I went to Hong Kong to ‘Change the World’ and instead a non-verbal child changed me!
In my twenties, I was hungry for adventure and to put my zealous evangelical faith to the test. I wanted to see if God really would look after me, whilst on said adventure.
I bought a one-year return ticket to Hong Kong for my 24th birthday. I booked one week in a youth hostel, planned for a friend of a friend to pick me up from the airport and had an interview organised with St Stephen’s one week after my arrival.
The dream was to work with drug addicts. This dream came crashing around my ankles when the organisation didn’t believe God was calling me to their kind of work.
So instead, I went travelling. Three months after arriving in Hong Kong, in June 1997, I began working at Mother’s Choice, an orphanage supporting babies, toddlers with special needs and young women needing support through their pregnancy.
There I met Josh, a three-year-old deaf, autistic boy who had been abandoned and who lay rocking in the playroom to soothe himself. With no language to communicate, he didn’t know how to engage with the world around him. Something in me resonated with his isolation.
Neither of us could possibly have known how our lives were about to change that day, but from that day on, I was never the same again.
Life does that sometimes. There’s no trumpet fanfare or announcement. You simply turn a corner.
Meet a stranger.
Take a call.
Get on a plane.
Or in my case, read a book that changes your life.
That’s what I had done when I was 14 years old. I read Jackie Pullinger’s Chasing the Dragon and that was why I was now in Hong Kong almost ten years later, to meet my hero and put my faith to the test.
Becoming a family
I stayed at Mother’s Choice with Josh for two years, supporting him through a cochlear implant operation. Ours was the first adoption to the UK after the handover, and so it took a further five and a half years for us to finally become a legal family.
Josh remained at Mother’s Choice whilst I completed the adoption paperwork in the UK. This took so long because I was a single parent undertaking teacher training, in order to be able to create a financially secure home to bring him to.
It took many expensive flying visits, heartbreaking goodbyes, an exhausting home-report process and months apart before he was allowed to travel to the UK. He came to the UK when he was seven, but he was nine before he was legally mine.
However, in doing so we made legal history and are now cited in the law books. Our case redefined a home as being who a child is with during the adoption process, rather than the bricks and mortar they stay in.
Who Josh is now
He is now thirty-two.
At the age of seven he had no sign language, didn’t know his own name and couldn’t put 1, 2, 3 in the correct order. He had enormous value to me as the gentle, curious and cheeky chappy he was when he had no language.
But now he can also communicate all his basic needs in British Sign Language (BSL). He can read and write in English at a basic level. He lives in his own home, cooks and cleans for himself, and is supported 24/7 by a team of four support staff who all use BSL.
He works four days a week in two communities for adults with learning difficulties. He creates beautiful furniture out of wood. He is a potter and weaver and his work was recently selected by Craft Scotland to be included in an exhibition by adults with learning difficulties, for his highly intricate 1,000-strand weaving.
Josh is my hero. I want to be like him when I grow up.
Yes, I have given him a home and opportunities. But he has rescued me right back. What Josh has taught me:
To stay.
To belong.
To listen.
To commit.
To forgive.
In choosing to parent him, I have also learned to cherish the parts of myself that have, at times felt unlovable, unseen, unheard and abandoned.
In being Josh’s mum over the years, I have observed how much we grow through healthy, secure relationships. We grow best when we feel safe, seen and important. A child works out who they are through a thousand tiny interactions from those around them: whether they’re safe, wanted, understood, in the way or not making the grade. They sense it through their nervous system when they notice a sigh, a shrug, a look of exhaustion, an embrace, a detail remembered.
Twenty-five years later
Twenty-five years on, we recently went back to Mother’s Choice.
Now with his two mums proudly by his side, Josh had woven a baby blanket to gift to a baby and had embroidered several baby grows with his signature flower, as a way of giving back to the babies still waiting for their forever family.
A full circle moment.
I think back to the young woman who flew out on her 24th birthday ready for adventure, ready to serve, hungry to change the world. She was brave, naive, feisty and determined. I am very proud of her.
I think of who I am now: a little less certain, a little less brave, a little more bruised, but very grateful for the risks she took that have paid off.
As parents of a disabled adult who needs 24/7 care, our job is never done. There’s always another meeting to go to, another funding battle to win, another person in power to persuade.We can never know what life is going to throw at us next.
Perhaps one form of healing and recovery is being able to have compassion for who we were then and who we are now, knowing that at any one time, we are simply doing the best we can with the skills we have.
I went to Hong Kong to have an adventure. I had no idea what that adventure would entail. I thought I would work with my hero, helping drug addicts find faith. I didn’t expect a non-verbal child would help me make sense of myself and the world and ultimately help us both find belonging.
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我來到香港「改變世界」……
我來到香港想「改變世界」，沒想到最後改變我的，一位無法用言語溝通的孩子。
20多歲的我，渴望冒險，也很想考驗自己的信仰。我想知道，在這場冒險之中，上帝是否真的會一直看顧我。
24歲生日那年，我買了一張香港一年來回機票，只預訂了一星期青年旅舍，又安排了一位朋友的朋友到機場接我，並約好抵港一星期後到聖士提反會面試。
我的夢想，是與戒毒人士同行。然而，這個夢很快便破滅了。那個機構並不認為上帝呼召我參與他們的工作。
於是，我去了旅行。抵港三個月後，即1997年6月，我開始在「母親的抉擇」工作。當時，「母親的抉擇」照顧嬰兒、有特殊需要的幼兒，以及在懷孕期間需要支援的少女。
就在那裏，我遇見了 Josh。Josh 當時三歲，是一名失聰並有自閉症的男孩。他曾被遺棄，常常躺在遊戲室裏前後搖晃，藉此安撫自己。他沒有語言去與人溝通，也不知道應該如何與身邊的世界連結。不知為何，他的孤單深深觸動了我。
那一天，我們誰也不可能知道，彼此的人生即將徹底改變。但從那天開始，我再也不一樣了。
人生有時就是這樣。沒有號角響起，也沒有任何預告。你只是在某個轉角轉了彎。
遇見一個陌生人。
接了一通電話。
登上一班飛機。
又或者，像我一樣，讀了一本改變一生的書。
我14歲的時候，就是這樣。當年，我讀了 Jackie Pullinger 的《Chasing the Dragon》。差不多10年後，我因此來到香港。為了見我的英雄，也為了親自考驗自己的信仰。
成為一家人
我和 Josh 在「母親的抉擇」一起生活了兩年，期間陪伴他接受人工耳蝸手術。Josh是香港回歸後首位由香港領養到英國的個案。因此，我們之後再等了五年半，才終於在法律上正式成為一家人。
當我返回英國處理領養文件時，Josh仍然留在「母親的抉擇」。整個過程之所以如此漫長，是因為當時我是單親家長，同時正在接受教師培訓，希望能建立一個經濟穩定的家，讓Josh有一天可以來到英國與我一起生活。
這些年裏，我無數次花費不菲地飛回香港探望他，一次又一次經歷令人心碎的道別；還要經歷漫長而疲憊的家訪評估，以及一段又一段分隔兩地的日子。直到 Josh 七歲時，他才終於獲准來到英國。但一直到他九歲，他才在法律上正式成為我的兒子。
而在這個過程中，我們亦創下了一個法律先例，這宗個案至今仍被法律書籍引用。我們的個案重新界定了領養過程中「家」的意義。「家」不只是孩子所居住的房屋，而是孩子與誰一起生活。
今天的 Josh
Josh現在32歲了。
七歲那年，他完全不懂手語，不知道自己的名字，甚至無法把1、2、3按正確次序排列。即使在他還沒有語言的時候，那個溫柔、好奇、帶點頑皮的Josh，對我而言早已有着無可取代的價值。
而今天，他已能以英國手語表達所有基本需要，也能以基礎程度閱讀和書寫英文。他住在自己的家裏，懂得自己煮飯和做家務，並由四位都懂英國手語的支援人員輪流提供24小時照顧。
他每星期工作四天，分別在兩個為有學習障礙成年人而設的社群工作。他用木材製作漂亮的傢俬，也是一名陶藝家和編織者。最近，他其中一件非常精細、由1,000條線編織而成的作品，更獲 Craft Scotland 選中，在一個展出有學習障礙成年人作品的展覽中展出。
Josh 是我的英雄。我成長時，也想成為像他一樣的人。
的確，我給了他一個家，也給了他一些機會。但反過來，他也拯救了我。Josh 教曉我的是：
留下來。
找到歸屬。
聆聽。
承諾。
原諒。
當我選擇成為他的媽媽，我也逐漸學懂珍惜自己那些曾經覺得不值得被愛、沒有人看見、沒有人聽見，甚至像被遺棄了的部分。
這些年成為 Josh 的媽媽，我親眼看見，健康而穩固的關係可以讓一個人成長得多麼不一樣。當我們感到安全、被看見，知道自己是重要的，我們才能好好成長。一個孩子對自己的認識，是從身邊的人千百次細微的互動中慢慢建立起來的。我安全嗎？有人想要我嗎？有人明白我嗎？我是不是做得不夠好？孩子不一定能把這些感受說出口，但他們的身體和神經系統都會感受到。一聲嘆息。一個聳肩。一個疲憊的眼神。一個擁抱。又或者，是有人記住了關於他的一個小細節。
25年後
25年後，我們最近再次回到「母親的抉擇」。
這一次，Josh 的兩位媽媽都驕傲地陪伴在他身旁。Josh 親手編織了一張嬰兒毛氈，希望把它送給一個孩子；他亦在幾件嬰兒連身衣上，繡上自己招牌的花朵圖案。這是他回饋那些仍在等待永久家庭的孩子的一種方式。
彷彿走了一個完整的圓。
我常常想起那個在24歲生日當天登上飛機的年輕少女。她準備好去冒險，準備好去服侍，滿心渴望改變世界。她勇敢、天真、倔強，也充滿決心。我為當年的她感到非常驕傲。
再看看今天的自己：少了一點肯定。少了一點勇敢。多了一點傷痕。但我非常感恩，當年的她願意冒那些險，而那些選擇最終都值得。
作為一個需要24小時照顧殘疾成年人的父母，我們的責任永遠不會真正完結。總有下一個會議要出席。爭取新的資源。遊說下一位手握決策權的人。我們永遠無法知道，人生下一刻會把甚麼帶到我們面前。
或許，療癒和復原的其中一種方式，就是學會對過去的自己和現在的自己都多一點體諒。明白無論在人生哪一個階段，我們都只是憑着自身能力，盡力而為。
我來香港，是為了尋找一場冒險。我完全不知道，這場冒險最後會把我帶到哪裏。我原本以為，我會與自己的英雄一起工作，幫助戒毒人士尋找信仰。我從來沒有想過，最後竟是一個不懂說話的孩子，幫助我理解自己，也理解這個世界。而最終，我們都找到了自己的歸屬。
