Among our daughter’s adoption files, there is a curious paper known as a finding ad.  The Chinese Welfare Institute runs the ad in a local paper following abandonment.  The dear dark faces of several baby girls fill the page along with the dates of their “finding.”

                  The Finding

                             
                               by Melissa Roe

Among our daughter’s adoption files, there is a curious paper known as a finding ad.  The Chinese Welfare Institute runs the ad in a local paper following abandonment.  The dear dark faces of several baby girls fill the page along with the dates of their “finding.”  I marvel at the very word naming this lightweight copy of newsprint that could just as easily have been a piece of junk mail on a Wuzhou City porch step.  The fact that it is a finding ad instead of an abandonment notice speaks to me of an optimism that we all would do well to observe.  The focus is on the finding; in a nearly celebratory manner the ad is placed to alert family members in the event that they happened to have misplaced a baby at the side of the road or in the market.

Two years ago we traveled to the Zhuang Autonomous Region of Guangxi, China where we claimed our daughter.  The Zhuang people practice an animistic religion, worshipping stones, land, and animals as well as their ancestors.  We learned that this largest ethnic minority in China numbers 18 million and represents a people still waiting for a Bible in their language.  Until the early 1950’s, the language of the Zhuang was unwritten.  After an attempt by the government to orthographize the language using Russian characters, it was rejected. In 1986, a Roman script was adopted and encouraged throughout the region in an effort to raise the literacy rate above a scant twenty percent.  We have made it a point to focus on their “finding.”

When Jesus came to earth and completed our finding, He became our example as we seek to find those who still wait.  Following the emotionally charged adoption ceremony, I wrote a commemorative poem entitled “Abba.”  I reference (perhaps for the sake of rhyme) that Jesus became our race.  My husband, the ready theologian, pointed out later that in fact Jesus had become our species in an effort to reach us.  I will leave the poem as is, since I would be hard pressed to make rhyme with “species.”  However, his point is valid.  Our finding was so important to the Savior that He left a heavenly realm, demoted Himself to humanity, was rejected by most, and suffered the penalty of our sin. His focus was on our finding.

There are still millions of people who await the news of their own finding.  Many languages, written and unwritten, have yet to be verbalized into hope, for their words to make a prayer or to give praise to a Redeemer.  If each of us would familiarize ourselves with at least one Bibleless people, we could make a difference in the finding of that group.  Research it.  Talk about it.  Weary your friends and relatives with your unlikely new interest.  Pray for that group and ask God how you could be used in their finding.

Melissa Roe