Rachel Elder sits with her parents Will and Penny in the sunroom of their home. A small light comes from the lamp in the room. Will and Penny sit on the couch; Will’s

feet are propped up on the coffee table. Rachel is seated on the chair next to her parents, her foot propped up on her father’s leg.

“It didn’t come naturally,” Penny says.“So… “

“Plan B,” Will interjects.

“I was your plan B?” Rachel feigns astonishment, playing the role of the daughter who has no idea that she was adopted— a role she enjoys playing often.

“No, you were our Plan C.” Will smiles as he pats Rachel’s leg.

CREATING A FAMILY

Looking at the three, it’s obvious that Rachel isn’t the same blood as her parents. She’s from Changzou, China, and her dark skin and black hair contrast her parents’ blonde hair and pale skin. However, there is no attention of the difference within their family as they lounge around to reminisce on going through the process of bringing Rachel into the family. Not a trace of somberness shows during the discussion, except perhaps the small white dog peering through the glass, yearning to be a part of it.

Will and Penny Elder have two daughters, both adopted from China. Sarah, the first child to be adopted, is 18 and currently in college. Rachel is a newly turned 16-year-old and is a sophomore. Sarah was adopted when she was five-and-a-half months old from Wuhan, China. Rachel was adopted and brought home two days before her 1st birthday. The Elders weren’t sure what children they’d end up with, considering the Chinese government picks the children the adoptive parents receive.

“It’s kind of like a real birth you don’t know what you’re going to get.” Will jokes, his laughter ringing. Rachel’s giggles as she covers her face at her embarrassing dad.

From the beginning, Will and Penny have engrained the term “adoption” into Rachel’s head. That way, they would avoid the issue of her learning the term from a separate source, and then question the meaning of the word “adoption” and if it applied to their lives.

“We were never afraid to talk about it,” Penny said. “We never felt threatened when they wanted to ask questions, what they thought.

CURIOSITY AND DISCOVERY

The Elders discuss Rachel’s upbringing.

“Did I ever ask questions?”

“You asked what your birth mother looked like.”

Casual conversation continues between the three family members, making jokes of the questions Rachel would ask when she was younger.

“Why are my eyes squintier than yours’?” Rachel mocks, earning laughs from the whole family.

Rachel gets questions about being adopted, but not like she used to. Her friends even questions about adoption in general, and Rachel freely answers them.

“You think that it would stress her out, where her birth parents are from, but it doesn’t,” sophomore Marissa Meyers, a friend of Rachel, said. “I assume sometimes it would make her upset, because she doesn’t have those roots. She can’t go back to her hometown or her birth parents, because she doesn’t know what those are.”

Kailyn Bowman, another close friend of Rachel, thinks of what it’s like to be in Rachel’s shoes.

“I think as I got older, I think I’d wonder what it would be like to not be adopted,” Bowman said.

Rachel, however, couldn’t imagine her life differently. She finds it nothing short but a blessing to be adopted, since it helped her parent’s dreams of developing a family. She even thinks about adopting her own children in the future. Consequently, Rachel doesn’t have plans to find out who her birth parents are. She’s perfectly content with the life she lives, even if it means never knowing her birth parents.

“I don’t really think it’d be beneficial,” Rachel said. “They speak Chinese… We’d have to have a translator and it’d just be a big hassle. I don’t really care if I never meet them.”

For Will and Penny, they thank God for putting them on the journey they had to go on in order to get Sarah and Rachel in their lives.

“‘One door closes, another door opens,’” Penny said. “‘And sometimes you look so long at the door thats closed, you don’t see the one that’s open before you.’ I just love that quote because it was right. This wasn’t the way to go, and we really feel, not that we’re spiritual… Well, we believe in God, but we really think He knew we liked to travel, so it was like, ‘Well you guys like to travel, so we’re going to send you halfway across the world to bring your family home. We got to do it twice.”

CONTENTMENT WITH TODAY

The Elder family wraps up the evening. The lights in the kitchen have been turned off, the dog is napping, and the family still smiles

“Sometimes I forget you’re from China.” Will says.

“What? Why? Because I’m a typical white girl?”

“Well, because you’re SarahI mean, Rachel!” Laughter erupts in the room once again as Will’s attempt at making a point fails.

Will and Penny believe they got lucky in receiving Sarah and Rachel as their children. They don’t see the blurred lines that divide a family by culture They only see a family that’s whole.

“We don’t think of her any different. We don’t think of her as our Chinese daughter, I mean, she’s just, our daughter,” Penny adds.

“She’s Rachel. Or Rachey. Or Rachel Wendy Elder at certain times,” Will says, smiling at his daughter.