This Red Thread? It's Teflon.

I don't know that I can fully do this story justice. Well, I know I can't. I'm just going to say that right now. And if this feels like deja vu at some point? It is. (You will recall a similar story here)

Over the weekend, E~ contacted me by email. She found me through this blog. She is in process of adopting a 3 year old boy from Ella's orphanage in Kunming. He was living there when we made the emotional visit back in February. Do we remember meeting him, she asked? She sent me updated photographs. We've scanned his face but no, he doesn't look familiar. We wish he did. That day is a blur. We wish we could have given her that morsel that we received from our chance encounter.

As our emails continued, E~ sent me links to two blogs containing photos of a Homeland Tour from August 2009. These families (more importantly, China adoptees) visited their orphanage. Ella's orphanage. I'm overwhelmed at the photographs they were able to take. I clicked on every single one of them. Did I think I'd see Ella? Not really. She would have been just over three months old. What are the chances? And then...

...I gasped. That mouth. That lower lip. Her dark eyebrows. Good heavens, that lower lip!! Look at her all wrapped up in a rosebud blanket already sporting that haircut. I know it is Ella Man Li. You do too.

Gifts abound. Not once but twice we've been given a rare glimpse into her life as a tiny infant. This time, we actually have a photo. The red thread that binds us to China, to Ella and to all the other families who have adopted from China only seems to get stronger and stronger. What a pretty fantastic feeling.

H, L & E