Moving Outside of the Comfort Zone.

We are a Chinese-American family. It is good for me to type that because in the middle of doing and living and feeding and bathing, I occasionally lose sight of that - we both do. But we make a conscious effort to not only remember it but embrace it. Chinese New Year decorations hang everywhere right now to honor our combined heritage. We gathered with our FCC families to celebrate the New Year two weeks ago. Ella and her daddy attend a monthly play group that brings together other Chinese adoptees with Chinese students at our local university.

And this past weekend, we headed north to celebrate the Lunar New Year with people we didn't know, another FCC group and Asian families from that community. At least, that's what we thought...

Kunming Sisters Miss D and Ella after a short time with one another.

Meet Miss D. In an amazing twist, we met this sweet little soul on Saturday afternoon. She is four days younger than Ella. She is adopted from the same orphanage as Ella. They began their lives together. Miss D's parents are friends with a couple who adopted a little girl from the same orphanage as Roz. They, too, began their lives together and even shared the same ayi (nanny).

Roz with Miss A

And although we knew we were going to meet Miss A. and her parents on Saturday, we were blown away at the surprise of meeting Ella's Kunming sister. To say that we were touched by this planned surprise (yes, Miss A's mom was thrilled to set this up!) doesn't do it justice. Tears found me rather quickly as I held Miss D. in my arms. Both families live less than an hour away from both Ella and Roz. Our path to making our families took four different couples half-way around the world and we all landed within 60 miles of each other.

Reunited, two years later.

They dance identically!

Some of our other favorite people joined us as well.

Lana trying to convince Ella to do crafts.

The lions danced and the drums played.

What I keep coming back to is this: we have been given a gift. We have one more morsel of Ella's past that wasn't there on Saturday morning when we packed up the car.

Frick and Frack.

 We look forward to fostering the connection for our girls. They deserve it and it is our job. And it may be inconvenient or move us outside of our comfort zone from time to time, but this really isn't about us. It is about Ella. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

If there was any question about The Red Thread, Saturday's experience certainly should sway the doubters. "An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of time, place or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break." -Chinese proverb

H. L & EML