Adoption: From a Number to a Name

As the Church in Toronto journey's through the book of Galatians, we have seen that we have been adopted into God's family, becoming sons (& daughters) of the living God (Gal. 4:4-7). Our new status has been validated by God sending His Spirit into our hearts. As a result of God's adoption we have a new identity bringing new capabilities, prospects and hopes. Below is the heart-warming true story of an African war orphan adopted by a US couple into their family. In the orphanage she was just a number; on entering her new family she got a new name, a new identity and a new status. This account ought to remind us how God's adoption of us as His sons & daughters has changed our identity & prospects.--Nigel Tomes

Michaela DePrince: from War Orphan to Ballerina From an Orphan with a Number for a Name to Ballerina Edited from BBC.com A professional stage debut is a huge event in any ballerina’s life, but Michaela DePrince's recent tour of S Africa also marked the end of an extraordinary journey from her childhood as a war orphan in Sierra Leone. "I got out of a terrible place," says DePrince. "I had no idea I would be here - I'm living my dream every single day." Orphan #27 She was born in Sierra Leone, W. Africa, in 1995. Her parents named her Mabinty, but they both died during the civil war. She was then sent to an orphanage, where she became a number. "They named us from one to 27," she recalls. "One was the favorite child of the orphanage and 27 was the least favorite." DePrince was number 27, because she suffers from vitiligo, which patches of skin lose pigmentation. To the "Aunties" who ran the orphanage, it was evidence of the evil spirit within the 3-year-old. She still recalls the fierce antagonism of the women. "They thought of me as a devil's child. They told me every day I wasn't going to get adopted, because nobody wanted a devil's child," she says. The other girls in the orphanage were encouraged not to play with her, but DePrince formed a close friendship with child number 26, also called Mabinty; she was disliked by the Aunties because she was left-handed. The pair shared a sleeping mat. At night, when Michaela had bad dreams, her "mat-mate" would soothe her with kind words and stories. Teacher Brutalized One teacher took an interest in DePrince and stayed after class to help her with school-work. The two of them would walk together every night to the orphanage gate to say goodbye. While they were saying farewell one evening, 3 rebel soldiers passed the gate. "Two of them were drunk - the 3rd one was a younger boy," DePrince remembers. "My teacher was outside the gate and I was still inside. The 2 older rebels saw that my teacher was pregnant." Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war was notorious for atrocities committed against civilians. Pregnant women were victims of a special kind of mutilation - soldiers would cut open women's bellies to see the sex of the fetus. "If they found a boy they would let the woman go, or kill the mother and save the child," DePrince says. "But they found a baby girl when they cut my teacher's stomach open, so they cut her arms and legs off." She died. DePrince says that the younger boy, perhaps trying to impress the older soldiers, took a machete to her stomach too. She blacked out - but was rescued when her mat-mate raised the alarm. Ballerina’s Picture Her memories of early childhood are fragmentary - moments of piercing clarity reassembled in date order. She believes it was soon after witnessing her teacher’s killing that she stumbled upon something that was to shape the rest of her life - a discarded magazine. "There was a lady on it, she was on her tippy-toes, in this pink, beautiful tutu—a ballerina. I had never seen anything like this - a costume that stuck out with glitter on it, with just so much beauty. I could just see the beauty in that person and the hope and the love and just everything that I didn't have. "I just thought: 'Wow! This is what I want to be.'" DePrince ripped the photograph out of the magazine and, for the lack of anywhere else to keep it, stuffed the treasured scrap in her underwear. #27 Adopted One day, the orphanage was warned it would be bombed and the children were marched to a distant refugee camp. Here DePrince learned that her beloved mat-mate was to be adopted. An American woman, Elaine DePrince, had come to the camp to adopt child number 26, now called Mia. For a moment, Michaela was distraught because she believed all the other children would be taken to new homes and she’d be left behind. But abruptly there was a change of plan. When the “Aunties” told Elaine DePrince that Michaela was unlikely to find another home, she decided to adopt both girls. No Ballet Shoes Michaela remembers struggling to understand what was happening. She was intoxicated by the American woman with her dazzling blonde hair, but there was something else on her mind too. "I was looking at people's feet because I thought: 'Everyone has to have [ballet] pointe shoes, they have to have pointe shoes because these are people from the US!'" Not only was Elaine not wearing any pointe shoes, but when Michaela looked through her suitcase that night, Elaine had none in her luggage either. Back in the US, her new mother quickly noticed Michaela's obsession with ballet. "We found a Nutcracker video and I watched it 150 times," Michaela says. When they finally went to see a stage performance, she was able to point out to her mother the places where dancers had missed their steps. What about my skin? Elaine enrolled 5-year-old Michaela in the Rock School of Dance in Philadelphia, making the 45-minute drive from New Jersey every day. But DePrince remained a shy girl, painfully self-conscious of her vitiligo. "That was all I would think about when I was on stage. I had trouble looking at myself in the mirror," she says. Instead of glorying in the glittery tutus and bodices that had drawn her to ballet, she covered herself up with turtle-neck sweaters. One day, DePrince asked her ballet teacher if she thought her skin condition might hold back her career. The teacher asked her what she was talking about. She hadn't even noticed the pale patches on her skin - she'd just been watching her steps. That was a significant moment for Michaela. But, she says, being a black ballet dancer is hard, even in the US. One problem is that in the corps de ballet - the group of ballerinas who are not soloists – all the girls are supposed to look the same. "It is a challenge," she says. "If you look at [ballet] companies you won't really see any black girls. You might see a mixed-race girl but there are only one or two black soloists in the whole US." Dance Theatre of Harlem Now 17, DePrince recently completed a tour with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, many of whose dancers are African-American, or mixed-race. "I have become more upbeat - I used to be very shy," she says. It’s been a long journey from an orphan with only a number for a name, to a ballerina. "Now I've grown up and I'm so happy with the way things are turning out," Michaela said. Michaela DePrince Timeline 1995: Born in Sierra Leone 1999: Adopted and taken to the US - enrolled in the Rock School for Dance Education in Philadelphia when nearly five 2011: Featured in TV documentary First Position, and on Dancing with Stars 2012: Graduated from American Ballet Theatre's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in New York, joined Dance Theatre of Harlem 19 July 2012: Professional debut performance in the role of Gulnare in the South African premiere of Le Corsaire