Our Girls

We just finished three days of China Camp. The girls are beautiful, and so very different from one another. You might not think about the uniqueness of these girls if you were to stare out at the sea of faces – all with beautiful almond eyes, hair straight and black, smiles that light up the room. Sometimes they all look alike, and I can’t find my own child. She’s the one with the glasses slipping down her nose. But that describes about half the girls in this room. They all have two things in common. They were born in China, and they are adopted. But that’s where the similarities end. In this swarm of alikeness, they couldn’t be more different. Some are shy. Some are loud. Some are tomboys with baggy Adidas basketball shorts and t-shirts, and some are quite feminine, wearing shoes with little heels and skirts that swirl. Some girls are serious and complicated and think very deeply. And some girls just want to have fun and they don’t – as Stevie Wonder sings – “worry ‘bout a thing.” (That’s my girl, by the way).

I love China Camp when it rolls around every July because I am reminded what a blessing it all is: adoption, parenting, multicultural families and giving your heart to a little girl who was born across the world. At just the moment when the summer is waning, and it is hot and the six year-old is bored, China Camp plants itself on our calendar. And I am surrounded by all these little Chinese girls, and for the only time this year, my daughter is surrounded – completely – by other little girls who look like her. And her face, with the almond eyes, radiates pure joy. And for an instant I am transported back to the moment when I sat in a hotel conference room with eight other families waiting for the footsteps coming down the hallway. We were sitting in China waiting for our babies. And now they are here, and we are sitting in Tulsa watching our babies become young ladies. Yes, there are a few more boys now, so there are parents who are watching their baby boys become young men. And we are all blessed.

When camp ends the little girls who look so much alike scatter to the waiting arms of parents, and we will all go our separate ways again. The stories are so much the same, but also so very unique. Just like our girls.