Taking a Chance on Fu Yang

One day, the Lord showed me how little I really knew what was best for my family and me. In the fall of 2003, a friend in Hong Kong sent me an e-mail. His wife is on the board of an organization that brings Chinese orphans to the United States and lines them up with doctors who perform free surgery.

He wrote that an orphan from China named Fu Yang was coming to Medical City Dallas Hospital, where these doctors work. It's five minutes from my home. My friend asked me to take pictures of Fu for a visual record; Fu has Treacher Collins Syndrome, a rare genetic defect that only 1 in 10,000 infants are born with. Fu's ears never fully formed, and he had a cleft palate. He couldn't hear or talk. Also, people with Treacher Collins have very flat cheekbones. It causes the skin around their eyes to droop down and requires years of surgery to restore typical human features.

For a photojournalist, fall is extremely busy because of football season, so when I got the e-mail, my first reaction was, "I just don't have time to do this." But Dinah, my wife and reliable moral compass, said, "He's an orphan. Take an hour out of your time and go help him."

Reluctantly, I went. I found Fu in pre-op. Since he couldn't hear or talk, I wondered how I was going to communicate with him. Actually, we got along from the moment I met him. I just followed him around and took pictures. He was like a regular kid except that he couldn't talk.

This surgery really was his last chance. China didn't help him much beyond giving him food, water, and shelter. We don't know what year he was born. At the orphanage, when kids get to be 10, 11, 12—like Fu—they don't have much of a shot at adoption. Being flown to Dallas for a major operation at no cost was nothing short of God's hand in Fu's life, even before Fu knew that there was a God.

That day, Fu's chaperone was talking to me, saying straight out, "You could adopt Fu Yang." I was stunned. That wasn't in any plan I had in mind. But Fu has a charisma that's hard to describe. As I drove back home, the Lord, in his quiet way, was saying to me: You have an opportunity here to participate in something special.

I thought about that for weeks, probably coming up with every reason in the book why our family couldn't adopt Fu. At first, I actively fought against it, and it was agonizing because Christ in me was saying, Reach out to this boy. There's blessing here. You can't even imagine what's ahead.

The part of me that's selfish was responding: "My kids are almost grown. My wife and I are not prepared. We've never ever talked about adoption. Dinah won't go for it. I got kids to put through college."

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But this holy nudge persisted. Every time I tried to shut it up, it wouldn't shut up. Then, I was in Birmingham, Alabama, on a photo shoot. I was driving around killing time between sessions, and all I could think about was Fu Yang.

Searching across the radio dial for something to take my mind off of it, I hit on a Christian station. James Dobson was talking to a woman about adoption. She said, "We thought at first there's absolutely no way we could do this. It doesn't make sense. We don't have the money. But we did it, and I'm so glad."

Immediately, I realized the obvious: I ought to stop trying to resist this. God is at work here. God could have provided for Fu some other way, but we have been given the opportunity to help.

Green Light

By that time, Fu was staying with a family from a local Chinese Bible church. It was wonderful, but they didn't have any young kids, so he was often playing by himself. I started coming over and playing with him, putting puzzles together. Dinah could see that Fu and I were drawing closer.

When God had finally broken through most of the walls that I had put up, I prayed, "God, if this is really what we need to do, then you need to get this past Dinah, because I don't think she's going to go for it." One night just before going to bed, I did the old Gideon fleece thing with Dinah. After talking about Fu's situation and his likely return to China, I started raising the idea of adoption. We climbed in bed, and she looked intently at me and said, "You know there's no way we can let that little boy go back to China, don't you?"

That was the green light. God had also captured Dinah's heart. God was speaking to us about living more boldly in the Spirit—taking a chance that is not a chance with God, but by earthly thought and reasoning, it's taking a chance.

I wish I could put a finger on what it is about Fu that makes you like him. It's more than the underdog syndrome. When he first started going to school, we were afraid students would hammer on him because of his appearance. Instead, he became one of the most popular kids. He has a self-confidence that is hard to explain.

Every adoption changes a family's dynamic, but especially so with a special-needs child. So at first, we offered to keep Fu as a foster child to try it out. This testing period helped us realize we could be adequate caregivers for Fu, and eventually we adopted him. He very much has become a part of the family and has made it what it is today. Dinah has a son from her first marriage named Jade, who was living with us. Jade became Fu's great big brother. God really blended the families from our first marriages.

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Post-surgery, Fu can hear better than many people. Surgeons attached a titanium post to his skull. Fu's external ears never developed, but his inner ear is basically pristine. The doctors set up a bone-anchored conduction hearing aid. He snaps it on his head, and it transmits the sound waves through the skull bone to his inner ear. The surgeons also repaired his cleft palate.

For the misformed cheekbones, doctors tried a surgical procedure to hold his eyelids up. But it caused him a lot of discomfort, plus it's a stopgap measure. When Fu's in his late teens or early 20s, surgeons will go in and make him new cheekbones. Doctors are saying by the time he's 25, he'll have a near-normal appearance.

Forgiveness for a Robin Hood

The Dallas Morning News, where I work, featured my photos of Fu Yang in a special essay. A woman from Australia saw the feature online, and she realized that she had volunteered at Fu's orphanage in China long before we had ever met Fu. She told us about Fu at the orphanage and the terrible treatment he received. God had his eye on Fu Yang a long time ago.

After Fu moved in, we stumbled upon a Jesus-affirming Methodist church with a deaf ministry—Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Dallas. One leader is fluent in American Sign Language, which is great for Fu, a wiz at sign language.

One thing we found out is that children like Fu have a hard time thinking abstractly. But the Lord is working on Fu's heart. At our Sunday school class, Fu asks the hard questions. One time, Pastor Tom was talking about sins and forgiveness. Fu asked, "If you steal, can you be forgiven?" This question, we knew, had a history.

We had heard that at the orphanage, Fu would steal food from the market and bring it back to the other orphans because they only ate one meal a day. Like Robin Hood, he made sure even the weaker, non-aggressive kids would get a share. He'd portion it out for them.

Our pastor didn't miss a beat, saying, "As a matter of fact, Fu, when Jesus was crucified, two men were executed along with him, and they were thieves. One of the thieves asked Jesus, 'Remember me when you come to your kingdom.' And Jesus replied, 'I tell you the truth that today you'll be with me in paradise.'

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"So, yes, Fu, you can be forgiven for stealing."

Fu is not only receiving ministry—he's giving to others in many ways.

I believe God specially blesses special-needs kids and those who come into relationship with them. There's a different kind of richness than there is with other kids. This year, Fu and Dinah went to Mexico with a group of deaf kids from Lovers Lane Methodist, and they held vacation Bible school for a group of deaf kids in Mexico.

When we adopted Fu, we gave him the middle name Joseph. First, Joseph is the name of the father of the woman who brought him over here. So we wanted to honor her. Second, we love the biblical story of Joseph and how he was left for dead but ended up accomplishing amazing things through God. That's our prayer for Fuyang Joseph DeLuca, now his legal name.

Fu is an incredible imitator; he learns mainly by watching. I've taken him on many photo shoots. Now he's a photographer for his high-school newspaper. In late November, he was shooting his team in a playoff game. I was covering the same game for my newspaper.

At the end of the night, he showed me one unbelievably great photo. I transmitted it back to the Morning News, and they actually ran his photo in the paper instead of mine!

Recently, we were at a restaurant and goofing off. We were walking out in the parking lot, and a woman came out of the restaurant and said, "Can I give your son a hug?"

"Sure, if you want to," I said. She hugged him, said, "God bless you," and then walked away. Puzzled, Fu turned to me, signing, "What was that about?"

I said, "It's all you, man. People just like you."

We have a steady stream of delightful surprises that God allows us to participate in. I believe God has even more incredible plans for Fu Yang in the years to come.

Louis DeLuca is a photojournalist for The Dallas Morning News.