THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 23, 1996 TAG: 9602210182
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANELLE LA BOUVE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 174 lines
PATRICE LAPPERT'S FIRST glimpse of her youngest daughter came from a dim, fuzzy photograph sent by fax from halfway around the world.
On the afternoon of Feb. 6, as she waited at Norfolk International Airport for the flight that would bring 2 1/2-year-old Kiu Jia Xiao from China, Lappert was giddy with excitement.
Her husband, Cmdr. Patrick W. Lappert, and her mother, Mary Oberst, traveled to China to escort the child, who had been given the American name Rita Grace, to her new home in Chesapeake.
``I'm excited because it's neat and unusual to have a baby coming all the way from China, someone from another culture,'' said Daniel Lappert, 11, a student at St. Matthews Catholic school in Virginia Beach. His brother, Joseph, 6, and sister, Bridget, 4, waited anxiously nearby.
``My husband called last night,'' said Patrice Lappert, who teaches a religion class at St. Matthews. ``After a 20-hour flight, she (Rita Grace) was eating McDonald's french fries and doughnuts at Howard Johnson's in Newark, N.J. She had been jumping on the hotel bed and is just a regular kid with a bad haircut.''
But when Patrick Lappert walked through the gate with their daughter in his arms, Patrice Lappert dissolved.
``Ohhhhh, you're so beautiful,'' she said, hugging her husband and laughing through her tears.
``I'm mommy. I love your haircut. She's been my daughter in my mind,'' Lappert said to onlookers. ``I've been praying for her.''
When Lappert took her daughter in her arms for the first time, her chatter ceased.
``She traveled like she's been doing it all her life,'' said Patrick Lappert, who had spent three weeks in China making arrangements and getting to know his daughter.
The Lapperts are confident that it was not a coincidence that they found this particular child in faraway China.
``My wife and I are convinced that the whole process was literally an answer to prayer,'' said Patrick Lappert, a plastic surgeon at Portsmouth Naval Hospital.
``On the long 8,000-mile flight, I kept thinking, there's a little girl in China waiting for us,'' he said. ``It's as big a miracle as giving birth.''
Before Rita Grace entered their lives, the couple had considered their family was complete with three children, two of whom also are adopted. At first, they weren't sure they wanted another child.
``We'd been having this running conversation for days,'' Patrick Lappert said. ``We felt that we were sounding kind of selfish.''
```We felt like God was saying to us - `What about what I want?' '' she said. ``Sometimes you have to listen to the Lord's plan.''
On the way to church one Sunday morning, they agreed to look for a sign and make a decision during the following week.
``We knelt down and prayed,'' she said. ``And the priest's sermon was a complete, specific answer to our prayers. He talked about the particular blessings of large families, including unselfishness among the children.
``We looked at each other and started crying.''
Patrick Lappert's response when his wife asked, ``Well, what do you think?'' was ``I'm not deaf.''
``We had room in our home and our hearts for another child,'' Patrice Lappert said. ``We had one more seat belt.''
An article in a magazine about Holt International Children's Services persuaded the pair to use the agency.
The organization had been founded by Henry Holt after he saw a newsreel about Korean War orphans. Holt, a businessman, began selling off property, promoted legislation that brought change in international adoption laws, adopted eight children, then opened an orphanage in Korea.
After his death, his widow continued Holt International's effort to unite families with homeless children in the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, China, Korea, Russia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Brazil, Romania and Central and South America.
Just a year ago, in January 1995, China lifted its prohibition on international adoption. It took the Lapperts nine months and cost them about $15,000 to adopt Rita Grace.
``Some other adoption agencies make a lot of arrangements for translators,'' he said. ``But everywhere we went, Holt had a Chinese agent waiting to help us, at the hotel and for train and plane travel.
``They (Holt International) were wonderful,'' he said. ``They saved us a lot of heartache. They helped us through every little step and were in every little town.''
About $6,000 went to Holt International to feed, clothe and find families for other orphans.
When the orphanage director presented Rita Grace to her new father, he quickly turned and left the room. ``He handed her to me and left, because that was the only way he could do it,'' Lappert said. ``She was rather tearful.''
Lappert gave Rita a banana, then offered to peel it, but she wouldn't let go.
``I wanted desperately to get her into the bath because she obviously needed it,'' he said.
Rita continued to grasp the banana as Lappert removed her hat, five layers of clothing and some old pink sneakers that were too large for her feet.
``Rita had no hair, just stubble,'' he said. She had both lice and scabies. But she held onto the banana through the bath and for a total of about 3 1/2 hours.
But as the day drew to a close, she finally turned loose the bruised banana.
The fact that many facilities in China are not heated, including Lappert's hotel room, explained the necessity for layered clothing.
``For the first week, food was everything to her,'' he said. ``She had an adult-sized portion of fried rice and vegetables and would not stop until it was all eaten. She protected her plate.
``It's unusual to see a 2-year-old feed herself so efficiently with a spoon. She obviously had not had much adult help,'' Patrick Lappert said.
Rita was abandoned in Liu Chou in May of last year in the Guangxi Province.
Mary Oberst, the child's new maternal grandmother, said the trip to China was ``quite an experience.''
``We didn't get to go into the orphanage,'' said Oberst, who has 17 other grandchildren. ``No one gets into a state orphanage in China.
``Rita didn't say a sound for about a whole week,'' said Oberst, who lives in Florida. ``We had a bag of toys. While she was playing, I heard a little voice, and I got to tickle her then she started to smile. It took two whole weeks for her to loosen up. After that, she was no trouble.
``Every time we took her out, she would go to any woman she saw. We could take her to a dining room and she would sit up with her little back as straight as could be and eat. She didn't squirm or fuss. She has a great personality, and I hope many more people will go and get those babies. I saw about 20 babies while we were in China. Every one is prettier than the last.''
Rita is right at home in Chesapeake. At lunchtime one day recently, she peeled and woofed down two bananas and grunted for more. While her mother prepared Ramen noodle soup, Rita used a porcelain spoon to scoop up crunchy Chow Mein noodles.
``She won't eat vegetables or sandwiches, and she doesn't like Pop Tarts,'' her new mother said. She does eat noodles, rice, meat and cereal with relish and has even tried a doughnut.
``Her first night here, she started to feed our other kids cereal,'' Patrice Lappert said. ``I wonder if she was one of the older kids in the orphanage. She's definitely someone who has been on her own.''
The child is also potty trained and can dress herself.
``We're calling her `Amazing Grace,' '' she said. ``We should have named her Joy. Everything has been going unbelievably well. She's so happy, so smart, so loving and so adaptable.''
Rita was undaunted by the dentist's chair and was equally calm while the pediatrician examined her.
Her favorite toys are her brothers and sister. She plays whatever they play and laughs when they laugh.
The Lapperts had originally planned to adopt a child who needed plastic surgery.
``But Rita was more well than we thought,'' Patrice Lappert said. ``We had such minimal information on her, but we went on faith. We were ready to put her into speech therapy or physical therapy or whatever she might need. She's healthy. She's agile and very coordinated. I think she's going into gymnastics. She looks like a natural.''
The Lapperts say that as many as a half-million Chinese girls need homes.
``If we can help anyone bring more of these precious angels home, we'll help,'' she said. MEMO: [For a related story, see page 11 of The Clipper.]
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photo]
AMAZING GRACE
Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Dr. Patrick Lappert carries Liu Jia Xiao, 2 - who has a new home and
a new name, Rita Grace Lappert - through Norfolk International
Airport.
Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Loving her first day in her new home, Rita Grace Lappert can't hide
her joy as she prepares to spin around.
An excited but weary Patrice Lappert holds her daughter at Norfolk
International Airport.
Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Rita Grace plays with her new brothers, 11-year-old Daniel and
6-year-old Joseph.
by CNB