Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Can You Believe It Has Been a Year? A REBECCA Update!


Hi Amanda -


Well, lots of emotions for me today, January 11, as we celebrate our one year anniversary and blessing of little Rebecca joining her forever family. I can close my eyes to this day and still picture you and her walking into our hotel in Xian and so well remember how scared she looked but so obviously trying to be brave. I still too remember that first night waking up to the sounds of her trying to leave, presumably to come home to you and then me holding her while we both bawled our eyes out.

So many times leading up to the adoption you told me that when Rebecca loves, she loves fiercely. Today, I can easily agree with you and can add that my heart is so pleased to know that she now loves us so fiercely. It took a while and that love and trust had to be earned but here we are a year later and the love we share is a love beyond measure. Emma always like the chance to go run an errand with her papa but given the choice Rebecca always chooses to stay with me. It makes my day when just out of the blue she'll walk up and hug me or if she's sitting with me she will kiss me and then tell me she loves me.

Her favorite things are still to play mama with her babies and you can tell she was taught well there at the Starfish Home how to care for a baby because she treats her baby dolls with tender loving care. She's also easily drawn to babies and she'll quietly go over and love on them or try to hold their hands. Our little Rebecca, a tender heart she has. I know I send you many stories about her and I hope you always enjoy that, but as I've said so many times - she has the kindest, purest heart imaginable. She also loves horses and seems to have a natural instinct on caring for them. I'm hoping that in the next year or so I can get her signed up for riding lessons.

I just wish you could see her and Emma playing and singing together, it's a site for sore eyes. They are most certainly two little peas in a pod and are pretty much always in collusion with one another. One will start off on a song and then the other will join in. Them singing "Silent Night" together would certainly bring tears to your eyes.

Oh, and not sure if I shared this story with you but Rebecca's favorite book to read lately is "The Crippled Lamb" and she can easily quote bits and pieces of it. In the story, the little lamb was born with a leg that didn't work. The other lambs made fun of him but he had a special friend, a cow named Abigail who was always very nice to him. Joshua ends up being in the stable the night Jesus was born. A very, very sweet little book. Rebecca's favorite part of the story, and the part she now knows verbatim is "She would spend hours with Josh, telling him stories. When Josh got sad because he could not run and jump and play in the grass, Abigail would say "Don't be sad little Joshua. God has a special place for those who feel left out". She has that part down!

What a blessing she is Amanda, what a blessing.

Thank you so much for all you have done for Rebecca and the other little starfish. You are making a difference!

Blessings,

Carolin Hunter

Life, Love and Laughter,


Amanda

Starfish Children's Services
US Tax Number: 20-4682916
Xian China

At Starfish, we have taken care of 105 children to date, arranged more than 66 surgeries and had 23 international adoptions , so our little starfishes live all over the globe: the US, Netherlands, Norway and Spain and our latest adoption was to a local adoption to Beijing. We currently have 54 babies under the age of 4 at two foster homes.

http://www.thestarfishfosterhome.org/
http://chinesestarfish.blogspot.com/
http://chinesestarfishcleft.blogspot.com/
chinese.starfishthrower@gmail.com
Cell: 86.1348.812.4847

5 comments:

Grandma Shelley said...

Amanda
This post on Rebecca makes the tears flow. You have done such a fabulous job with all the little starfishes you have been entrusted with. God will surely bless you. To Rebecca's mother: Thank you for allowing those of us who have never met you to follow your blog. You are a wonderful family.

Carolin said...

you're more than welcome "grandma Shelley"! Amanda just filled our baby girl up with love. Rebecca still talks about Amanda, it's so sweet!

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Jill said...

I AM CRYING TEARS OF JOY! What an incredible letter Amanda! It speaks volumes about you and the work you do!