A little girl brave enough to cross the world found her family and a mother who would spend the rest of her life telling her, with words and actions, “You were always meant to be ours.” Imagine growing up in an orphanage where you’re not allowed to learn the caretakers’ names so you won’t get attached. Then one day, two strangers arrive and say they love you and take you home, and that home is on the other side of the world. You don’t know their language. You’ve never flown. The food looks strange.
Most adults would panic; this little girl met it all with quiet courage. Joanna, who became her mother, still says her daughter is the bravest person she knows. Joanna was from England. Her dad worked in band management and later moved to the United States. A drummer from South Carolina answered one of his ads, and when Joanna visited that summer, she met the drummer and fell entirely in love.
She returned to England, but daily phone calls became a long-distance promise. Within a year, she moved across the ocean and married him. The band eventually broke up, but the marriage lasted—something they both like to joke about. They moved around for work until 2010, when a Craigslist ad changed everything: a ranch in South Texas needed house parents for kids in foster care.
They were hired and soon found themselves on a vast, quiet stretch of land, caring for a house full of girls. At first, they looked after teens; later, they had younger girls between five and twelve. The stories those children carried were heavy and unforgettable. It was hard and holy work, the kind that breaks your heart and builds you at the same time. They stayed a year, learning how many children needed steady love and a safe place to grow up.
They hoped to adopt a sibling group from the ranch, but a rule required a year’s wait after leaving. In that time, another family stepped forward with an outcome that turned out well for the kids. Joanna went back to school; none of her credits from England transferred, so she started again from scratch and became a nurse. When life settled, adoption came back into focus. Because her husband ran his own business, they couldn’t be out of the country for too long, so they looked at programs that needed only one short trip. China fit.
Their agency showed photos of children waiting for families. Joanna saw a little girl with a bowl haircut just like the one Joanna had as a kid, and felt something click. They asked for her file, prayed, and felt certain: this was their daughter. Then the agency called with bad news. The child’s file was on a shared list; another family had locked it first. Joanna was crushed.
Her husband held onto faith: it would circle back if she were meant for them. They kept moving through paperwork. A few other files came and went; nothing felt right. Nearly a year later, the agency rang again, breathless. The little girl’s file had returned. No one knew why, but the door was open. Because their documents were already in order, they locked the file immediately.
Months later, they flew to China. They spent three days in Beijing trying to sleep off the jet lag and keeping their hands busy with sightseeing, climbing the Great Wall, seeing the Summer Palace, wandering the markets while their hearts counted the hours. Then they took a plane to their daughter’s city. In a small government office that felt like a DMV, the translator’s smile gave it away just before she walked in. After eighteen months of blood tests, forms, and waiting, Joanna and her husband crossed a room as two and walked out as three.
They finished the paperwork the next day and took a train to Guangzhou for the U.S. embassy steps. Two weeks in a hotel later, they flew out of Hong Kong and brought their daughter home to Texas. She was six years old enough to have long waited for “family” to mean forever. She’s in first grade and thriving. She’s taller and stronger, finding her voice through speech and physical therapy. She wakes up sassy and smiling, loves to talk about China, snacks on cheese, watches Peppa Pig, and FaceTimes her best friend. She’s finally getting the childhood she missed.
During the adoption process, Joanna kept thinking about the foster girls they once cared for and the patterns she saw in kids aging out, getting pregnant, and their children landing back in the system. She believes that cycles like that can be broken and that words have power. She searched the Bible for verses about identity and turned them into daily declarations for her daughter, short truths to speak out loud until they sink in. A friend urged her to share the idea, so Joanna wrote a 31-page book of declarations for foster and adopted kids. Families use it to help their children hear and believe who they are. No child chooses to be an orphan or enter foster care. Every child deserves to be someone’s first choice.
