Presenting...
MEI
LING & MING LONG
On June 22, 2006, in a land very far away
There came into being a brother and sister
Born both on the very same day.
Click a picture for information
about the twins' outfits
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...The
little boy will be brave & strong
A dragon will he proudly wear.
The little girl will sing a sweet
song
As she wears a Phoenix fair... |
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"We come from afar and have crossed
many seas
Our names are Mei Ling & Ming Long
We are your new friends and are very pleased
To meet you and bring you our song."
"A Beautiful Chiming Bell",
means Mei Ling,
Of flowers and music I love to sing.
A "Bright, Shining Dragon", means Ming Long.
Strength, Love and Honour fill my song.
"Now take our hands, please come
and play
We are happy to be with you today.
Dance and sing your favourite song
Have lots of fun with Mei Ling and Ming Long."
Mei Ling & Ming Long are 14-inch plush
velour dolls dressed in red velour Chinese suits.
On Mei Ling's jacket is embroidered a gold Phoenix and on Ming
Long's a gold Dragon.
Mei Ling & Ming Long were created by Marcia & Christos
Havaris,
and are produced by Russ Berrie.
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Numbered:
$50 / set
Unnumbered: $44 / set
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All Twin Doll
Orders:
* SEND NO MONEY NOW *
You will be notified once the dolls are
ready to ship, and may send payment at that time. |
The Story
of Magnolia, Mei Ling & Ming Long
For many years my husband and I knew that we wanted children in
our family.
Several Angel Babies visited us but did not stay. Then came the
day when we decided to adopt.
Not yet knowing anything about International Adoption we followed
the normal route
of completing a detailed Home Study and requesting a child domestically.
Several years went by and one day
while sitting in the doctor's office
waiting for a routine check-up I noticed a poster telling of an
International Adoption Talk
being held the very next day at a local Hospital. I told my husband
& we decided to attend.
It was November 1999. The room was
filled with people
wanting more information about adopting Internationally, in particular
from China.
Several families, with their recently adopted babies, happily
shared their adoption stories with us.
We had the opportunity to watch a video telling of one family’s
adoption experience.
We were deeply touched and moved to tears. At that moment, was
born in our hearts,
the desire to adopt a baby from China. The name "Magnolia"
came to me
and I hoped to name our baby girl "Magnolia".
We spoke to our Social Worker who
promptly arranged to do a Home Study update for us.
We also contacted Children’s Bridge and got all the necessary
information
to be able to complete the paperwork.
It was our hope to have our dossier ready to submit by January
2000.
Well January came & went…My mother became quite ill
and I took on the responsibility
of all of her private Music Students on top of my own large class
of students
This left me no time to work on putting our dossier together.
Fast forward to summer 2000….
My mother recovered and we finally completed all our paperwork.
Our dossier was submitted in August and we then waited for Ministry
Approval.
I joined a walking group of families in the London area
who were all in some stage of the process to adopt from China.
It was wonderful to be able to share our stories while we waited.
My husband and I hoped to adopt twins but in talking with my new
friends
I discovered that specific Ministry approval was necessary
before China would consider placing twins with a family.
I was more than disappointed, as our Social Worker had discouraged
us
from requesting twins from China, suggesting that it might slow
down the process for us.
Well, our Ministry Approval finally
came and it read, “Christos & Marcia have been approved
to adopt a healthy baby girl or a set of twins”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I started to cry –
realizing that the Ministry had considered our request for twins
from our original Home Study,
which we had completed in 1996.
Immediately I phoned the Children’s Bridge and told them
what had happened.
They said they would add the information to our file but warned
us not to get our hopes up
as it was rare to receive a referral for twins from China and
also that we did not meet some of the requirements China had for
families wishing to receive twins.
But at least the hope was there that there was a remote chance….
(For the rest of the story you may request our Blog address)
Fast forward 18 months…..
When our referral package arrived we decided that the baby whose
picture we saw first
would be given the name, “Angelina”.
We had chosen this name months earlier as we wanted a name that
reflected the importance of Angels in our life.
The other twin would be named “Christalina”.
We choose this name over the course of the weekend after finding
out we were getting twins.
I wanted a name that was connected to “Christos” so
we chose “Christalina”.
We adopted our twin daughters, Angelina & Christalina from
China in January 2002.
Six months later I decided not to continue teaching music, which
I had done for years.
I had many students coming to my studio in our home and did not
have time to be with the girls as much as I wanted to. So I stopped
teaching and gradually became involved in a small home-based business
that sold Asian/ Adoption related products; books, dolls…
We sold several items produced by RUSS Berrie (which is a company
similar to GANZ)
that produces high quality Stuffed Toys, Dolls and Gifts.
In November of 2003 we purchased the end of a line of Asian Dolls
from RUSS Berrie and when I met with our Sales Rep she said, “Well
I guess I won’t be seeing you anymore since you have bought
all our Asian items –
unless you decide to design your own doll”.
That was a new thought for me and I said, “Tell me more”.
So she told me a bit about the process and I knew this was something
I wanted to do.
We were leaving at the end of November to adopt our third daughter,
Demetria, from China so we set up an appointment for early January
to meet and start the process.
I now realized that this was the “baby” to be named
“Magnolia” and
Magnolia started to take shape in my heart as I prepared to travel
to China.
I knew I wanted her to be a loveable doll that somehow told the
adoption version
of the Red Thread Legend.
My husband & I took our twin daughters (not quite 3 years
old) with us when we travelled to get Demetria and while in China
I purchased a lot of beautiful red silk thread
which I knew I could use somehow in the making of Magnolia.
As I chose the thread I said a prayer of blessing
for all little children waiting for their “forever family”.
We came home December 13th , 2003
and on January 4th, 2004
I met with my Sales Rep to design Magnolia.
I decided to have a tiny red thread heart embroidered on the doll
and hoped to use the thread I had brought home for this.
However, the company said the thread I provided from China was
too heavy
and could not be used for the embroidery as it was already cut
into 24” lengths.
So while I waited for the Prototype of Magnolia to arrive from
the Orient
I had a new idea of how to use the special Red Thread.
I would have a heart-shaped pocket sewn on the jacket
and insert a small length of the special thread into each pocket.
So on March 4th, 2004 the Prototype sample arrived for my approval
and Magnolia was born.
(If you want to hear an interesting story about the heart-shaped
pocket just let me know & I will share the details)
In April people started ordering Magnolia and hundreds of Hand-numbered
Magnolia Dolls sold prior to her expected arrival date of September
and I promised everyone a delivery date of Nov.1st, 2004.
However, as it happened, she did not
arrive until the middle of October!
I was determined to keep my promise and had only 2 weeks to hand-number
each doll, place a Red Thread in each pocket, package each doll
and label for shipping to customers around the world.
With 3 children under the age of 4 it was not easily done during
the day so thus started my “working round the clock”
and by November 1st I had all the pre-ordered dolls shipped out,
while still processing many new orders that continued to come
in.
I was even shipping dolls for next-day delivery to people who
ordered them on Dec. 22
and wanted them for Christmas!
The Chapter on Ming Long
& Mei Ling
During this time, one of my customers, Stephanie Morgan,
asked if I would design a brother doll for Magnolia.
She had adopted a son from China as well as a daughter
and I told her I would keep it in mind.
Well early in 2006 I decided it was time for Magnolia to have
a brother
so my husband & I started talking about designing a new doll.
Somehow I wanted to incorporate the dragon theme, as my husband
& our twin daughters are all Year of the Dragon.
So I chose “Long” as part of the doll’s name.
Then I asked my husband to chose the other part of the name.
He suggested “Ming” and we both liked the sound of
“Ming Long”
so decided upon that name.
What was interesting was that when I looked up the meaning of
“Ming”
I found that it meant “bright/shining” then later
discovered that it was made up of the
two characters for “Sun” & “Moon”
which are our twins’ Chinese names!
So we designed Ming Long & decided he should wear a shining
gold dragon
on his jacket as his name now meant “Bright, shining Dragon”.
Now we waited for the prototype to arrive from the Orient.
When it arrived our sales Rep called to say she would bring it
to us
but that she had to tell us something interesting:
“The Orient sent the sample boy doll but also sent a sample
girl doll!”
Well this WAS a surprise as we had only designed/ordered/paid
for the sample boy doll.
When I told our daughters that Ming Long was coming
but that China had also sent a girl doll, Angelina (one of the
twins) immediately said,
“Well then Ming Long has a twin sister”!
A few hours later we opened the package to look at the dolls
and were delighted with Ming Long & absolutely fell in love
with his twin sister!
(At this point we decided these dolls would be friends of Magnolia
instead of her siblings.)
I said to my sales rep, “What do we do now? We can’t
send her back!”
She replied, “Well the company won’t allow you to
design 2 different dolls as part of the same order
– you will have to start a second order for the girl doll.”
I said, “I cannot do that right now – it is beyond
our financial means.
But I do believe that since the Orient sent along the girl doll
I am to trust that it will be possible to order them both together.
I cannot separate ‘twins’!”
She promised to ask RUSS Berrie and try to convince them to combine
the orders as one
but was doubtful as to her success.
To make a long story short, not only did they agree to it,
they also agreed to let us have different embroidery on the girl
doll’s jacket
and to have a different design to the jacket as well.
We chose “Mei Ling” for Ming Long’s twin sister’s
name,
which means “beautiful, chiming bell”.
We decided to have a Phoenix embroidered on Mei Ling’s jacket
and to have her jacket longer than her brother’s.
RUSS Berrie patiently waited while I changed my mind
from green silk outfits to red velour outfits and made all the
final changes.
Finally after receiving the 3rd prototype the dolls were approved
and on June 22, 2006 Ming Long & Mei Ling were born.
Thus began the long wait for Ming Long & Mei Ling.
In September 2006 pre-orders started to come in for the twin dolls
with an expected arrival time of Spring/Summer 2007.
As the months went by we realized the new dolls would not arrive
until Summer
and were given the date of June 15th, then the end of July, then
the middle of August.
During this time each customer who had pre-ordered the dolls received
a Referral Notice by email,
including a large referral photo for each doll as well as a “letter
of acceptance”.
These were sent for fun and to help fill in the time while waiting
for the dolls.
Finally the dolls arrived at the end of August and we quickly
started preparing
them for shipping only to discover that several details had been
overlooked.
RUSS Berrie is a wonderful company with heart
and after meeting with them in person and going over the details
of the order
they graciously arranged with the Orient to remake the dolls.
The dolls arrived in January 2008 and are available for immediate
shipping.
It is our desire to produce dolls that are huggable and also high
quality.
Magnolia continues to bring a smile to children around the world
and we believe that her new friends, Mei Ling & Ming Long
will also warm many hearts.
We have met so many wonderful people since we started our adoption
journey
and then met so many more members of the International Adoption
Community
through Magnolia.
Many families have shared special stories with us
and we feel so blessed to be a part of this community.
These Dolls are also used to raise
funds that support children who remain in the orphanages in China.
$1 from the sale of every Magnolia is donated to the Children’s
Bridge Charitable Foundation.
Many Magnolia Dolls have been donated to Raffles & Silent
Auctions as well as Ebay Auctions
for Love Without Boundaries, Angel Covers, Children’s Bridge,
etc.
Thank-you for listening to the story
of Magnolia, Mei Ling & Ming Long.
A donation of $1.11 from each sale of
Twin Dolls will be made to
Children's
Bridge Charitable Foundation
A donation of $1.11 from
each sale of Twin Dolls will be made to
Love Without Boundaries
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NOW AVAILABLE *
Chinese Passport & Adoption Certificate
Both documents for both dolls, just $18.00
(delivered at the same time as your
twin dolls arrive)
Available to all countries |
Contact
Marcia
for
more information or to order: |
para
mas información o para ordenar: |
e-mail here
519.872.4448 |
