I sent several
pictures to the Olsen's last fall and Kathleen replied, "Well except for
the fact that Karissa has an overbite I don't see any significant
differences at all." I chuckled, fired off an e-mail to her and
said, "Well if that is the only difference, there is no difference,
because Molly has a 30% overbite from sucking her thumb." The Olsens then
e-mailed and said, "Okay we have to see you guys and we are coming to
Disney World." Sounds like a commercial I've heard before! They flew
to Orlando in February and after a very restless night, butterflies all
morning, we finally knocked on the door of their condo. We all tried not
to "stare" but to absorb what we were seeing. Two girls that were not
identical, but amazingly the same...same mouth, same smile, same petite
body, same little voice. The voice was what was so startling. One
girl raised in Washington and one raised in Alabama and now central
Florida. How could they sound so much alike?
That meeting led us
to the conclusion that we had to know or better yet we had to know for our
girls. There was no turning back, because we knew that we had an
obligation as parents to know what these girls deserved to know for sure.
Today the call came to me and I in turn called Kathleen. She summed it up
best when she said, "Oh I wish you were not so far away because I want to
just hug you I am so happy!" Kurt even added more to the feelings
when he told Kathleen that they had wanted twins, but had actually gained
more, a whole new family. We share their feelings and feel doubly blessed
to not only have found Molly's twin, but to also have an extended family
in the Olsens.
There are so many little miracles and ultimate
divine grace that makes these events real today. Karissa and Molly were
brought into the orphanage a month a part, but they share the same
birthdate (4/12/00). Both families received their referrals on the same
day, but arrived in China a few weeks apart. We also live about as far
apart as we possibly could in the contiguous continental states.
We, however, were blessed with a wonderful website to post our
pictures. Without the Fulingkids.org website that Kathlene Postma does for
us this would have never happened, without Julianne Briggs intuition we
may have never noticed the resemblence and without all the miracles we
will never identify these girls would have never found one another. It is
a journey with no road map and a miracle not yet complete and without
ending.
We are all feeling very blessed, very amazed and certainly
grateful for the gift of this blessing. As those of you with children from
China know, the possibility of this ever happening is not something you
think about or even consider. It just simply happened. We, of
course, don't think the orphanage had any idea and the girls were probably
never even in close physical contact for anyone to even suspect. They were
too young, too bundled in layers of clothes for anyone to say, "Hey, Do
you think....?"; That miracle was left to Julianne....our newly appointed
God mother to them both!
Kurt Olsen has posted pictures of our
meeting in February and you can see them at http://photos.yahoo.com/tekkiekmo. Click on the girls on the
couch and go from there. Molly is on the left with longer hair and Karissa
is on the right. As you can tell, they knew they had found one another
again and did not need DNA to answer what they must have known.
Oh
what a day! Now if the Olsen's would just call and tell me they are moving
to Orlando :-)
Shelia Jacoby on behalf of Kurt, Kathleen, Karissa,
and Kieren Olsen; and of course the rest of my crew:
DH: Mark
DS:
Blake (7)
DD: Molly (Fu De
Dong) |
