THE STORY OF SOFIA BI YI

Our trip to China to pick up our daughter Jin Bi Yi (now Sofía Bi Yi) starts in June 6, 2002, but it really starts for us much earlier. Due to what it seemed then a job opportunity in Shanghai six years ago, Carmiña and I thought that it would be a good idea to adopt a girl in this country if it went well. The first conversation with somebody who had been in China was with a couple that had adopted two children in India, Águeda and Juan. While we were talking with them, the same desire rose up in both of us.

We already have two sons, Lucas and Santiago, who now are 13 and 9 years old. They were two stories, gifts from sterility treatments. Already in the first story, a year before Lucas’s birthday, the word of the Book of Kings (2 Kgs 4,14 ) had been  announced to us:  “This time next year you will be cradling a baby son”. When we went to see our priest, Fr. Jesus, to tell him that from a medical point of view everything was ready for pregnancy, he already had the same passage marked in his missal. After Lucas there came Santiago, also as a gift just after praying to the Lord on Easter Sunday.

But doctors told us we should not risk another pregnancy, so adoption could be a good way for us to have a girl. Even though the job offer did not materialize, after thinking a lot about it once the two boys were already grown a bit, we decided to prepare papers to adopt in China, in October 2000. In the summer we were in touch with a couple from Torrelodones,  José and Guiomar, who opened the doors of their home and a similar story with her daughter Inés some years before. They have been the godparents of this story since the beginning. Through them, ANDENI, an association of adopting parents, and concretely Ángel and Gloria from Salamanca, made the adoption procedures easy without need of an agency. Respecting China, the process was simple and relatively quick in comparison with other countries.

At the time, some things did not seem coincidence to us. I had more doubts than Carmiña and let the days pass without making a decision. One morning, thinking about it, I opened the Gospels by chance and found the passage of , “Let the children come to Me and do not prevent them…”. Would I be putting difficulties in the way of something that the Lord wanted? That afternoon the TV showed a movie that started with the doubts of a couple, especially the husband, about the adoption of a child. Finally it was decided and…they adopted an oriental girl!

A month afterwards we had lunch with Fr. Jesus and we shared our desire, mixed with many fears  about our marriage, and the situation of the children (Lucas did not see clearly the adoption). We wondered if this was the right and mature thing or an escape from our problems… We said goodbye, with the recommendation of Fr. Jesus to be alert to events and signs as we continued the process of adoption, like the Magi to the star that appeared during their journey.

We had the first sign when they notified us to take a psychosocial study. We had to pay an important sum for the study, and we were counting on a return from the tax office, but it was delayed. Well then, the same day that the psychologists had informed us about the study, the Agencia Tributaria deposited the money in our bank account. The way was being made easy for us.

Santiago was very pleased to have a Chinese sister. But Lucas wasn’t sure, so we said to him that nothing definite had been decided, but he should keep an open mind because he could discover it would be something good for him. After talking to us he went  to do his homework and, after a while, he called us about a dialogue that was in his grammar book: it was about the attitudes of two children about having a baby in the family, one in favor and the other against. Santiago and Lucas read the dialogue;  each one seemed to have his own view. Lucas was reminded that those “coincidences” that we sometimes told him about were signs, as the presence among us of his deceased grandfather Felix. That and what was discussed in the classroom at the time about children of the developing countries were opening his heart.

In February  2001 they gave us the certificado de idoneidad (certifying that we were suitable parents for adoption). When we informed the Ayala Community, we prayed that the adoption project would be considered not only ours but a plan of  the Lord. Next Monday when our dossier was ready to be sent from León to Valladolid and Madrid, to China, my boss called me and told me that the Shanghai project that we had believed was dead was actually alive, and he proposed that I go to China in March. And it happened like that. I flew to China on the third, and our dossier six days  later, becoming something significant for us.

A year later when they informed us that Bi Yi was assigned to us, and we looked at the day of her birthday, I could not avoid feeling a strong impresion: the same day that I had spent in China the first time, our daughter was born in that great country, hundreds of kilometers further south. As Juan Manuel Serrat says in one of his songs: “Every now and then life takes a coffee break with you and is so beautiful that is nice to be with her.” It was a blink of light in this story, a star, something for us providential and also, it seems. The Chinese people consider the date of birth something very important and believe that there is something like a red thread that links the parents and their children and stretches more or less but never breaks. I discovered then that thread with Bi Yi forever.

 Moreover, I shared my first day in China with Almudena, a friend of the Periodistas Community of Madrid who had been living in Shanghai for a few years. She was also a witness of the sign, she had seen the star.

When we knew that Bi Yi would be ours and the signs of her birthday, Carmiña, on April 29, 2002, found in the Bible a thanksgiving psalm, 138, that says: “I thank you, Lord, with all my heart… for your promise has surpassed your renown.” It is true, it is fulfilled. The date, 29, reminds us of grandmother Sofía, who died on 29th of August; not in vain does Bi Yi wear her name.

That Sunday we decided to celebrate the adoption spending the day outside. We shared the good news with almost everybody around us, but we could not contact osé y Guiomar, even though we wanted very much to let them know about it. We went to spend the day in Asturias, and in the car we read Psalm 39 that we found. We tried to explain to Lucas and Santiago what the Psalm said: “You formed my inmost being, you knitted me in my mother’s womb; I praise you for so much wonders, so wonderfully you made me, wonderful are your works…” “your eyes foresaw my embryo; in your book all my days that you indicated are written down , before one came to be.” We told them some things that are here related, about the story that we could already write in the book of the Lord. At our arrival at Tazones, looking at the mountain pass and breathing the sea breeze, we echoed another verse of the psalm, “If I alight beyond the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand holds me fast.” Actually many kilometers away at the other hand of the sea was Bi Yi, and the Lord also led her by the hand.

As we turned to look we saw some familiar people approaching us: It was José;  José and Guiomar, with Inés! That could not be an accident. It was seeing again the star, and celebrating with them the whole story that brought us to Bi Yi.      

On June 10, the day that they were supposed to give us the girl, the readings of the day were: “Go east” (1 Kgs 17, 1-6). The gospel of the day was The Blessings ( Mt. 5, 1-12): “Blessed are those who cry, for they will be conforted”. The Word has been fulfilled in events. When we returned with Sofía at the end of June and we introduced  her into our community, in the first reading of Sunday the word of the Book of  Kings (2 Kgs, 4) was repeated: “This time next year you will be cradling a baby son”. This was the same reading that had announced Lucas’ birthday. This time Lucas was witness -  and happy to be one! - of the fulfillment of the Word in the story of his sister, and for that he could also celebrate his own story.

Since she is with us, Sofía has been a continuous gift, and that is how others who know her story see it, even people of different cultures.         

On January 2003, being again in Shanghai because of my job, I told one of my Chinese collegues at the factory the signs of Sofía’s birthday . And he told me: “Then she is a gift of God”. That is right, I answered him. Now when she is two years old, March 4, I return to China. Has the star shone again?

Quique and Carmiña, March 2003