September 10, 2001

Tea time takes on new joy for Mabank mom
___By Russ Dilday
___Buckner News Service
___MABANK--Betty Murry organized the Mother-Daughter Tea at her church again this year. She's helped plan the event at Prairieville Baptist Church, traditionally held the

BETTY MURRY serves tea to her daughters, Alexandra and Maria.

Saturday prior to Mother's Day, for the past eight years.
___Originally held in her Mabank home with 15 participants, last year's tea had grown to 80 mothers and daughters and was moved to the church.
___Tea is one of Murry's hobbies. The home she and her husband, James, share is decorated with matching tea service sets she has collected from around the world. Some are hand-painted with bold, colorful strokes, and others are done in delicate China patterns.
___"I take it all to the church, and everybody has real tea cups and real tea pots to use," she explained.
___The men of the church serve food in the dainty cups and saucers for the event.
___"Yes, I'm very brave," she acknowledged. "All these years, nobody has broken a tea cup or a tea pot. That is pretty remarkable."
___This year's tea party provided excitement of another kind, though.
___With the adoption of her two daughters, Alexandra, 11, and Maria, 8, from Russia last year through Buckner Orphan Care International, she attended the tea for the first time as a mother herself.
___"Oh, I am so excited," she said prior to the event. "All these years, I've not been a mother. It's going to be so fun, to be able to share our first Mother's Day and the tea."
___The tea featured a poem she recited for the girls, based on a song she and her husband heard once at a concert, "We Loved You Before We Knew You."
___"We related to that song during the adoption process," she explained, "because we did--we loved them before we ever met them."
___It was her husband, a warehouse shipping clerk, who was the first to look into the adoption process. The couple had wanted children, but, as Mrs. Murry recalled, "I didn't really have any expectations that we would ever do it. I thought adoptions were for rich people.
___"But we kept seeing things in the Baptist Standard, all those articles about adoptions of Russians," she said.
___Her husband was paying close attention to the stories, she said. "He kind of brought it up first. He would say, 'Did you see that?' He kept saying that every time he would see an article. And then, finally, he said, 'I think we need to do this' and I said, 'Yeah, right.'
___"But we finally decided we would pray about it and see what God wanted us to do, so I did," she continued. "James already knew. God always speaks to him before he does me. He always has in our life."
___Murry prayed that God would "show me that this is really what you want me to do. I even went to work and sort of threw it out there to see how crazy people might think we were to do this at our age."
___One co-worker didn't think it was crazy at all. His family had just returned from Russia, where he had adopted two children.
___That adoption also was done through Buckner.
___"It was really an answer to prayer to show me that, because he's just a working-class person like we are," Murry said. "He adopted two kids, and they are older kids. After that, I was OK. So we went to the orientation in January 1999."
___The Murrys went through the process hoping for an older child, a girl. "I didn't want to do diapers," James Murry confessed.
___The couple met with disappointment during their first potential match when the paperwork from Russia fell through.
___"It was a sad thing during that time, and it made the process a little longer," she said. "But at the same time, we were feeling led to adopt siblings."
___When another match possibility came along two months later, it was in the form of photos and a video. As they watched the video, the couple began to meet and love the girls who would be their daughters.
___"In the video, Alexandra says she likes to read fairy tales," Mr. Murry recalled. "They sang a song together. They were doing cartwheels. They were real active."
___Due to current Russian law, American families adopting Russian children through Buckner now must make two trips to Russia to complete the process.
___During their first trip, the Murrys met Alexandra and Maria. "Oh, it was so hard to leave the girls there," Mrs. Murry said. "That was the hardest part, driving off and leaving them."
___But a month later, the Murrys were back for a rushed but positive court appointment at which the adoption was finalized.
___But leaving the orphanage still was hard.
___"We walked out, and there were 50 kids standing there between the building and the van," she said. "They weren't sad about the other ones leaving, but I thought they would be waving or talking or something. They were not; they were all looking at us. All eyes were on us. It was so unusual."
___"I wish we could adopt them all," her husband added. "We just don't know the fate of those if they don't get a family. It was heartbreaking in a lot of ways."
___Back in Texas now, Mrs. Murry homeschools Alexandra and Maria, who are working to break the barriers of the English language after only a year as Americans.
___Maria describes her new home as "safe," while Alexandra likes it "because I have my own room." At the orphanage, the girls slept in a room with 64 people.
___The two enjoy riding their bicycles, playing with dolls and being with Mama and Papa. "Mama always comes in our room at night when we're scared," Alexandra reported. "It makes me feel good."
___Among the myriad of goals all parents have for their children, the Murrys are guided by one overriding desire.
___"We want to just love them mostly," Mrs. Murry said. "To know that we are always there for them, that they will always have a family. That they won't be abandoned anymore."

___

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