Here is an e-mail Dawn sent to friends and family:
Dear family and friends,
Please indulge us while we share a story with you.
For this past Christmas, Scott gave me a very sweet, sentimental gift. It was a necklace with a cute little ladybug on it in honor of our precious little Mary that we will go to China to adopt. I was very touched by his gift. Ladybugs are a symbol of Chinese adoption. Many people are superstitous about Ladybugs and also particularly about ladybugs as goodluck in chinese adoption. But not us! I've skeptically read previously about about people seeing ladybugs just prior to receiving, finally, their referrals about their daughters. (As most of you know, the referral includes ones new daughter's pictures, chinese name, approximated birthdate, personality sketch, and medical info). As you know we are anxiously awaiting our referral just now. We've been praying for Mary for almost a year now, and we can hardly wait to see Mary's face.
Anyway, back to the ladybug necklace. After Scott gave me the necklace, I didn't put it in my main "everyday" jewelry box. Instead, I put the ladybug necklace on a special jewelry hanger that I take on trips . That way I could take it to China when it was time to pack! Also, the necklace looks somewhat "little girlish" and isn't the type of jewelry that an almost 40 year old woman would wear under usual circumstances! So, the necklace has been sitting in the closet since around Dec. 31, and I hadn't been remembering it.. This morning I by chance "came across"the necklace and thought something like, "Oh yeah! that sweet ladybug necklace. I had forgotten about it!!!" I also happened to put the necklace on under my shirt. Since Scott is home sick, I mentioned to him that I had accidenltly come across the necklace. We joked about the irony of me running into it at this particular time. I thought that I had heard that the superstition is that your'e suppose to get your referral within one week of seeing a ladybug, so I somewhat jokingly said to Scott, "Well, I guess this means that we will definitely get Mary's referral withing the next week. So I'm expecting it by Feb. 17!" We also joked about how I had to see a necklace of a ladybug as opposed to a real one, because one probably woudn't be seeing a real one this time of year. ......Ha, Ha, Ha!". As you would guess from knowing us, we are probably some of the least superstitous people on the planet! And in my opinion, many superstitions just don't square well with our Christian beliefs e.g. "break a mirror and get 7 years of bad luck", "knock on wood for good luck", etc. No offense, but it turns me off just to even hear someone say that last phrase! We joked about how funny it was that I ran into the ladybug necklace!
Back to the story: This afternoon at about 12:15 I was working in the kitchen and out of the corner of my eye I saw something on my drinking glass. I focused in closer and you guessed it, it was a ladybug! A real, live ladybug sitting there on the rim of my glass! I gasped and yelled for my poor sick husband to come and see! We were stunned. I kept saying, "I can't believe it, I can't believe it". So now, I still don't believe in bad luck from things like broken mirrors or black cats. And I definitely don't believe in knocking on wood for good luck. But I do believe that God can give us a ladybug as his reminder that he is watching over Mary and watching over our adoption of her. He is the one that guided us to adopting her and I am thankful to him for the ladybug on my glass.
Love,
Dawn and......
Scott, Rebekah, Scott Jr. and Mark
P.S.
In our Encyclopedia it says that another name for ladybugs is Ladybird beetle. It also says that all lady bugs, except just one species, are carnivorous. It says that they ear insects that afflict mankind. It further states that, "Because of the help ladybird beetles render farmers in destroying agriculturral pests, the beetles were popularly regarded in the Middle Ages as instruments of benevolent intervention by the Virgin Mary into the affairs of farmers, whence the common name "ladybird", which signifies "bird of Our Lady" Well, that's appropriate since our little Mary is being named partially after the mother of Jesus.
Thanks for bearing with my longwindedness.
*Update:It has been 2 and a half weeks since the "sighting", and the referral has not yet arrived. It's so hard to wait! However, we are still thankful, and certain that the Lord is watching over Mary.*
