When I think back on the first eighteen years of my life, few moments stand out more than four weeks in the summer of 2010. I was blessed with the opportunity of a lifetime as a volunteer at a special needs foster home in China. The foster home in which I volunteered is named for the parable of the boy throwing the starfish one by one into the ocean, rescuing them and giving them a second chance at life, knowing he probably couldn’t save them all. I believe life is about the individual. When I think about how I can make a difference to just one person, it makes the task seem simpler. I fell in love with those babies one at a time as I served them in whatever capacity I could, be it feeding them or taking them on walks or cuddling with them and singing to them. One at a time my babies received necessary surgeries on their hearts or lips. Eventually, one at a time, they will be adopted. One by one, they soften a person’s heart until it’s so weak it feels like it might fall out. My favorite parable is about a young man who claims to have the most beautiful heart because it’s perfectly whole. An old man comes along whose heart has big gauges where pieces are missing and rough edges where pieces have been placed in the holes. The old man claims to have the most beautiful heart because the holes are where he has given a piece of his heart to someone else and the rough edges are pieces others have given him. I left big chunks of my heart with my little ones in China, but my heart is more beautiful because of the little pieces they shared with me.

The love we shared would never have been found in the orphanages where they spent their earliest days. The foster home gave them a second chance where they could learn and grow and prepare for their third chance with a family all their own who will love them as much as I did and more.

One particular morning, the orphanage employees arrived with six new babies they had asked us to look after. I was handed a tiny little girl. We were told that, unlike the others, she had no special need; yet as I held her in my arms, she sounded like Darth Vader and looked like the mostly dead Voldemort from the fourth Harry Potter movie. Each cough seemed to shake her entire body. We tried breathing treatments and every household medicine available. To my dismay, each new method only provided a brief moment of calm for this sweet baby girl. She would just begin to fall asleep or start eating and then a fresh round of sobs would begin. After twenty four hours of this, we had to send her to the hospital. About six’o’clock that night, we received word that she was gone…dead. Our hearts were broken, still we held tight to a glimmer of hope. Later, a phone call relieved all our greatest fears. Within a few weeks, our little girl was back at the foster home. She is improving everyday; eating more and growing bigger and stronger. When I think that precious Celine was abandoned by her mother, slowly dying in an orphanage, afforded a second chance at the foster home, near death in the hospital, and is now on the road to adoption, I can’t help but feel that every human deserves not only a second or third chance, but every opportunity to live the best life possible.

Back in reality, I know life isn’t that simple. Still, I will never forget the lessons learned from those infants. I was once a little girl with asthma who got a second chance and spent the next nine years as a ballet dancer. I want to be an Occupational Therapist when I graduate from school. My hope is to provide a second chance for children like Celine and my other Starfish babies to be able to do what they want to do just as I did. As one person I will make a difference in the lives of others one at a time.