A Bittersweet Reunion: The Long Winding Road Home

November 8, 2010

The Long Winding Road Home

Thanks to my sister, Kelly Greenhawk for putting the first part of this video together back in 2001. I also want to thank the volunteers with Baby Come Home http://www.baobeihuijia.com/ for making this all happen.

3 comments:

RamblingMotherNovember 11, 2010 at 3:06 PM
such an incredible story. I followed with great interest. Truly it is a secret hope that one day on this side of heaven we will meet my daughter's China family. Thanks so much for sharing.
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AnonymousDecember 1, 2010 at 10:52 AM
Great story! Beautiful!
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Rose DuhaimeMarch 31, 2011 at 5:21 PM
What an amazing family and an amazing story Julia. I have followed your story for quite sometime. I am on several of the same yahoo groups as you and I always appreciate your comments. But today I looked at your blog. I loved the video and the songs, but especially the second song...something about My adopted child....would you mind sharing the title name and artist? I tried finding it, but was unable!
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Our Family's Story.....

In the summer of 2000 I led a mission trip to an orphanage in China. I set out on this trip expecting to be taken in by all the little girls in the orphanage, but instead spent most of my time with the older children. One little boy in particular caught my attention. His name was Jiacheng and his engaging smile stole my heart. I knew I was supposed to do something to help this little boy, but I was 33 years old and single at the time. After returning to the US and praying for this little boy, I began the process to adopt Jiacheng. On April 5, 2001 the adoption was finalized in China and he officially became Christian Jiacheng Norris.

He adjusted very quickly to his new life in America and attached easily to me and my family. When he turned 14 years old, he asked me to help him find his birth parents. Unlike many adopted children, Christian had a lot of memories of his birth family and as he shared this information with me over the years I wrote it all down in the event that some day he might want to search for them. After searching on and off for three years, on May 31st, 2009 a non-profit organization in China that had been helping me in the search contacted me to say they had found Christian’s birth family.

It was such a surprise but the real shock came when we learned his birth family had never abandoned him but instead lost him in April of 1998 traveling back to his father's family village. The birth family searched for years but never got much help from the police. He was presumably kidnapped and sold to another family. Christian had always told me he remembered some man took him by bus and that they traveled for three days to another city. After that he recalls the man left him in a restaurant and never came back.

In February of 1999 the police three provinces away in Henan found him wandering the streets. When the police found him he was so traumatized that he couldn't speak so they just took him to the local orphanage, where he lived until I adopted him in 2001.

After finding his birth parents we immediately began planning a trip to China for a reunion in August 2009. I created this blog so family and friends could follow along with us on this incredible journey.