A nine-year-old girl named Sophia is adopted from an orphanage in Niger, Africa by a couple from East Tennessee. Her favorite spot on their property is laying beneath an Autumn Blaze maple tree. Sophia has only known gnarly shrubs and brush in Niger. This tree becomes her special resting spot; a place where she can dream and find freedom from her difficult past. Sophia is beginning to feel at home with her new parents and is also starting to make new friends.

Yet everything changed one day when her new parents find her crying uncontrollably underneath the Autumn Blaze maple tree.

Sophia has never experienced this kind of change of seasons and is sure her special tree is dead. The leaves are falling off and slowly falling to the ground. The branches on the tree are becoming empty.

“There’s only two leaves left on my tree! I am so, so sad!”

How can her new parents show her that the tree is not dead, but dormant? With no frame of reference Sophia is angry and confused. She looks at her special tree and sees only bare, desolate branches.

Through the winter, Sophia learns about trees and how they actually lose their leaves during the winter to conserve energy. She learns what dormancy means, but has never experienced a tree coming back to life in the Springtime.

Sophia is learning about Faith. Through moments of doubt, discouragement, and hope she can have faith that Spring will eventually come. Even though she can’t yet see the results, she chooses to believe her father and mother’s words that the Autumn Blaze Maple Tree will come back to life and grow in beauty.

                   Faith means being sure of the things we hope for.                                                   And faith means knowing that something is real even if we do not see it.                                                                     Hebrews 11: 1