, the baby was not abandoned.  She was released, whether for life or because of death.  Released, so she would have better care, a better life.  And it was this sacrifice, which I believe was prompted by love, which gave me my daughter.

I am so grateful for this sacrifice.  I will honor this birth mother in the years to come, as we slowly give information, bit by bit, to my daughter.  I will help her to see that she was indeed loved, even in those brief twenty-four hours.

And I will pray for this woman often and fervently.  I will pray that if she is still living, she will know the acceptance and grace and forgiveness and redemption that only Jesus can offer.  I will pray that one day, in heaven, she and I will embrace and rejoice together in the great gift that God gave both of us–and the world–in our daughter.

by Ellie Berry | 17 years old

I stared out the window at the sea of people walking by, all topped with black hair of various lengths. To say I was in a foreign culture would be an understatement. The food, the smells, the sights, the language, all of which I had only read about, I now experienced as reality. Even more than the common traveler, I was about to connect this foreign world with my world forever.

My mind traveled back one year and one month. I remembered walking outside the school building and seeing my mom, her face full of both joy and panic. I was totally clueless as to what was going on. Instead of asking how my day was or if I had a lot of homework, she explained she had something to talk to me about. This sent my mind racing. What possibly could I have done wrong? I was nervous. She then went into detail to explain the huge decision we had to make in less than 3 hours. I remembered thinking it would be nearly impossible to make a decision like this, one that would change the life of my family forever, in 3 hours. But then again, I thought that this decision wasn’t even one that had to be made; there was absolutely no question. The little girl in the photo was supposed to be part of our family.

My flashback was interrupted by a loud honk honk of the taxi. My dad turned around and said, “Almost there.” “Ready kids?” my mom then exclaimed. No one answered. We were all too caught up with emotion. My sister turned to me and whispered, “Our lives are about to change big time.” I couldn’t wrap my brain around what was about to happen, but I knew whether I was ready or not there was no turning back now. I had to be ready.

A few minutes later, the taxi driver pulled onto a rundown side road, then came to a dramatic stop. This was it. Thoughts raced through my head. What if we weren’t ready? This couldn’t be a mistake could it?

I opened the door to the van and stepped out. Though it had only been 45 minutes, I felt as if I had been in that taxi car for hours. I stretched, then looked up at the building I was about to enter. It looked almost out of place. A nice building like this didn’t belong in this kind of area. I continued staring at the building. This building held part of my family. Walking into this building symbolized a new phase of life for both my family and for me personally. This building held part of my future. I wanted to run in, but I knew I should savor a time like this. I knew I would remember this day for the rest of my life. As I took a deep breath, I felt a squeeze of my hand. I looked down to see my little brother. “I’m so excited,” he stated with no fear or nervousness in his tone.

It was in this moment, I forced myself to be ready. If he could be ready to step into the future without any fear, I could too. Still clutching my brothers hand, I took another deep breath and made my way to the doors of the building.

Once inside, a short, kind-looking woman directed the kids to a seating area, while handing my parents a stack of papers to sign. After what felt like forever, they finished the paperwork and handed it back to the woman. She then led us to the elevator. I was anxious to get upstairs. What was nervousness was now excitement.

We stepped out of the elevator and walked down a long hallway. At the end of the hallway we walked through a large glass door that led to a small room. In the small room, I spotted the cutest little girl I had ever seen. My mom bent down and picked her up. My life was changed forever in that moment. I was in a daze.

Thirty minutes later we stepped back on to the elevator, a family of 8. All full of emotion, it was unusually quiet, but we were all thinking the same thing. Perfect. She, my new Chinese sister, was perfect.

Our adoption journey started when I spoke at a women’s event at my church in Tupelo, MS. Before I spoke, my dear friend Cindy shared her story of adopting her precious daughter, Sophie. My daughters, Katie and Ellie, went with me to the event.

We ourselves had been praying about adopting for about 7 years. Many times I wanted to contact an adoption agency to get the ball rolling, but every time, I felt the Lord saying, “Wait.”

By the time I turned 44, I thought that maybe I had heard Him wrong. Maybe adoption wasn’t for the Berry family. But I knew that helping orphans was for every Christian, so I tried to find manageable ways to do that. One of those ways that I had discovered a few years ago, was a website called Rainbow Kids. Rainbow Kids is an orphan listing that sends email updates on various orphans all over the world who are in need of a loving home and a forever family. Whenever I received an email, I would pray for the child and then delete the email. Easy ministry! And we all can do things like that. Prayer is one of the most powerful and most underused tools of ministry.

What I didn’t know at the time was that my oldest daughter, Katie, was in the back of the room, listening intently to Cindy’s speak … and listening to God speak. She later told me that it was the first time she had ever really heard God speak to her, and the word was: “Your family will also walk this path.”

She didn’t tell me of her revelation, but the next morning she started pestering me about calling an adoption agency. She said, “Mama, call today. At least get the process started. Then we will be ready if anything comes up.” And, as often happens, I got busy that morning and didn’t call. However, I did check my emails and saw on Rainbow Kids listing, a picture of a beautiful little Chinese baby girl.

Now I realize that this story truly started on April 28, 2010, but I just didn’t know it. I looked back in my journal to see if I had recorded anything about that day. Nothing. It was just an ordinary day in the life of the Berry family. I don’t even remember what we were doing that day. Nothing bad was going on, or I would have written about it. Nothing great, either, or I would have recorded it. It was an ordinary day. But our God loves to use the ordinary to create the extraordinary. What I didn’t know then was that on the other side of the world a baby girl was born on April 28, 2010. A beautiful Chinese baby girl. Her only flaw was a tumor on the back of her neck.

When I saw the picture of this beautiful baby, I showed Mont and jokingly said, “Well, honey, you ARE a head and neck surgeon.” He told me to just send an email to them and ask for more information about her and her condition. Within a couple of hours I had gotten a response back. They sent all of her records and said that if we were serious about this, we should have one form back to them by late afternoon because they were going to match her with parents THAT DAY. I was freaking out and scared to death! Mont, a pediatric surgeon, and a neurosurgeon all reviewed her files and all concluded that the cyst would require one surgery to remove and should have no repercussions on her development. After talking with our other five children, we sent the form back at 9pm, knowing that it was possible that the decision had already been made. However, by 11pm we received an email back that said that we were selected to be her parents! The Berry bunch just added another to our family! If you know anything about adoption, you know that this does not happen. What usually takes miles of paperwork and months or years of waiting, took us 12 hours and a couple of emails. Of course, we then had to go through all the normal miles of paperwork and the “hurry up and wait” process of adoption.

One of the things that amazed me is how in love I already was with this little girl! She had never even met me, and yet I would do anything for her, because she was my child. I didn’t care about her “flaw”. We would do whatever was necessary to remove it, but it had no bearing on how we loved her. Do you see the correlation here?

What a picture of the love of God the Father. Before we ever even met Him, He loved us with an everlasting, unconditional love. We, too, have flaws and sins and struggles. He will do the work in our lives to change that, but WE don’t have to change that for Him to love us. He loves us, and then helps us change, through the shed blood of Christ, our Savior.

That is the Good News that has rocked the world for over 2,000 years. That is the Good News that we are called to go and share with others. My prayer is that you would ask the Lord what that looks like for you.