Our Journey to Brighton Begins here....with a red bird...

Well, I know it is hard to believe that a little over a year ago I was blogging for Breanne and now, much to all of our surprise ,I am blogging for Brighton . I have actually procrastinated doing this blog and for good reason. Some testimonies are easy to give and no real risk is taken, but not so with this testimony. It is long and risky, but none the less I must share it. It is risky because I know some of my friends and loved ones may not understand it and even gawk at it, but non –the-less, I will share it. Why must I share it? Because there are those of you, who like me, have found yourself in a realm of doubt. Doubting things like, “Does God hear me when I pray?” or “Does God even care about …..(fill in your own blank)?”….and here is the biggest one of all “Does God even exist?”..So without much ado I will share with you a rare miracle that has taken place in my life that has Brightened my Faith journey and thus led me to my daughter BRIGHTON FAITH Jones.

God has ministered to me two times in my life in miraculous ways. One I will share at another time, but this most recent one I will share now. The interesting thing about both occasions is that they revolve around adoption. Thinking on this, I realize it would make sense that God does seem to hover over the things He views as true religion. Knowing that the care of orphans is extremely near and dear to His heart, as evidenced in James 1:27, it should not be surprising to me that He speaks on their behalf, yet it has caught me off guard and rocked my little world. I think the reason it has rocked my world is the not the fact that He cares about little ones finding a home, but rather the instrument He determined would deliver the message. The instrument of His choice, in this case, is a RED BIRD. Yes folks you read that correctly, not just any bird, a red bird. For those of you still with me at this point, and have not flown the coop (lol) so to speak, I will tell you how this came to be.

My best guess, concerning the time line, is that around three years ago I had a faithful visitor on my window seal every time I went to take a bath. It was a red bird. Yes, he had an official title “Cardinal” but I NEVER called him that, it was just my red bird friend. That bird (probably not the same one every time) would peck the heck out of my window while I was in the tub. It was so loud you could hear it across the house. At times he would be banging my window when I wasn’t in the room and my husband would say “your boyfriend is calling you” or something to that effect. This went on for close to a year, and in the midst of it, a strong impression came upon me that a red bird was to mean something to me. I really felt the Holy Spirit wanted me to look for this red bird to deliver me a message at some point in my life. At this point, if you’re still reading I applaud your curiosity. I know it sounds crazy, believe you me I feel crazy typing it and putting it out there for the world to read, but thank goodness others that have experienced His touch have not hid their testimonies from us, they help build our faith, and that is why I will continue with this one. I knew in my spirit a red bird meant something for me, but had no idea what. I started to research the bird a little. I came to know why the bird pecks the heck out of the window, but I never found any spiritual significance. I even got desperate and shared the situation with a few close, and I mean close friends. I am so glad I did because it helps validate the significance of the red bird in my life. Every time I would see one somewhere, I would just stop in my tracks and be in awe, waiting for it to bring me to whatever the message its Creator had for me. I would even petition the Lord in my prayer journal to reveal to me His plan concerning the red bird.

Two years ago we started the adoption process for our fifth child, Breanne. The adoption process in China soon started changing and it looked as though we would have to “view” children’s files and actually pick one. This process was not the way we had done it with our first adoption. With Brooklyn, China assigned us, aka “referred”, her and we simply accepted. This process was very comfortable for us, we did not feel as though our own motives would be able to keep us from the child God had for us. That was the way it was to be with Breanne also, and then the system started changing. At this point we were in the special needs program, but still on track to receive a referral for a little one that had one of the special needs we had checked off as doable for our family. We would not be picking the child, just accepting. Then it started to change….fear overwhelmed me.. please excuse this term, it will seem harsh, but I did not want to “shop” for my child. That is what it feels like. I started begging God to reveal to me THE CHILD He had for us, and the best way I knew to have one revealed was to request He orchestrate a red bird in the picture with the child. I had seen hundreds of referral pictures throughout the years and never recall seeing such a thing, so it would be rare and identifying for us. Pictures came and pictures went and never a red bird anywhere in one. Now remember we are still talking about Breanne’s adoption at this point. One day my agency called, this is not a Christian agency, and it is based out of New York. The lady on the other end asked if I would like to view the files of three precious, and very young Chinese baby boys. My heart melted, why wouldn’t I want to view their precious files, who wouldn’t want a precious little baby boy?????? Then I had to lay it out there, and this is how the conversation went down,. “Uh, Nancy, I have to share something with you that I am somewhat apprehensive to tell you, you will think I am crazy but it is where I am at this point, so yes I will view one of their files IF and only IF it has a red bird in the picture with the baby.” Ok there I said it, was I out of my mind, was she even still on the other line, would she think I was stable enough to adopt ANY child? All these questions are soaring in my mind, as I explain that I had begged God to reveal His choice of child for us, by the red bird. I did not trust my own motives. She understood and low and behold one of the baby boys did in fact have a bird on him. She sent the file and there it was a CHICKEN, do you hear me a YELLOW chicken at that. I had to call her back and say, Nancy I am serious Yellow Chicken is not even near a RED BIRD. Yes I did have this conversation in real life with a very educated social worker….I must be NUTS……

Time passed but little did I know how VERY important that phone conversation was.

A few months later, I was driving to Mike’s office. I received an unexpected phone call from my New York agency. We had received a referral from China!! What????? We were almost convinced the adoption was not meant to be, and had actually agreed that we would not renew our paper work if the time lapsed, which it was close to doing. We had prayed and felt like we needed to put out a spiritual fleece, so to say, concerning this adoption. The fleece was that if no child had been referred or identified before the paper work expired, we would not continue on the emotionally draining roller coaster. As the Lord deemed it, a referral came in the nick of time. Yes, a real referral, after all that, we somehow did not have to pick a child, we were assigned one. We were thrilled, God had answered, and we loved the way He did it. To be honest, when I went to get Breanne, I was expecting her to be wearing clothes with a red bird on them, a little message from God to say “good job, my good and faithful servant”……hahahaha no such moment. Just knew she was ours the minute we laid eyes on her.

Moving forward about three or four months after returning home with our little three year old fire ball. For several years I have received “waiting children” notices in my email from an organization called Rainbow Kids. These children are generally placed on this website by adoption agencies that have not been able to place them with their own clients. I have, through the years, viewed so many beautiful children from all over the world who need a family. At one point there was this sibling group of three from Ethiopia that really struck a chord on my heart strings. I printed out their pictures and cut and glued a little red bird in the back ground, just to freak Mike out, and it looked real if I do say so myself. Well, my viewing ritual would go something like this, before clicking on the picture I would say “only if there is a red bird”. Never ever was there a red bird. This happened hundreds of times, and if any of you are members of this site, you know how many notices a day you can get. I still get notices. Well back to the story,,,,,having Breanne home for several months, we agreed our plate was full, we were DONE, and as Mike likes to say, “Poke me with a fork, I’m done.” I heard a notice on my phone that alerted me that I had an email. I checked to see who it was from and it was Rainbow Kids. This particular day I had MADE myself go outside to play with my kids. Those that know me well, know this is unusual for me, I am a type A workaholic who does not “play” near as much as I should. This day I was determined it would be different. Outside, notice I still had my phone(bad me), I received the email notice, and I said to myself “if it is a red bird, it will be there this evening when I go in to check my emails”. I think you know where this is headed by now. In my heart, I had never dismissed my little messenger. That evening I go to check my emails, Mike is walking in from work as I open the Rainbow Kids email. This particular notice concerned a very young baby, 9 months old, pretty unheard of to be that young from China. It was a little unusual that she did not have a picture with her file, many of the files do, but some don’t and to get the picture one would have to contact the placing agency. Well out of curiosity I wanted to know why such a young baby was on the site, but was not willing to contact an agency, because we are DONE>>>>Poke us with a fork!!!!! Low and behold it was My agency that placed the little one the site. My New York agency, and I was still able to access their yahoo group that contained this little one’s file and her picture. This was miracle number one. I had NEVER seen my agency place a child on this list, and not only that, seeing her picture was just a click away, I wouldn’t have to fill out any paper work just to see her, what harm would there be in just looking? I had to see such a young baby for myself, I truly thought the information contained a typo concerning her age. Why had some family not claimed a baby??? Everyone wants a baby!! She must be a very sick or unattractive child, poor thing!!! So I click on her file, and my goodness she is beautiful and every bit as young as they say she is. Not only that she has a huge RED BIRD in the back drop of her referral picture, and possible red birds on her clothes. Oh my heavens my head is spinning, I am screaming “RED BIRD RED BIRD”!!!!! Everyone in my family knew what that meant. I was shocked and practically raptured at the same time. Mike was standing there, dumbfounded, bless his heart, he just had to marry a woman who keeps her promise to God. I had told God that if a child ever turned up with a red bird in its picture no matter what, we would take them. I could not imagine why this little one with the red bird over her right shoulder was available, I realized she must have a very serious medical condition that most people did not feel equipped to deal with. With Mike’s permission, I contacted the agency. I asked them if they remembered my red bird story and of course they said “How could we ever forget that”. I told them they had placed a little one on Rainbow Kids that had a red bird in her picture, and I believed she was my child. No matter her ailment, even if she were on death’s door, we felt we were the family God wanted to love her while she had time on earth. They agreed, but one problem, another family had beat us to her file. The family had until the morning to officially claim her, and there were other families that had contacted them by now that were next in line, but because of that FATEFUL day, about a year ago, that I broke down and put it all out there about the red bird on the phone, they agreed that “something special” was going on, and they would not mess with it. If the family did not accept her, we could have her file, but would only have till the end of that day to get our initial paper work together and submit to China. Miracle number two……the next morning, I awake to an email that was entitled “When the red red robin, comes comes a bobbin, here is your little red bird”. The family had rejected our daughter, (no surprise to me at this point, I knew my Father, her Father, was up to something). The agency told us they had never seen a red bird in a picture before, and that they knew this was special and were giving us her file. We accepted and did her paper work that day, without knowing the true extent of her medical condition. We knew it was labeled VSD and in laymen terms means a hole in the heart. We had a cardiologist friend read the email concerning her medical condition and he said it was a pretty big hole. She would have to have surgery in Houston , Dallas or Arkansas. Ok, we would do it no matter what, God gave her to us.

Our little red bird, aka BRIGHTON FAITH JONES, is now twenty months old. It has taken quite a while to finalize it all, but we are thrilled to announce we are going to get this little one, who really must be special because God used a simple beautiful piece of His creation to call us to her. He started this work concerning her before she was even born. He knew we would never seek to adopt again on our own account, but that we could never walk away from an assignment straight from His Providential hand. This little girl has already restored areas of my faith that needed a touch from Him. He did this, I know it. He did this for us, He did it for her, and my friend He will do it for you. We are not special, we were just available and seeking. At one point I was close enough to the Lord to realize He wanted me to take special note of His beautiful red birds. Much time passed and that closeness was not near as strong at times. I just held on to a spirit felt promise in my weak faith days, that was given to me during the stronger days. This type of heart communication may never happen again between me and my Creator, but I will never forget that it did happen, and I have to share it to encourage everyone and anyone who wants to have a relationship like this with God the Father. He certainly works in mysterious ways and yes, He is still working today. All Praise to Him!!!!!! We are not super people with super skills to raise six children, frankly would not sign up for that, but we know we will do it because He invited us to. I now wear a ring that says “If God Brings you to it, He will bring you through it” That, my friend, is the only hope and confidence I have.

Can you stand one more miracle???? If so keep reading.

During this process, close to the end, our paper work was mishandled and delayed our leaving to get Brighton by several months. During this frustrating period, I met a sweet fellow adopter through Face Book. She recommended I contact an agency that checks on your child while they are waiting for you to come get them. They can provide little gifts or pictures etc. I have never contacted one of these agencies, mainly because my adopting agency frowns on it. Nonetheless, something was very wrong and I was getting no answers. People that were behind us in the adoption process were going and returning with their children and we were not even receiving our travel invitation (TA). The time frame for our paper work was starting to break records, and that was not a good thing. What was supposed to take 2 weeks took at least six to eight weeks. I was starting to worry that Brighton’s health was the issue and that possibly they (China) were not communicating with us concerning her health. I would fear she was in the hospital and they were just making sure she would make it before issuing travel approval. You can see my mind was racing. So when my face book friend sent me the link to this agency, I did not check it out at all, out of desperation, I clicked the link and typed out my request. I never felt so sneaky, I am so black and white when it comes to keeping rules, this was not like me, but if you’re a mom you know there are some things you could break the rules for and your kids are one of them if need be. So two days pass and I received a little notice in my email that has Chinese characters in the email address. It said that they would help me but needed her information in Chinese. After putting that together for them, I sent it and waited. A day went by and then I received an email from the Chinese address again that said, they had contacted the orphanage director and that MinAi (Brighton) was doing well, and that she had had her surgery in January and it was “A great success, but we think you already know that”>>>>>>WHAT?????? did she just say she has already had her surgery and it was a GREAT SUCCESS???? I reread it and yes that is what she said. No, sister, we did not know that. Praise God!!!!

I noticed the person that signed the email was named Angela. Hum, I thought to myself what would be the chances be that this was the same Angela that we knew out of all of Big ole China? We had a sweet Christian Chinese guide in China seven years ago when we adopted Brooklyn her name was Angela. We loved her, and to make a long story short IT WAS OUR ANGELA….Only God could do this. Folks, do you know how large China is? Next, the icing on the cake, the woman in the states that started this agency that Angela worked with from China’s side, has a daughter, not just A daughter but THE daughter that I am naming Brighton Faith after. I had never heard this name before, and several years back when this woman, Kelly, whom I met right after adopting Brooklyn, named her daughter Brighton, I said if I ever have another daughter I will name her this. Well, I didn’t name Breanne “Brighton” even though I thought about it, and now I know why. Could it be He truly knows the name of our children before we do? Yes it could be!!! Too many confirmations along the way to doubt God’s hand in this journey.

Much of the journey remains, but I know He will be with us. Thanks for joining us on the journey to Zhong Min Ai, aka as Brighton Faith Jones, aka our “Little Red Bird”

Blessings,
Tammy