Fond memories
I have two adopted sisters
我有两个领养妹妹
An only child, a perfectly ordinary little girl in rural Wisconsin, I wanted sisters more than anything. When I turned seven, my parents made a decision that delighted me beyond measure: they chose to adopt.
It was Christmastime when my two new sisters, aged 6 and 3, arrived from Colombia. They came with a great flourish of celebration, as friends and relatives visited us bearing gifts to welcome them. That evening our guests went home and we were left to ourselves. My sisters and I went to the bedroom we were to share; as we crawledsintosour beds, our parents came to each of us, tucking us in and saying goodnight.“Te amo,”they whispered to my new sisters in Spanish,“I love you.”
From the beginning these newcomers were like my own flesh and blood; we played and bickered and learned just as if we had always been sisters. From the beginning we all were my parents" daughters equally, as they supervised and scolded and encouraged us.
Life seemed great. Beneath the surface, however, my parents were struggling with their own marital problems. As we girls were approaching our teen years, my parents uttered the fateful words,“We"re getting a divorce.”
My sisters had been hurt before. They had been dealt a great wound when their birth mother abandoned them, and none of us understood the depth of their inner turmoil. It was a pain that now resurfaced, as the emotions from that abandonment years earlier overwhelmed them.
We all struggled during this time. My father remarried and strove to provide some sort of stability for us through this new family: another mother, brother and sister. But the bonds between my parents and sisters continued to disintegrate. By the time I left for college, my family was in profound disarray.
During my college years, my outlook on life evolved in significant ways. This personal transformation led my parents and sisters to reevaluate their own lives and make changes that ultimately brought us together as a family. My mother and father have again become great sources of encouragement for us three sisters. They have succeeded in providing our lives with a foundation of stable love. One of my sisters has recently married,and family gatherings are now occasions of happiness and renewal.
Chinese friends sometimes ask me why I am in China, working at a low salary when I could be prospering in America. It is the experiences I went through while growing up that have made me who I am today. I am on the staff of CBN, a humanitarian organization in Beijing that seeks to help people in distress. Among our many projects, we often work with orphans.
My colleagues and I have sent a number of orphans to the US and Canada for free operations. One is a little girl named Xiao Chu who was born with a weak heart. She was abandoned as a baby. By age two she was already experiencing shortness of breath and loss of appetite. Her future looked grim. Last January we flew her to Canada for surgery, along with two other orphans with heart problems. The operations were successful, and all three children have since returned.
We are also working in some of Beijing"s orphanages and schools for the mentally handicapped. Every week we visit various schools, playing games with the children and teaching them English. Not long ago we organized a conference with orphan expert Sherrie Eldridge to define the special challenges that orphans face. The conference was of benefit to orphanage directors and adoptive parents alike.
Our charitable organization also provides funds for cleft-lip and palate operations for the poor. One young woman in Gansu, for instance, had spent her life watching the world go by from the refuge of her room, afraid to go outside because of her cleft lip. Now she can leave her house and be a participant in life rather than a spectator.
In western Gansu we have been building cisterns in villages that are short of water. In a region with so little rainfall, some people have to walk great distances to fetch water for their daily needs. Contributions from individuals and companies have enabled us to build over 500 cisterns, each big enough to supply a family of seven for an entire year.
So this is how I have chosen to lead my life.
At one orphanage I visited this past July, I came face to face with two little girls aged 3 and 6. They looked up at me with their cautious brown eyes, and I felt I was once again lookingsintosthe eyes of my sisters fifteen years ago.I realized how much adoption had meant to each of us in my family. Fifteen years ago, my sisters too were sitting in an orphanage, with no one to call their parents and no place to call their home. Now they have both in the unconditional love of my family.
小时候我是家里的独生女，是威斯康新州农村的一个非常普通的女孩。那时我特别想要的就是妹妹。我7岁那年，父母做出了一个让我喜出望外的决定：他们要领养了。
那是圣诞节期间，我的两个新妹妹，一个6岁，一个3岁，从哥伦比亚来到了我家。她们的到来带来了喜庆，亲朋好友带着礼物来我家欢迎她们。那天晚上客人们走后，剩下了我们自己，我和妹妹们走进我们共用的卧室；当我们爬上床时，父母进来了，为我们一一掖好被角并且道了晚安，“Te amo”，他们用西班牙语向我的新妹妹耳语道，“我爱你”。
从一开始，新来的妹妹就像是我的亲妹妹；我们一起玩，一起斗嘴，一起学习，仿佛我们一直就是姐妹；父母对我们指教、训斥或鼓励时，我们都是父母的女儿，谁都不受偏袒。
生活看上去非常好。然而，在表象之下，父母却在为他们之间的婚姻问题而苦苦挣扎，当我们姐妹十几岁时，父母说出了那句致命的话：“我们要离婚了。”
妹妹们以前就受到过伤害，当她们遭生母遗弃时蒙受过巨大的伤痛，无人能够理解她们内心的烦乱有多深，而这一痛苦如今又重新浮现出来，早年被遗弃时的情感使她们不知所措。
在这一段时间里我们都在苦苦挣扎。我的父亲再婚了，并努力通过新的家庭——另一个妈妈、弟弟和妹妹——为我们提供稳定的生活。但父母与我们姐妹间的关系仍在分崩离析。在我离开家上大学时，家里正处于一片混乱当中。
上大学期间，我的人生观向着积极方向发生了重大改变，这一切身转变导致我的父母和妹妹重新评价他们的生活并且也做出改变，这些改变最终把我们带到一起，真正成为一家人，父母再次成为鼓励我们三姐妹的巨大源泉，他们成功地为我们提供了以稳定的爱为基础的生活。我的一个妹妹最近已经结婚，如今家庭团聚是获得幸福与焕发精神的所在。
中国朋友有时问我为什么愿意拿着比在美国要低的工资在中国工作。那是源于我个人成长过程中走过的经历，这些经历造就了今天的我。我现在在CBN(世博恩)——帮助有困难的人的慈善组织内工作。在我们所开展的工作中常常与孤儿打交道。
我和我的同事把很多孤儿送到了美国和加拿大免费做手术，其中有一个女孩叫肖楚(音译)，有先天性心脏病，婴儿时就被遗弃了，两岁时就呼吸困难，没有了食欲，她的前景看来很危险。今年1月，我们把她和另外两个有心脏病的孤儿送到了加拿大做手术，手术非常成功，3个孩子都已经回来了。
我们还在北京的一些孤儿院和培智学校开展工作。每周我们都去不同的学校，和孩子们一起做游戏，教他们英语。不久前我们还组织了一次研讨会，请研究孤儿心理的专家雪莉艾尔德里奇讲解孤儿面临的特殊问题。这一研讨会对孤儿院院长和收养孩子的父母都十分有益。
我们的慈善机构还为家境贫困的兔唇、腭裂儿童出资做手术。比如，甘肃的一个姑娘因为兔唇始终躲在房子里面看外面的世界，不敢走出去。如今她可以走出家门，成为生活的参与者，不再是旁观者了。
在甘肃西部，我们还为缺水的乡村建了贮水池。在少雨地区，人们必须走很远的路去取生活用水。来自个人与单位的捐款使我们建起了500多个贮水池，每个贮水池的水足够一个七口之家用上一年。
你看，我就是这样选择了自己的生活。
