Chasing a Dream Where the Sunflowers Grow

By Deborah Ann Norsworthy

After James and Deborah Norsworthy had their ninth child, God led them to adopt Lera, who has Down syndrome like their youngest child, Hannah. Hannah had some complications at birth requiring six surgeries to save her life, and Lera was an orphan in Ukraine who the Norsworthys believed needed to be in their family, not in an institution. Chasing a Dream where the Sunflowers Grow is about survival and the rescue to save both girls and the way God speaks to us and gives us the desires of our hearts. With God, all things are possible!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449716936

Deborah Ann Norsworthy

Deborah Ann Norsworthy is blessed with twenty-eight years of marriage to her husband, and is the mother of ten children. She has two grandchildren and one new daughter-in-law. She and her husband Jim grew up together in Maryland City, graduating in 1981 from Meade Senior High School. They were married on September 11, 1982. Her passion has always been to love God with all her heart and to join Him in His work. Adopting a little girl from Ukraine began their love for their daughter’s country. Since 2007, they have been involved in the ministry that found them their daughter, His Kids Too!

Book preview

Chapter 1

Life Is But a Dream

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily:

Life is but a dream.

When I was a little girl, I loved to sing. I still do! Singing and dreaming worked like a charm for me. Like most little girls I know, I wanted to marry my prince, have children in a castle, and live happily ever after!

This love I dreamed about grew out of the love I have for my parents. Things weren’t always easy for them, the way I wanted them to be. We each suffered our losses in our own way.

My mom was a stay-at-home mom, and her love for her family went deep inside me to a hidden place that I tucked away for a rainy day. Seeing how much she loved us was a highlight for me. I witnessed her heart at work by watching her clean our home and cook our meals. Her love spread around like a beautiful rose garden and then some.

The icing on the cake was watching her face. It didn’t matter who was around; if they were in the same room with her, they were going to get loved. To top it off, she always lit up whenever a baby was there! Seeing my mom happy made me happy, and seeing her smile made me smile.

My dad was my hero. Whenever I had a broken toy, I could count on him to fix it. He even built an addition on the back of our house!

There were three of us kids. I had an older brother and a younger sister. And then it happened one day that my dad needed to go to the hospital because he was sick. It took a long time for them to diagnose him with manic depression. While he was there, we waited for him to come home. He needed hope for a cure before he would be able to live with us again. In the meantime, my mom did her best to keep things together. She needed help, and we went to live with different families at first.

I don’t remember that, but what I can remember is going to nursery school so Mom could go to work during the day. When we got there, my brother and my sister were separated into different classrooms than mine. I remember missing them and trying to be with my little sister, Sherry. I jumped in her line after recess ended and got as far as climbing into bed with her for naptime and hiding under the covers with her before they found me and sent me back into my class.

It was difficult for my older brother, Joe, too. I remember he was in the middle of doing something fun for him in his own class when they pulled him out and he had to come and sit with me because I was crying. I wanted us to go home. I needed our family together. I tried to reach out to them, but they were not able to comfort me. Not even my mom could come to rescue me when she had to leave me alone all day to go to work. Although I know my dad wanted was us all to be happy, the hurt deep inside me was all I ever felt when he had to go away.

The stage was set!

All the days ordained for me

were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

(Psalm 139:16) NIV

Somehow that’s all it took for me to realize that I needed to be saved. God used the little window of time we went to the Catholic church together as a family to get me started. I loved wearing my little white gloves, playing with the bingo chips, and putting some of them in my little white purse. Although I don’t remember paying attention during those family times of gathering at the bingo hall before the Catholic church was built, I remember going to CCD and hearing my first Bible stories.

The one that got my attention was Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28:12). I wanted to see this ladder, and I started looking for it up in the sky. I saw some clouds forming steps, and I couldn’t believe my eyes! I know I had a great imagination, and I was still only a kid. But it felt so real that I began to believe in this God.

It didn’t stop there. When my dad was sick, my mom started taking us to a different church. It was a little Baptist church in our neighborhood that was a big help to my mom because she was alone with three kids. There I heard of a God who loved me so much that He died for me.

I can remember one day after that being sad and taking a little walk alone to the top of my hill. My dad was home for the weekend washing the car in the driveway, and he didn’t notice the little walk I was taking. I needed to go there, kind of like