'YAHOO!'- Turning Strangers into 'Family'

MAY 1, 2005
by GREGORY J. RUMMO

            It’s been fourteen months since we began the paperwork for our second adoption from China. The second time around has been a completely different experience from the first. For one thing, we have Rebecca, our first adopted daughter, who has kept us busy along with our two biological teenage sons.

            And this time, the actual wait has been considerably shorter. It took two years for the first adoption from start to finish. But since 2001, in spite of the number of Chinese adoptions increasing steadily in the US, the time it takes for the China Center for Adoption to issue a referral has dropped from 14 to 6 months.

One of four referral photos of Zhan Ai Ping, the little girl who will become Rachel Marie Rummo.

            We received our referral for Zhan Ai Ping in mid-March. Finally we had a name, a sketchy background and four photographs that literally put a face on a stranger.

            Now, we are literally on the eve of our second adoption journey. The excitement is palpable as the day of our departure draws closer.

            We are not alone. Through the modern miracle of the personal computer, coupled with the Internet portal, Yahoo!, America World Travel Group 103 allows us to stay in touch on a daily basis with the other families that will travel with us to China.

            Belonging to an Internet 'newsgroup' is a lot like being at a party. Initially, you might not know everyone in the room, but by the end of the night, you’ve made just about everyone’s acquaintance and possibly a few friends as well.

The complete story of the adoption of his first daughter, Wu Min Jian appears in Rummo's second book, “The View from the Grass Roots—Another Look.” It's 536 pages of sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant and almost always provocative commentary on American Culture. $14.95 shipping and handling included. Click here for more information.

Once participants join, they are able to carry on public 'conversations' with each other via e-mails which are in turn posted on a central website. All members of the group can read each message and post their own comments. Members may also choose the option of receiving every e-mail in their in-box or one daily e-mail summary (which is the option I chose because on some days, there can be dozens of e-mails back and forth.)

The topics in our adoption group cover a wide range.

Some of the members have designed their own websites where they have posted their child’s referral photos and they want to share this information with everyone.

Allan and Wanda, a San Francisco couple much like ourselves with two teenage boys wrote recently, “Hi Everyone! Wow! Less than a week to go!  Are you ready?  We still have some loose ends to take care of and serious packing to finish. We want to invite you to visit our website…” Their website featured a family photo and a brief description of the circumstances surrounding their daughter’s abandonment: “Yu Ren Fen… is currently residing at the Chongqing Children's Home in Chongqing. She was left at the Jiulongpo District Yangjiaping 310 train station.”

            Other members of the group are just interested in the more ordinary, every-day need-to-know kind of stuff like if a voltage converter is necessary in China for a curling iron (probably) or a laptop (probably not but it depends on the voltage range the charger is capable of operating within.) 

            As mundane as some of the chatter may appear on the surface, there is a thread of jubilation running through this message board. Some of the posts are giddy with excitement and anticipation. And a close kinship has developed among the 31 participants.

            Here’s where the party analogy fails.

            Although we have never met each other, we are not mere acquaintances. ‘Friends’ is a little closer to the truth but that still fails to adequately describe the transformation that has taken place.

            United by love in a common purpose, on a God-called mission to “look after orphans” which the writer of the book of James describes as “religion, that God our father accepts as pure and faultless,” we have gone from being total strangers to being an extended family in just six short weeks.

Gregory J. Rummo is an author and columnist. His second book, “The View from the Grass Roots—Another Look,” was published last year in August and is available from Amazon.com or the author's website, GregRummo.com.