Imagine spending your entire childhood in an orphanage where you are not even allowed to know the names of the adults who look after you, just so you do not get attached. Then one day, two strangers arrive. They tell you they love you, that they are taking you home, and that you are moving to the other side of the world. You do not speak their language, you have never been on an airplane, and the food is completely different.
Most adults would be overwhelmed by all that change. My daughter faced it with courage. I often tell people she is the bravest person I have ever known. She amazes everyone who meets her. But before I go too far ahead, let me begin at the start of my story.
My name is Joanna. I am thirty-eight years old and from England. Long before I was born, my father worked in the music business as a manager for bands. When I was nineteen, he moved to the United States to manage a group he really believed in. A drummer from South Carolina saw an advertisement my dad had posted, traveled to Texas for an audition, and got the job. Later that year, my sister and I flew over for a visit, and that is when I met the drummer. I fell in love with him instantly.
After returning to England, we stayed in touch. We spoke on the phone every single day, which cost my poor mother a fortune. Within a year, I had moved across the ocean to marry him. The band did not last, but our marriage did, and I like to say he ended up with the better deal in the end.\
In 2010, we saw an advertisement for a position as house parents at a ranch in Texas for children in foster care. We applied, got the job, and suddenly found ourselves living on a large piece of land with a house full of girls. At first we looked after teenagers, and later we were given younger girls, some as young as five.
Parenting in that environment was both challenging and rewarding. Their painful stories are not mine to tell, but I will say that the trauma they carried will never leave my memory. Yet even with all they had gone through, they were amazing kids. Our time there opened our eyes to the number of children in need of a family.
We even wanted to adopt a sibling group we cared for, but there was a rule that you had to wait a year after leaving the ranch before adopting. By the time we were eligible, another family had adopted them. It was the best outcome for those children, but we were heartbroken. For a while we set adoption aside while I went back to school and earned my nursing degree.
When life settled, we felt called to adoption again. We explored international adoption and chose China, since my husband’s work made it impossible to stay overseas for a long period. One day while looking at photos of waiting children, I saw a little girl with the same haircut I had as a child. I felt immediately that she was ours.
We prayed, requested her file, and submitted paperwork. Soon after, we learned another family had already claimed her. My heart broke, but my husband stayed calm and said that if she was meant to be ours, it would happen.
Almost a year later, our agency called. Her file had come back for reasons we never learned. We did not hesitate. We secured her file and began the last steps. Months later, we traveled to China. We spent a few days in Beijing seeing the sights, but my heart was focused only on meeting her.
Finally, in a government office, she walked in. After a year and a half of waiting, she became our daughter in that instant. She was six years old when we brought her home.
Today she is thriving. She has grown taller, stronger, and more confident. She loves to talk about China, eat cheese, watch Peppa Pig, and chat with her best friend on FaceTime. Most importantly, she is finally enjoying the childhood she missed for so long.
During this journey, I began to notice something. Many of the foster girls we once cared for repeated the same painful cycles as their parents. I did not want that for my daughter. I searched the Bible for verses about worth and identity, and turned them into daily declarations for her. Those words gave her strength and helped her see who she was made to be.
A friend encouraged me to turn those declarations into a book to help other foster and adoptive families. I created a small book of thirty-one daily affirmations that children can read aloud to remind themselves of their value.
No child chooses to be an orphan or to enter foster care. Every child deserves a family, and every child deserves to be someone’s first choice.
