“We could have missed this”

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 27th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the second part of an adoption story.

Yesterday we brought you Part One on the Chinery family. Back in 2020, they were just four days from leaving for China to adopt a daughter when COVID shut down their travel.

EICHER: Late last year, they were given approval to go get her, but had just weeks to get things in order. WORLD’s Lindsay Mast has the story.

AUDIO: Welcome home, Chinerys… welcome home!

LINDSAY MAST: It was a scene that had played out more than once for Jeff and Dianne Chinery—welcoming home an adopted child from China. But on January 26th, 2024, sitting in the Atlanta airport, Dianne wasn’t sure it would happen again. She was just a couple of hours away from leaving for China, to finalize a fourth adoption–this one of a little girl named Mei. Dianne’s family had been waiting for this day for more than four years. Her luggage and two of her seven children sat nearby. But Jeff was still 25 miles away, waiting at a UPS store for a package they needed to get on that plane.

DIANNE CHINERY: This packet held not only our Visas to go to China, it held all of our passports and original adoption work from the two children, our previously adopted children who were going with us. And they said, “We have no clue where it is.”

It was one more setback in trying to bring Mei home.

Over the last three decades, tens of thousands of Chinese children like Mei gained families and became American citizens through adoption. But that trend screeched to a halt with the pandemic. The U.S. State Department says those adoptions have yet to officially resume. And there’s no word on when they might. For years now, families like the Chinerys just had to wait.

Debbie Price is Executive Director with Children’s House International:

PRICE: They have the picture. They have the information. They were just waiting for the process to take its course. And so they can't give up on what they consider their child.

But in 2023, some families who had been close to completing their adoptions pre-pandemic were given a chance to go get their children. It’s not clear how many families fit that criteria–the State Department has not yet released those numbers. Last December, the Chinerys found out they could get Mei –but had just a few weeks to get things in order.

They put in for an updated home study. Fingerprints for their son who had turned 18. Visas, passports–everything they needed took time–and there was a lot of bureaucracy to work through. Weekends–when offices closed–were brutal. Then that package went missing.

CHINERY: I think that's when you know, I'm trusting the Lord. I was at peace. I don't trust my instincts. And I don't think I'm super intuitive, necessarily. But I thought the Lord is gonna get us on this plane. Somehow.

The visas showed up.

The Chinerys made the plane. And then…

SOUND: [Guangzhou streets, speaking in Chinese]

… they were in Guangzhou.

And there was Mei.

CHINERY: To see her in person, and to see her animated and real, was really wonderful. And by that I mean that we were in wonder, it was wonderful. It was amazing.

CHINERY AT ZOO: Oh she’s good with animals.

Mei is mostly nonverbal, and has cerebral palsy, but she also has a sparkle in her eyes, and a sense of humor. On their second morning, she pranked Jeff –sprinkling pepper in his breakfast coffee when he wasn’t looking, then giggling.

The family spent two days together before appearing at the U.S. Consulate.

When Mei agreed to go to the U.S. with them, she became their child. And when the family touched down back in Atlanta on February 9th, she also became an American citizen.

AUDIO: Welcome hooome!!!

Finally together in the family home, Dianne dusted off the books her other kids loved when they were little: Dr. Seuss—Bible stories.

CHINERY READING: He heard lots of people walking, walk walk walk [Mei makes sounds] He heard lots of people talking, talk talk talk…

Within weeks, Mei started picking up sign language and initiating conversation. She’s friendly. And she loves walks outside in the Georgia sun, especially if she can hitch a ride on her brother’s back.

But she’s spent a lot of time at appointments, too. The family will never know how four more years of therapies and treatments might have helped. But Dianne says they are only looking forward.

CHINERY: We can't deal with the what ifs because oftentimes our what ifs, we think we know what the what ifs would have been. God knows, he knows.

The harder “what if” is imagining what will happen to children in China’s orphanages should China not resume intercountry adoptions with the U.S.

Dianne says, in a spiritual sense, we are all like Mei—needing adoption, the hope of salvation from a condition we can’t get ourselves out of.

CHINERY: To be honest with each of our adopted children, as time goes on, I don't get used to the fact that that was their condition at one time. Thinking about that becomes harder, it becomes harder. We have got to pray. Knowing that we don't care more than God does. We don't love more than God does. We are not wiser than God is.

Years ago, she started a private Facebook page for friends to follow their adoption journey. She marked the good and the hard with a hashtag: “we could have missed this.” After missing a full four years of having Mei in their home, she says the sentiment means more than ever.

CHINERY: We cannot imagine life without her. And every single one of our kids have said it too.

CHINERY READING: But best of all, Bartimaeus saw Jesus. That’s a good story. You want more?

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lindsay Mast in Tucker, Georgia.

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