What An Opportunity!

Amanda, Rebecca's foster mother from China, is in the US and her itineary included a a few days in Nashville. What a great opportunity for us since it's only about 3 hours away so we headed out Thursday afternoon to spend some time with her. I wasn't really sure how Rebecca would react, but since we do speak of her often and have been able to skype with her, I really thought it would be fine. Well, fine doesn't even do it justice - Rebecca was so happy to see her! We had the best time.

We had been invited to a small gathering that had been scheduled for Amanda to speak about her home and mission to help the medically needy orphans in Xi'An. It just so happens that several of the people who attended were also people who had sponsored Rebecca. Brian & I have talked about going down one weekend and attending the church there in Franklin that is such a big supporter of the Starfish Home but we just hadn't gotten around to it yet. I've written about this before, but it's so difficult for me to find the adequate words to share just how very much we appreciate the support shown to Rebecca and to the Starfish Home. To use a line from the Starfish Legend ... these supporters "made a difference to this one". Several people from their church traveled to Xi'An and volunteered there in the home (which is how I was able to get several pictures of Rebecca early on) and then others sent gifts to Rebecca. Her favorite little pair of pink crocs were sent by one of her supporters, another had sent her a build-a-bear. Lots of love was sent to our baby girl from one side of the world to the other! Simply amazing to me and so humbling.

The other little 'red thread' in all of this is that we were in Nashville when we first found out that Rebecca's file had been sent to the CCAA.

Here's a few pictures from the coffee/dessert thing we attended with Amanda.