Book of the month – November 2023

December 1, 2023November 28, 2023 / edebock / Leave a comment

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane

Lisa See

81URNOpF3vL._SY522_ I read mostly for enjoyment, but I love a book that transports me to another place or perhaps another time and a book that teaches me something. The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane was such a book. Before reading it, I knew absolutely nothing about the Akha people, a minority hill tribe who live in small villages in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Yunnan province in China.

As the story opens in the late 1980s, the families of Spring Village are living a very traditional lifestyle without modern conveniences and with very little contact with the outside world. Traditional beliefs and rituals dominate their existence and their lives are aligned around the seasons and the growing of tea. When twins are born to a young village couple, the father is required to kill his babies and the couple is banished from the village.

That’s when I had to put the book aside to do a bit of research. Who were these Akha people? Did they really exist? Were they still living that way in the late 1900s? I learned that indeed they were. The Akha believed that only animals could give birth to more than one offspring, therefore until about 20 years ago, twins were considered an extremely ominous occurrence and were killed immediately, as were babies born out of wedlock.

Now, back to the story… Gradually, the outside world begins to encroach on Spring Village. Li-yan, daughter of the local midwife and one of the few educated girls on the mountain, slowly begins to reject the customs that shaped her early life. When she gives birth to a baby out of wedlock, she rejects tradition and travels with her newborn daughter to a nearby city. There she leaves the baby, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake tucked in its folds, near an orphanage.

While Li-yan eventually leaves her village for further education, a job, and city life, her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents. Despite her privileged childhood, Haley wonders about her origins and across the ocean, Li-yan longs for her lost daughter. Over the years, each searches for meaning in the study of Pu’er, the tea that has shaped their family’s destiny for centuries.

Perhaps the well-researched story tells us more about the history and the production of tea than we really care to know, but it’s also an enthralling family saga; a captivating story of mothers and daughters, families, fate and love. A secondary narrative depicts what it might be like to be one of the many Chinese girl children adopted by American families.

My favourite quote? “Those who suffer have earned contentment.”

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Fashion Friday will return next week.

The miracle of adoption

November 29, 2021 / edebock / 4 Comments

Eight years ago, a beautiful discussion took place between our daughter and our then 5-year-old grandson:

Drew: Mommy, what is adoption?

Melaina: Adoption is when a baby grows in one mommy’s tummy but she can’t take care of him so another mommy and daddy adopt the baby and become his new mommy and daddy. Uncle Nate is adopted. He grew in a different mommy’s tummy but then we adopted him.

Drew: So Gram and Grandpa still got to be his mommy and daddy?

Melaina: Yes!

Drew: Wow! That is like a miracle!

Yes, Drew, yes it is! And now, many years later, Uncle Nate is himself the father of two adopted children!

When this conversation showed up as one of my Facebook memories recently, I was reminded of the many “miracles” in our extended family, but my mind also went to Romans 8:14-15a

“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children.” (NLT)

and Ephesians 1:5

“God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” (NLT)

Wow! Nate’s adoption story is an amazing one, but is there anything more amazing than being adopted into the eternal family of the Creator of heaven and earth? How can that be?

When we brought Nate home at three days old, it wasn’t a temporary or part time commitment. We weren’t just babysitting. It was for life. He was 100% ours! That’s how it is with God too. He wants 100% of your life for all time. That’s why He sent His Son to die to take the punishment for our sins, so that by accepting that amazing gift and surrendering our lives to Him, we would receive His Spirit and be adopted as His children.

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With Christmas time fast approaching, that’s really something to think about, isn’t it?

No ordinary weekend

April 6, 2015April 6, 2015 / edebock / 10 Comments

This weekend Christians around the world celebrated the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10) It was definitely no ordinary weekend, but for our family, it was also no ordinary Easter.

Thirty years ago, a heartbroken young grandmother placed her first grandchild in my arms and walked away not knowing if she’d ever see him again. On Saturday evening, she sat across the table from me at his wedding reception. Her daughter, Nate’s birth mom, was at the next table. This was definitely no ordinary weekend!

Nathan was just three days old when he joined our family but there was already an unmistakable twinkle of mischief in his eyes and he has found his soulmate in Colleen, a beautiful and godly young lady with a mischievous twinkle to match his own! The wedding ceremony and the reception, complete with an inflatable bouncy castle in the corner of the hall to keep the youngest guests entertained, were a perfect reflection of the fun-loving and quirky but also very classy personalities of the bride and groom.

My weekend began with a moment of panic on Friday morning when I woke to discover that the five pound block of ground beef in our hotel room’s mini fridge was still frozen solid! I had a rehearsal dinner to prepare for approximately two dozen people and only a couple of hours until I needed to begin putting it together. Where there’s a will, there’s a way they say, so tying the meat into a plastic hotel laundry bag and dropping it into a bathtub of warm water, off I went to breakfast! The novel defrosting method worked wonders and by early afternoon I had three slow cookers filled with lasagna. (No, I didn’t prepare the meal in the hotel room! We transported the meat, along with all the other ingredients, to one of the bridesmaid’s homes.) Though I never want to be a caterer, the meal was ready right on time and received rave reviews. Once that was over with, I could relax and enjoy the rest of the weekend!

From the bride and groom’s self-written vows that reflected both the sanctity of the moment and the humour that permeates their relationship to their impromptu dance on the platform during the ceremony, the wedding was, in the words of one of our dear friends, “a wonderful, classy, down to earth celebration.”

For me, one of the highlights of the weekend was having all my children and grandchildren together in one place, something that doesn’t happen often. On Sunday morning, with the bride and groom off on their honeymoon, the rest of us gathered at their home to be for a relaxing brunch before having to go our separate ways. The Easter bunny somehow knew exactly where our five young grandchildren would be and ensured that there were chocolate eggs to be found!

After cleaning up and making sure that everything was ready for Nate and Colleen’s return, we headed for home stopping on the way for Easter dinner at my sister’s place. It was also a celebration of my nephew’s 22nd birthday and in his words, “a perfect end to a perfectly incredible weekend!”