Amazing Grace

Have you wondered why people come to second life? I have wondered often, when I meet an avatar, what is this person doing here?? Why did they come? Game playing? Curiosity?? I think that is the most common answer. It was my reason.

Then , by accident I met an avatar who told me a story that really touched my heart , and perhaps will touch your heart too and cause you to think and to wonder more, why we are all here in this place together? What stories do we share??
Since I am a Guardian Angel for newbies I offered help to this new avatar . The Calling Card says that we met. November 25,2007 . In January we had an amazing conversation and I have been waiting a long time to tell this story.

Yifan Brandenberg came to second life to meet his brother , his real life brother! Yifan’s mother brought him to a new life in the USA while he was a small child. When she came she had no intention of returning to Brazil. He always remembered his older brothers and sisters and his father. Many years later and still a child, Yifan asked his mother to tell him his father's name. It was then that Yifan learned the first name of a man who he only remembered as "pai". About this time his mother also told him that he had a younger brother who had been adopted by another family.

Approximately 10 years ago as an adult, Yifan searched the Internet for his father's name and found him in some genealogical records with the status of deceased. However, at that time he could not be certain it was really his father. It turns out his father really did pass away 12 years ago.

Last fall Yifan's uncle died, the oldest of his mother's brothers. The grief and sadness created an opportunity to talk with his mother again about family and together the two set out to find family in another country. While doing a google search of the family last name, his mother spotted a name that Yifan never knew that she knew. It was the name of his younger brother, born three years after him. Yifan sent him an email telling him who their father was. The brother, Bart, we will call him answered the e-mail that Yifan sent and a correspondence began. Bart was already in SL and invited Yifan to come here and meet him.

At their first very emotional meeting at a church in SL a female avatar appeared and who should it turn out to be but Yifan's older sister, Callie, who was also lost to Ethan until that moment. Amazingly, Callie had found Bart and had already told him of his relationship to her. But Bart was skeptical until a month later he received Yifan's email with the same story. So now Yifan is in contact with all his brothers, the older and the younger ones. Yifan and his sister meet several times a week in SL to talk about many things. They must use a translator to talk because he speaks English and Callie and Bart

speak Portuguese. Yifan is learning Portuguese though so they can communicate more easily. Bart, with a busy RL as a husband, father, working student and employed does not usually make it to SL at the same time Yifan is on, but they keep in touch.

I asked how has this experience spilled over into RL and Yifan said, “Actually it is the other way around, and my first life is spilling into SL. I have reacquainted my maternal cousins with my sister and introduced them to my brother. We have even shared some moments in SL together.”
If you would like to talk to him about his experience, feel free to contact him.

Yifan intends to write a book about his whole life experience ,including the part that SL is playing in keeping close contact with families on two continents I wonder how many other wonderful stories of RL and SL there are out here to tell.

By Gemma Cleanslate