|
ADOPTION Consciousness Week was
celebrated last week by the Department of Social Welfare and the
Intercountry Adoption Board. With adoption information desks set
up in the malls, I was reminded about the recent anniversary
celebration of a foreign adoption agency, Holt International
Children’s Services, that has been partnering with ICAB for
decades now. Holt celebrated its 50th anniversary by hosting an
International Conference in Eugene Oregon in October with American
First Lady Laura Bush as its honorary chairman.
An invited
speaker in that affair, I was privileged to view audio-visual
presentations and to read materials that revealed the humility of
Holt’s late founders, Harry and Bertha Holt.
Following
God
The work was
never about them—it was always about the children and following
God. Starting in South Korea after the Second World War, when tens
of thousands of Korean children were starving, the Holts expanded
their humanitarian services for children, recruiting child-oriented
individuals in spreading their advocacies and missions. Hundreds of
thousands of children in India, China, Thailand, Philippines,
Vietnam, Romania, Guatemala and so many other countries around the
world have been adopted. They have loving, secure family
environments because of the work begun by the Holt spouses. These
children have been dramatically transformed by the philosophy that:
“Every child deserves a home.”
The Holts were
a regular family with six children—hardworking, practical, simple
rural folk in a quiet Oregon farming community. But one day, Harry
suffered a near fatal heart attack at 45 years old as he climbed a
hill to size up timber. Suddenly vulnerable, the Holt couple reached
out and offered their lives to God. Already practicing Christians,
their faith and practice deepened. Five years later, Harry and
Bertha’s 11-year-old daughter, Suzanne, came home from school with
a request for the family to attend a film presentation on the plight
of Korean War orphans. Although Harry had already made other plans,
he prayed about his daughter’s request, and decided to go.
Thirteen
children
In Seed from
the East, Bertha Holt described their reactions to the documentary
Other Sheep on the Korean orphans: “I looked at Harry. He was
motionless and tense . . . I knew every scene had cut him like a
knife. I was hurt, too . . . We had never seen such emaciated arms
and legs, such bloated starvation-stomachs and such wistful little
faces searching for someone to care.” Thereafter, the Holt family
agreed to sponsor 13 children. When photographs of their sponsored
children arrived a month later, they realized that those children
needed food and shelter and clothing, but above all, they also
needed love, a family to whom they could belong.
Bertha
imagined children coming into their home where she could love and
care for them, “I would walk from room to room thinking of how we
could put a cot here . . . and another bed there. It even occurred
to me that some of the rooms be partitioned and made into two rooms
without depriving anyone.” Bertha shared Harry’s desire to adopt
Korean children; amazingly, each independently arrived at the same
number—eight. A family friend advised them to give up their plans
but added an afterthought, “But if you could get Congress to agree
and pass a law . . .”
Letter-writing
campaign
Bertha
immediately started recruiting neighbors and friends to join in a
letter-writing campaign, which resulted two months later in the
passage of a brief bill specifically allowing the Holts to adopt
eight children from Korea. When Harry returned with the Korean
children, the press was waiting and spread the Holt story around the
country. The Holts planned to settle quietly but other families
started immediately inquiring on how they could also adopt Korean
children. As he could not forget the “tiny outstretched arms” of
starving children left behind, Harry immediately returned to Korea.
The Holts then launched a program to care for children until they
could be placed with adoptive families.
In the 1950s,
adoption was basically a secretive process. Children were matched
with families according to physical characteristics in an effort to
conceal the fact they were adopted. The Holts reversed such
philosophies and cultural stereotypes. Although the Holts were not
the first family to adopt overseas, the publicity around their
adoption of Korean children opened the world’s eyes to a reality
that resonated with thousands of families. This ordinary couple from
Oregon showed the world that a family is not limited by race and
nationality, and that love with a profound commitment to the
nurturance of children are the true bonds of a family.
Philippine
process
Hopefully, the
Philippines will realize the need to immediately provide nurturing
families for starving children rather than allowing their delayed
development and consequential retardation in horrifying orphanages,
hazardous streets and contaminating prisons. As of the moment, the
long, tedious and litigious judicial process for adoption remains
the largest impediment to these children’s integration with
suitable and loving families.
|
