Heather Redington-Whitlock said her son Zion’s adoption was the fastest adoption she’s ever heard of. Six months from the moment she saw his picture on a list of waiting children in China, she had him in her arms.
That was just after the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing.
“He was in a welfare institution, and the doctor there said to me, ‘There is a light upon your child,’” Redington-Whitlock said of her then-2-year-old son. “It’s pretty cool, because I feel like that has always continued to be — the Holy Spirit just ministering through Zion and to Zion.”
‘Learning another language’
Zion was born with a genetic deficiency called ectrodactyly — he had one finger on each hand, one small toe on each foot and was missing some of the palms of his hands. At age six, they decided to amputate his feet so that he could have more mobility.
“He kept breaking each toe; we would take off one cast and put on another one,” Redington-Whitlock said.
She was no stranger to medical needs — over the years, she’s fostered more than 40 children facing physical challenges. But Zion was her first amputee.
“It was almost like learning another language,” she said. “I had to become fluent in prosthetics and adaptive sports.”
‘Set Zion on fire’
But she did, and Zion became proficient in living out that language too — this week, he will play wheelchair rugby for Team USA in the Paralympic Games in Paris. He and the team won gold at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile, in November.
Zion’s father, Mark Whitlock, said when Zion was young, his mother had a “vision to just kind of set Zion on fire and see what happened and let him know that everything he put his mind to was possible.”
Zion tried a lot of things — adaptive running, cycling, climbing, field events, swimming, surfing, sled hockey and air rifle, to name a few — and really loved wheelchair basketball. But one day when he was 9, someone saw him playing basketball and asked if he wanted to try out wheelchair rugby. He did, and while he continued playing basketball, he also started playing for the Cumberland QuadCrushers in the Nashville area, where he was coached by Paralympic gold medalist and Wheelchair Rugby Hall of Fame member Eddie Crouch.
‘The future of the sport’
Later, when the QuadCrushers dissolved, Redington-Whitlock started driving him to Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham several times a week so that he could play on their team, the Lakeshore Demolition.
By then he’d grown taller and gained skills, and in 2022 at age 15, Zion made the Team USA development team.
Zion said that propelled him to “really want to train and work hard for this and really make it my goal to be on the Paralympic team.”
He continued to excel at the game that he described as “high-speed chess,” and coaches were beginning to refer to him as “the future of the sport.” At that point, after much prayer, the family decided it was time to move to Birmingham.
Letting his light shine
And on Aug. 18, the congregation they now call home — The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham — gathered around Zion’s family to pray for him as he prepared to travel to Paris.
Pastor Matt Mason thanked God for His calling on Zion’s life.
“I know that there have been many hard days in his life from the early years on, and yet through all the trials, You have made him into such a man of faith, a man of character, a man who loves other people and serves other people and sees them,” Mason prayed. “Lord, we pray that that light would shine as he travels to Paris to serve and to compete. … May he represent you well; may he shine as a light.”
Redington-Whitlock said she’s seen that happen since the beginning.
“I keep going back to that baby picture,” she said. “Zion has been through some hard things, but he has been in the arms of the Lord, and what better place to be. It’s been an exciting time as parents to experience that.”
Wheelchair rugby games at the 2024 Paralympic Games will start Aug. 29. Click here for the full schedule.
For more information about Zion’s story, visit goziongo.com.
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