Loraine Dockerill

Have you ever screamed with joy, shock, delight,nervousness and unbelief, all at the same time?Leaving your husband thinking there is a medicalemergency in the home. You can picture thescene.

This is what happened on that joyous night ofJanuary 15th, 2018. It was the scene of a lifelongdream coming true and it changed my lifeforever. It had taken decades for all of this to fallinto place, but God’s timing is perfect.

On the 12th of May 1957 a baby girl was born in alittle town called Humansdorp, South Africa. Shewas born into a poor Tsitsikamma family, whocould not afford to keep her. Ahead of her lay ajourney which led her away from her biologicalfamily. After many struggles and court cases, thisnow four-year-old girl was given over to a familyfor adoption. The journey had many bumps along

the way, but she was determined at a young age to use these bumps as stepping-stones and not stumbling blocks. Only God could have instilled this in her heart.

Now, I am all grown up. A woman, a wife, a mother and a grand mother, living in Canada.

I have learned in life that it is not so much about the destination, but more about the journey. There is much to learn along the journey of life. It’s not always easy, but it sure does shape and develop one’s character.

Since feeling rejected and deprived of love as a child, I determined in my heart that I wanted to be able to love and care for people. To give people what I felt I never received. I developed a passion to love and care for people, and in that I found my purpose. God says, if we don’t have love, we have nothing.

I did not grow up in a Christian home but looking back I know that God had His hand upon my life. I gave my heart to Jesus in 1985, aged 28. It was then that I started wondering about my biological siblings. I knew there were quite a few of them and I had to make sure that they knew Jesus. I could not remember much about them, but there was one biological sister that I remembered playing with at my adoptive parent’s home when I was a little girl. There was also another sister that my adoptive Dad had introduced me to when I was a young child. I only learned at the age of 21 that these were my biological siblings. Little did I know, that many years later, those two siblings were going to be one of the keys to my dream coming true.

My search for my siblings in 1985 was in vain. Every door was shut. I knew this was not God’s timing, so I had to wait. I ended up having to wait until 2017. I had never forgotten my biological family though. By then I had been separated from them for 56 years and it was 32 years since I laid down the dream of finding them.

Looking back on the process now, I recognise a few significant happenings and occurrences which led to me finding my biological family. One of them was that in 2014, our New Horizon Church in Nanaimo, BC, Canada, was adopted into the family of Church of the Nations. This allowed for my passion and purpose to be fulfilled in this context - loving and caring for God’s people.

Another was in 2017, when we attended a COTN conference in the UK. After the conference we stayed and spent a week with a friend of ours. She was also adopted, and she asked me why I had never looked for my biological family. I mentioned I had tried but had been unsuccessful. She pushed the point and went on to say that all I needed was an Adoption Certificate. This I did not have.

Shortly after we arrived home, my daughter asked me to look in my filing for a certain document she needed. I searched back and forth for that document but found nothing. Eventually, I paged right to the very back of the old, brittle plastic sleeved file. My eyes just about did a double roll around in my head. I saw a very old, yellowed envelope with my adoptive mother’s handwriting on it saying: “Loraine’s adoption certificate”. Well, blow me over! This was another significant part of the process.

Remember the scream I mentioned earlier, well there was a repeat of that as I screeched, not believing what I had just found. I had to wonder whether it had been there all along. I honestly do not remember it being there, or ever having seen it before. But God did something in that moment as He gave me the piece of information that was missing for me to start the search for my biological family.

I believe that document was revealed at that specific time because I had recently opened my heart and released all the pain and trauma from childhood and offered forgiveness to my parents. I had an undeniable Spiritual breakthrough at that time. We sometimes hold onto offences without even realising it. It could be that very thing which is holding us back from our breakthrough.

Right away I reached out to the Baby Come Home (Family Reunion SA) Facebook group to search for my family. I gave them a copy of my adoption certificate and told them the only other information I had, my biological surname and the name of one biological sister. Within 14 hours I heard those numbing words that I opened with: “Are you around? Don’t go anywhere. I think we have found your family”

How can you be sure, I asked them? They said they had asked my biological sister, the one that my adoptive father had introduced me to as a small child, what she could tell them about me. I was so grateful to our awesome God, that all those years ago He had guided my adoptive father to remain connected to this biological sister of mine. He had even kept her up to date with all the milestones in life. This sister, all these years later, could tell Baby Come Home (Family Reunion SA) where I had worked as a young woman, when I had gotten married, where had I lived and what occupation my father had. Baby Come Home (Family Reunion SA) asked me to confirm all this information, and it all lined up!

Still, some uncertainty crept in. Oh, ye of little faith. Could it really be true? Just to seal the deal, I believe God moved His Hand and the very next day Adopted SA emailed me all my original Order of Adoption papers with full statements by both sets of parents, their names, and all the family history. This was proof that all the information lined up and was correct.

Two months had passed since I sent my request to Adopted SA to release these documents from the archives. Why, on this day, would I be receiving this information? God knew I needed confirmation. How awesome is He? God was on the move. He is always on time, never early and never late.

Baby Come Home (Family Reunion SA) had found my family, all five remaining siblings. Sadly, my Dad, Mom and a brother had passed away. All the siblings’ phone numbers were released to me and they were waiting for me to call them. They remembered me! It was a joyous, somewhat emotional, tender and sensitive series of phone calls. Some had, in fact, just been speaking that week about whether they would ever see or hear from me again.

So much time had passed, but God’s timing cannot be faulted. My siblings’ words were: “This is the best day of our lives”. What a precious.

God-given moment. In April/May of 2019, there was a great reunion of our biological family in Port Elizabeth and Sedgefield, South Africa. There is no doubt that we are family. God has done such a beautiful thing in our midst.

If that is not enough good news, God had made sure that my family got to know Him as Lord and Saviour. What an amazing God. He knew my heart from all those years ago. He knew I was concerned for their salvation and He stepped in.

Every day my family and I are in contact with each other to encourage each other in the Lord and pray for each other. Never give up on your dreams. It took a series of significant happenings for my dream to be unlocked. You might be just one moment away from your dreams being unlocked and coming true. God will fulfill them, when the time is right! Romans 8:28 says: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose”.

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Loraine and her husband Robert live in Naniamo, in beautiful Canada. They are the pastors at New Horizons Church.