Tender Beginnings by Faith Baucum Dea
I feel like life began for me at four and a half yearsold. The memories I carry from the day my family and I landed at Kai TakInternational Airport in Hong Kong are the very first crystal clear memories ofmy early childhood. Previous memories leading up to that day in early May of1982 have always only been wisps of dreamy-like anamnesis. Nothing concrete;nothing clear.
My eyes open. I’m awake, aware on the inside. I’m walkingaround this congested, noisy airport. It’s not that I was consciously comparingit to my sleepy hometown airport we had started out at in the Texas panhandle.I was not comparing it to anything because there was absolutely nothing in myfour years of life that matched this new world I had just walked into. Thefeelings I felt were just pure childlike wonder. Here we were, making our waythrough mazes of people, corridors and immigration lines.
I had arrived with my parents, eight and six-year oldbrothers, and two-year-old sister. I was with my tribe and that security wasenough to hinder any fears entering this exotically strange, brand-newenvironment.
What struck me most that eventful day in my young lifewas not the fact that we had just landed safely at the world’s sixthmost-dangerous landing strips. It was not the knowledge that our new hometownsat along the southeast shores of a tightly closed Communist country. It wassimply the fact that everyone looked different from me! They all had black hairand the words they spoke were indistinguishable. Black hair versus mystrawberry-blonde. Then when a Chinese man approaches us in recognition, Ican’t understand how he knows us, yet he does and he is welcoming us to thisnew place.
Fast forward thirty-five years and I’m standingoutside my comfortable central California home welcoming two young childreninto my world, my culture so very different from their own. Their eyes hadliterally just opened from a nap in the vehicle that drove them to my doorstep.He was a month away from his fourth birthday and she was exactly two and ahalf.
For me, this was an exciting, much anticipated moment.For this sibling set, it was completely unfamiliar territory as this was theirfirst time being removed from biological family. Eyes wide in childlikewonderment. In other circumstances this would be a fun, new playdateopportunity.
Following the guidance of those instructing them, theywere led to a new home, a new beginning. As much as Child Protective Serviceworkers are all about providing safety, direction and assurance, our youngsibling set took in all the sensory input and those big, brown eyes beganfilling with tears.
We coaxed them to come inside, but they stalled for awhile outside; the eldest hesitating more than the younger. He was very awareof how all of this did not match the world he knew and loved. He and all thepeople in his life had black hair, brown skin. His tribe now vanished out ofsight and out of reach. Not one present to assure his little heart thateverything was okay, that he and sister would be okay, that they would soonlearn to love this new family and call them their own.
There’s not a whole lot you can do in the deeprecesses of a young child’s consciousness when these moments of suddenlife-altering transitions happen. But God is there. He sees that space andlongs to fill it. He is the One who can so beautifully weave all of thefragments of our worlds into something truly magnificent.
I always wondered what my childhood past meant for my adult present. Maybe it’s this: A Redeemer ever-present, knowing, pursuing to draw us in from the very start. Psalm 139
I am a military wife to my husband of fourteen years. I am a blessed mother of four children; one birthed, one basking in God’s presence, two adopted. We move a lot and enjoy the change in scenery. Set me at a discussion table with Jesus followers of any culture, and I will share my heart out in gratitude for the miracle of life and community we know in Him.