PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 66 – ADOPTING FROM CHINA
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 66 - ADOPTING FROM CHINA
Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello ladies. I have my sister, Kate, with me again today, so that is going to be exciting!
Before we move on, I am going to read you another poem. I have been doing this from time to time lately and because we have been talking about sheep this is called, “Twas a Sheep, not a Lamb.”
Twas a sheep not a lamb that went astray
In the parable Jesus told.
Twas a grown sheep that wandered away
From the ninety and nine in the fold.
And out on the hilltop, and out in the cold,
Twas a sheep the Good Shepherd sought.
Back to the fold and back to the flock,
Twas a sheep that the Good Shepherd brought.
Now, why should the sheep be so carefully fed
And cared for even to-day?
Because there is danger if they go wrong,
They will lead the lambs astray.
The lambs will follow the sheep, you know,
Where’er they wander–where’er they go.
If the sheep goes wrong, it will not be long
Till the lambs are as wrong as they.
So still with the sheep we must earnestly plead,
For the sake of the lambs to-day.
If the lambs are lost, what a terrible cost
The sheep will have to pay!
-C. C. Miller
Now Kate, there was another story you’ve told me about your sheep. I think it was in the barn one night. Can you remember that story? I love it!
Kate Marchiniak: Yes, definitely. One of the things I used to love to do was to go out to the barn and sometimes just sit in the barn with them. Especially if it had been a hot day, they would come up round about noontime and just sit out and chew their cuds.
It was just a peaceful scene. I used to love to sit in the midst of it and watch them and be with them. It was so peaceful.
But there was this one day they were sitting in a circle and I was on the outside of the circle sitting with them. As they were chewing their cud there was this one ewe, and she was not one of the ones I had raised, and all of a sudden, she stood up and looked at me and walked straight over to me. She put her head on my lap and snuggled into my lap.
I was amazed because ewes, or sheep at all, do not do that. That was so unusual, it was not the norm. I felt that was a lesson that God was showing me. It absolutely thrilled my heart.
It was a lesson of trust I believe, as I think about it now. That ewe came over and put its head into my lap. It was a lesson of intimacy and how the Lord loves us to come and put our heads on His lap as a sign of trusting Him and leaving it all to Him, resting in Him, just resting on His lap. That absolutely thrills a shepherd’s heart.
As I said before, that was not a normal thing for that ewe to do that. But it was, I believe, an illustration of how it thrills the heart of the Shepherd if we as His flock will come and put our heads on His lap and rest in Him.
NC: That’s so beautiful, Kate. I can remember the first time we came to visit you when you were living up in the Caribou of British Columbia and up in your great big log house. The logs were so huge. It wasn’t a normal log house.
In fact I remember arriving there. It was a snowstorm and there was no way of getting up to your house up on the hill. I remember Barry coming down with the tractor, putting our car and trailer on the tractor and hauling us up.
From that time we were just about too scared to go out because it was too scary to go down your driveway or even get up it again.
It was Christmastime. We stayed home and I made homemade bread and soup every day and we just enjoyed the big fire going with the snow all around. You would be coming in with little lambs that had been born and we’d be cuddling them on the sofas. It was just such an amazing time.
I remember that Christmas, we were all so poor at the time and nobody could afford presents, so we all wrote poems to each other and read them out. I still have those poems today; they were so amazing!
But anyway, ladies, we are going to talk about another different subject today. Kate, sadly, my dear sister Kate, she was never ever able to have children of her own. That was a huge loss because Kate is the most motherly person, as you can tell as you have been listening to her talk about her sheep and her lambs. They were like her little children and her little babies.
In fact, when Kate would come to my place, my dogs, I’ve had dogs from time to time, but they were all Kate’s little children. She was so motherly to every animal she could ever see.
But she always had this longing that she would adopt a baby from China. I think God put that in your heart, didn’t He?
KM: I’m sure.
NC: She longed and longed, but the years went by. It costs money to get a baby from China and she had no money. When they were living in Canada there was never any extra money to adopt this baby.
Eventually she came down to the States and you were 49 years of age and I remembered hearing that if you wanted to adopt a child from China, 50 years of age was the cut-off age.
I said, “Kate, you’ve got to do it!”
She said, “I can’t, we haven’t got a cent to our name.”
I said, “Just start!”
So you took a step of faith and started. Tell us how God was with you as you took that step of faith to start even with no money in your purse.
KM: Well I should say I have this box at home, a big box, and it has all the documents in, every document we had to fill out, to get a child from China.
I was thinking, “Oh my goodness!” It was such a process. Of course home studies were included, that was fine, but just paper after paper after paper that you had to fill out.
The process takes a long time. It was about a year and a half of filling out papers. It never seemed to stop. We always seemed to have another paper to fill out.
But as we went along and did the whole process, money came in. I forget where it even came from, whether it was from church or people!
NC: I think when it got to the biggest sum the church took a love offering. They were really a part of it.
KM: Yes, they were really a part of it. My friend, Susan, who came with us to China with us, she really paid a lump sum too. She’s become Promise’s godmother.
NC: It’s actually interesting, this friend of Kate’s, Susan, I should really tell you who she is, especially seeing she is Promise’s godmother.
Susan is the daughter of the great grandson of President Tyler (10th president of the United States)and he is still alive today. Can you believe that? That is unbelievable.
KM: And she is taking care of him full time.
NC: Yes, he’s now in his last days, the most wonderful, wonderful, godly gentleman.
President Tyler’s first wife died and then he married again. Lionel, Susan’s father, was at the end of the second marriage and that is how he can somehow still be alive today. It’s amazing.
KM: It’s really quite amazing.
I just noticed something in my little book here that I had filled out in terms of receiving help towards the adoption.
I put here, “After two showers, with approximately one hundred friends, they loaded us beyond measure with three carloads of clothes for Promise. Now I am sitting in the Chicago airport with Terre, Susan, and I, waiting for the next flight to Beijing.
Susan is traveling with us and she is a gift from the Lord, such a blessing. She has helped us immensely already. Terre has looked at the boarding pass every ten minutes.”
NC: But anyway, God was so good, and Kate just got in by the skin of her teeth according to her age and was able miraculously to adopt.
Some of you may be thinking about adoption and you think it is impossible. But if God is in it, nothing is impossible.
Kate and Terre had nothing and yet they ended up with Promise because God was good, and God provided, and He chose.
Kate prayed for years for this child. And this beautiful child was actually just abandoned, left in a cardboard box at a government agency. She just came out of a cardboard box. You didn’t get her till she was about two, wasn’t it?
KM: Two, yes. She was at a children’s welfare institute in Yu Yang until she was two.
NC: Tell us what it was like when you first saw her.
KM: Wow so anyhow we were taken to the hotel and Promise had come 13 hours on train with her caretakers from Yu Lin City. Her name was “Dang Yu” which means “the communist party” so we soon had to change it.
NC: Goodness, that is what it meant? The communist party?
KM: Yes. So she had come 13 hours that day and there was a whole group of us. Terre and I came down into this foyer.
Quite a few of the other mothers had gotten their babies who were younger, and they were holding them.
We were one of the last ones and here was little “Dang Yu,” or should I say, Promise Lili, which means “very pretty.” I gave her Lili as her second name.
As soon as I saw her, immediately I knew it was Promise. The director of the orphanage started to talk to Promise. He was quite gruff to her in telling her that she was to come to us.
Instead, she had never seen a foreigner in her life. She had never seen a redhead! So, two years old, she clung to this trolley and she screamed the house down and she wouldn’t stop screaming. She was holding a bag of chips and clinging to the trolley.
I thought. “What have we done?”
Eventually she became exhausted and I went over and picked her up. I took her and showed her the fish in the fish tanks. Then we took her up to our room and she peed all over me.
By that time she was so exhausted she kept gasping for breath and couldn’t stop. We bathed her and by this time she was totally exhausted. We put her in the cot in the hotel room. She was so exhausted she just fell asleep.
I don’t think I got any sleep that night because of what she had gone through. I kept thinking, “What have we done? Will it work?”
But the next morning I got up and she stared at me. I picked her up and I dressed her in this little outfit, a little hat and a little bag. She just thought this was wonderful. She held my hand and never let go.
In fact, the whole time I was there she would not leave me. She clung to me and would not let me go.
NC: You would have loved that.
KM: Yes. It was tiring, but she would not let me go.
That was wonderful because some stories are not like that. Some are that they do not have that intimacy and they have an attachment problem. But Promise was the opposite.
At first, of course, it was pretty terrible, but the next day she just clung to me and wouldn’t let go. She wouldn’t go to Terre until we got home. I was the one that she was attaching herself to and forming that intimacy, which was good, and which was right as her mother.
When we got home it was the same, she would not leave my side. She eventually came around to Terre and of course began to go to him.
It was a dream come true because I had waited so long. As she got a bit older, of course I homeschooled her. For a bit, I put her in Chinese lessons for two years. She never learned a thing because she wasn’t interested. All she was interested in was the American way of life and the appearance that she had.
NC: It’s been a most beautiful thing to behold.
KM: But can I say this, Nancy? One thing that I often think of, and I have actually wept over, is that because of the one child policy there has been a lot of suffering. That includes Promise’s biological mother.
I can’t even begin to know, I think I am going to begin to cry now, what she has gone through to give her child and leave her child outside a government agency in a cardboard box and to have to leave her there.
As a mother, I do not know the pain she must have gone through and must now even wonder where and how her daughter is doing.
One day I was sitting on the bed. I had a lot of papers on the bed and was trying to sort out stuff and I couldn’t find it. It was a story on how Promise was found.
Promise happened to pick it up and started reading it. She couldn’t read the rest. She had to put it down because it was too much for her to read and too much for her to take in.
She has never asked me since about her own mother. They cannot find her. They tried to find her but could not and most probably never will. But I know in the heart of God He knows where that mother is and I’m sure He grieved, and He has grieved over the mothers who have had to give up their babies.
NC: Yes, but God answered your prayer. Actually, I’m being very negative now, but in many ways, Kate, you were a bit of a cot-case before you had Promise.
KM: I beg your pardon?
NC: Because you were desperate for motherhood. I mean, you were born for it.
KM: I was functioning.
NC: Oh, I know, you were in so many areas, but in this area, there was that lack and that longing, and it affected your whole life and then when Promise came you blossomed.
I mean, you always had your amazing gifts and your outgoing personality, but there was this thing, and when Promise came you just blossomed. I mean, you were born for it.
We are born for motherhood, aren’t we? We’re just born for that pouring out of your life and that’s what Kate did. She was the most beautiful mother to Promise.
KM: Not perfect!
NC: Well, no mothers are perfect.
But you were just an amazing mother to watch over the years. Promise will be 17 this month and she has just grown into the most beautiful, beautiful girl.
KM: But now she tells me every time we go out in the car, she criticizes my driving.
NC: Well, that’s typical of that age.
But to watch the years go by and see their beautiful relationship and their closeness.
In fact, what you said, she held your hand and never let go, but how many years did she suck your arm?
KM: Yes, that’s right, she used to do that! She always wanted what she called “armie.” She sucked the inner part of my upper arm. That was her comfort.
NC: Because sucking is a comfort, she just needed that.
KM: She needed that, yes.
NC: That went on for years, didn’t it?
KM: Yes. And of course if that would be a biological parent, it would be the mother’s breast, but for me it was the inside of my arm.
NC: Yes, yes, so beautiful. Now to just see her growing up in the ways of God, it’s been such a beautiful thing.
KM: But there is still a lot of praying to do over her.
NC: Yes, that’s for every child, isn’t’ it?
KM: But I also want to say, if any of you are considering adopting, go ahead because it is fulfilling. I just want to encourage you now if some of you are hesitating and have had it on your heart. I think it’s God that puts it on your heart, so go ahead with it.
NC: Yes, and we know that there are many who are adopted that often do have attachment disorders. That’s really a great miracle that Promise never really had that.
KM: Yes, it was just that first moment.
NC: Yes, but that was only a day. It’s as though she was born from your womb.
KM: Oh yes.
NC: It’s so beautiful. I think maybe one of the reasons for that is you not only prayed, but you interceded for years and years and years.
You had shared with our mum your vision for this baby from China and I can remember for years mum praying for this baby.
KM: I think mum’s prayers play a huge part in Promise’s life and her destiny.
NC: And the way she has been so attached to you. I don’t think I have ever seen an adoption where the mother and child have been so absolutely and emotionally attached.
I think you’re right too—prayer is powerful.
Also the prayers of those who are now passed. That reminds me, Kate, how just this last weekend our dear Aunty Mavis passed away. She was 97 years of age and she was the last one of our parent’s generation. There are none left.
Our father came from a family of five boys and they all married and raised their children. They all prayed for the coming generations.
Our mum and dad prayed for us—they prayed for their children.
I know Aunty Mavis, she is the last living one, she prayed for her children and grandchildren.
But thinking about that, it’s a huge responsibility. When Aunty Mavis passed away a week ago, I felt that it was an incredible changing of the guards, a passing of the baton.
Although, for both you and I, prayer is a huge thing in our lives, and we already pray for our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and the coming generations but I just bring it to you as a challenge to you today.
When grandparents or parents pass on, you are now the one who is left. If you don’t pray for your children, there’s no one else to pray. If you’re not praying, can you expect anyone else getting down on their knees crying out to God for your children?
No, it’s you! You love them more than anyone else. You have a heart for them more than anyone else. God gives to you that privilege and power to pray for them.
So we are now the generation praying for the next generation. But when we pass on, it will be the next generation. And may every generation keep on praying.
That makes me think of another thing about you, Kate. There are lots of things we haven’t talked about, but one of them is that Kate is a praying woman.
In fact, not only does she spend hours with the Lord personally and has always been an intercessor, but God gave her a vision ten years ago. He gave her a vision to pray in the Franklin Square of Franklin, Tennessee.
Now Franklin is really the next town down from Nashville. It’s a beautiful town, known as one of the best towns in the whole USA.
KM: It’s a historic town.
NC: There was a revival there that once happened there from E. M. Bounds who wrote “The Power of Prayer.” Kate felt that it was time to intercede again for Franklin and so every Friday at lunchtime from 12:30 -1:00 pm, she goes down to that Square and anyone else who will come with her.
How many do you have coming with you?
KM: There are only a few, about four of us at a time now. But that’s okay it doesn’t matter.
NC: I think that revival usually comes through the little group, the remnant that are praying.
I’ve read about the New Hebrides revival and how that came through two women who were praying.
KM: I will say that there’s one lady who comes called Star and she’s in her eighties now and she keeps coming. She walks slowly down there, and she’s been coming faithfully, even in the heat. I’m amazed. She’s such an encouragement.
I had lost count that it was ten years, but how I found out that it had been ten years, a friend of mine, Laura Beth, came to the Square and she never comes. But this day she came.
She walked onto the Square with her little boy and she said, “Kate, this is the 10th year anniversary of you being here.”
I said, “It is?” because I had never kept track. But I felt like it was God Who had kept track and it was like He had said, “Happy anniversary” for being there.
NC: Yes, and so you will be there until revival hits Franklin!
KM: Yes, I’ll just be there until I can’t be there!
NC: I remember one day you calling me and you said, “There’s nobody here. I’m the only one. God is convicting me to get down on my knees.”
You usually just pray standing up, don’t you? So I said, “Well do it!” so you did it, didn’t you?
KM: Yes, I must say it was a quick kneel, but I did it because you are exposed there.
NC: Yes, it’s right in the center of the Square, cars roaring all around you.
KM: It’s very much exposed. But I did kneel, and I have knelt several times there. I haven’t knelt there for a long, long, long, long time there.
NC: Maybe it’s time to do it again, Kate.
KM: Well, I don’t know.
NC: I believe that all of us in this hour should be praying for revival. I believe we are in great need of a revival in this nation.
KM: Oh yes, and talking about revival, this past Friday when we were out there, Star said, “I have something to tell you.”
She goes to a non denominational church and she said that one of the pastors shared that his daughter, and this is not like his daughter to say this at all, but his daughter out of the blue said to him, “Dad, God just told me that revival is coming for the youth.”
NC: How wonderful!
KM: I thought, “Wow! How encouraging.” Because of course, for Promise I’m looking for revival for her and all her friends. So this was so exciting to hear for me.
NC: That really encourages me too.
KM: And it was not like his daughter to say any of that.
NC: One of the greatest burdens I have is for the youth of this nation. Especially the youth in our colleges today who are being totally brainwashed and just completely propagandized by socialism and humanism and feminism.
KM: And transgenderism. Do you know this? I just found out that they are paying huge money to take off the breasts of young women who want to be boys.
NC: That is beyond it. We are living in a scary age, worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. We are living in an age and a land of child sacrifice.
We look back and we read the Bible of how God came in judgment when they sacrificed their children to Molech.
But here millions of babies have been sacrificed just to convenience and it’s just taken as normal. I believe we should be crying out to God.
Let’s be praying. Are you praying every day with your family, morning and evening? Gather some people in your home and have a prayer meeting,
We have a prayer meeting here every Wednesday night. We have been doing that in this home since about just after the 2000 mark. We just keep praying and crying out for revival and will not stop until we see it.
How I cry out, please pray with us too, that God will raise up young men and women who will be truth speakers who will come and speak the truth to our young people who are totally deceived today.
They are deceived. I just saw on the news, one of these Democratic guys whose hoping to be president, they call him Bozo or something. But any way he’s up there saying he believes in abortion right up until the day the baby is born. Then you see all these young people around him cheering and clapping their hands.
Dear ladies, can you believe we live in a land where the young people in our land would cheer about a baby being murdered?
Oh we have to cry out to God. Let’s cry for revival. Let’s not just carry on our normal days without just doing something like praying together as a family or getting involved in a prayer meeting.
If you don’t know where to get involved in one, just have one in your home and invite a few friends and pray and cry out for revival. Let’s pray for the revival among the youth.
Yes, God is doing great things among many of our youth, but the majority out there in that secular world are totally deceived and they’re the ones who are getting at the age or they’re at the age now when they can vote. They have the vote. They can vote in socialism. They can vote in Islam.
And now it has just happened that there are four Islamic Democrats who have put forth a bill to embrace Islam as this great religion in our nation.
I mean, are we standing up against these things? Are we praying against them? If we don’t, they are just going to completely encroach upon us.
So let’s, dear mothers, be mothers of prayer, couples of prayer, families of prayer and people of prayer crying out for revival.
“Dear Father, We pray that You will save us from carrying on in our lives, acting so normally as though nothing is happening and everything is great when, Lord God, we have the youth of our nation being indoctrinated in socialism, lies, and deception and as Kate said, transgenderism. This is beyond it.
“Oh God, they are being completely duped. Lord God, save us.
“We pray You would bring revival. Bring the mighty move of Your Holy Spirit. Raise up, Lord, people anointed of the Holy Ghost who will speak Your truth in these places.
“God, we are crying out for revival, crying out for our young people. Lord God, oh God, they’re mutilating their bodies because of deception. We cry out to You, Father, for how much longer can this go on?
“We ask that You will raise up prayer warriors all over this nation. We cry out to You to bring this mighty move of Your Spirit in the name of Jesus. Amen.”