Have you seen Kung Fu Panda 2? No…seriously? It’s a pretty sweet movie! For those of you haven’t (you need to!) allow me to catch you up. In the 1^st movie, Po the Panda becomes the Kung Fu Warrior in China – which is a big deal and everyone was pretty disappointed that he was chosen, because he is a big, unfit Panda…but by the end he earns everyone’s respect. In the 2^nd movie Po is still the Kung Fu Warrior, but this one is all about him and his team defeating the evil Peacock (yes, peacock…that’s not a typo). When Po comes face to face with the Peacock, he has a flashback to his childhood, its then that he realizes that his dad (a goose) was not his birthparent…he was adopted. Through more and more flashbacks he remembers the peacock trying to kill off all of the panda’s in the land and his mom ran away with him while being chased by wolves…she found a turnip box (on Gooses door step) and left baby Po in it, trying to protect him from death. Baby Po cried out to his mama as she ran off.

McKayla and I watched this for the first time last December, I must have been distracted at the time or only half watching the movie with her when this scene of the movie came up because I completely missed the significance…my angel did not. When I looked over at her, she was sobbing. I immediately stopped the movie and asked what was wrong, she said through tears “its just like Amelia, her mama didn’t want to leave her, she had to…to protect her”. “Oh sweet angel, that is exactly right.” We both sat there crying together…then Jay got home and wondered what in the world had happened, when he left we were happily watching Kung Fu Panda 2 and now we were a mess!

This is how we have explained things to McKayla regarding Amelia and her birthparents…that due to various circumstances they could not keep her. And that is how we planned to explain things to Amelia when the time was right, but things have changed, the wording on her paperwork has shaken me to my core, in such a way that I don’t know what we will tell her. It comes down to one word that appears multiple times in her paperwork…abandoned. Just typing it makes me sick to my stomach and brings tears to my eyes. She was abandoned. One day she will read that and I know it will tear her apart, no matter how secure she is in our love for her.

The definition of abandoned is “given up” or “forsaken”. I have repeated those words over and over to myself, not in a ‘dark and twisty’ way, but in a ‘trying to wrap my brain around it’ kind of way. And what I have come up with is nothing…no matter which way I turn it, this beautiful gift from God was never abandoned, it is just not possible. She has been mislabeled, as I assume most of these precious orphans have been.

After spending nearly two weeks here, I am very much aware of how the locals feel, that parenting your child is as much their duty as it is mine. Brings a whole new meaning to “it takes a village”! I have imagined what it must have been like for Amelia’s birthmother, she must have been a proud mama even though Amelia was born with a cleft lip and palate, after all, those things are only skin deep…and a mama’s love is so much deeper! I wonder how much her family weighed in when they saw Amelia’s “facial defects” (often considered a bad omen in this culture) and how many perfect strangers chimed in too. I can’t begin to imagine the pain she must have felt when she left Amelia in a turnip box. No, she wasn’t really left in a turnip box, but in KFP 2, you see the pain in the mama panda’s eyes as she leaves Po, and that’s how I imagine it was for her. She was putting Amelia needs and best interest above her own, and I am immeasurably grateful for her sacrifice.

I still have no clue how we will overcome the word “abandoned”, but I do know that Our Father’s love is SO much bigger, deeper and wider than any label that is placed on us. (Praise God for that!)

And what y’all have all been waiting for…some pics! Enjoy! Love y’all much, H

This was Amelia’s first flight! It was awful…she cried a lot of the time! This is me smiling because her glow seahorse did what the DumDum failed to do!

McKayla is beginning to cope with the fact that Amelia is so independent. They take turns chasing each other with tickle fingers!

Baby girl had her medical exam on Saturday…aside from it being chaos, it went great! Weighing in at 20.9lbs…AMELIA MOTLEY!!

Amelia loves her daddy…most of the time! This is when we were at the 1500 year old Buddhist Temple in Guangzhou.

I love these sweet girls so much!

This girl can eat! Today we found some noodles that she chowed down on!