| The Feldman Family
KIDSAVE Summer Miracles® begins with two related insights: First, that older children are hard to place for adoption; and second, that they become irresistible once people get to know them. That is the miraculous part. My wife Eudora and I are first-hand witnesses to the validity of both insights.
 We are busy professionals in our late 50s, with a biological son who left home for college two years ago. When Eudora forwarded an email to me last June soliciting volunteer Spanish translators for KIDSAVE, we both thought it sounded like something fun and worthwhile, but we never imagined that a year later, we would be the proud parents of Gladys and Juan Carlos.
My involvement with KIDSAVE began simply as a volunteer translator; I was on-hand at the airport to greet the 2005 Summer Miracles children from Colombia and to offer my help to their host families. It occurred to me that night, as well as during some of the Summer Miracles activities in the following weeks, that I would be happier with a bigger role. Just after the mid-point of Summer Miracles 2005, acting on a hunch that I still cannot explain, I persuaded Eudora that we should immediately get fingerprinted and submit the documentation to serve as backup host-advocates. Speaking of miracles, our prints and applications took exactly two days to clear—from Tuesday to Thursday. On Wednesday, I got an unexpected call from the host mother of Juan Carlos and Gladys, who told me the family had some unusual commitments that weekend and needed a break; the following day, we were cleared to bring the kids to our home.
Neither of us would have seriously considered adopting children if the kids had not come to stay with us that weekend, but this brief exposure literally changed everything: This is where the miracle comes into play.
A few days later, Eudora unexpectedly announced, “We could actually do this, couldn’t we?” –“this” being the adoption of Juan Carlos and Gladys. The kids came back to stay with us for the final week of the program, and by the time they returned to Colombia in August, we were fully smitten and ready to begin the international adoption process. During the intervening months, we kept in touch by phone, exchanges of photos and email.
Before joining the Feldman family, Gladys and Juan Carlos had been living in an exceptional institution in Bogota. It is a small orphanage where the directors and a strong network of supporters treat the kids very much like family; we were inspired by the way they cobbled together a decent standard of living for their charges from small subsidies and the gifts and help of friends of the institution. The quality of the attention the kids enjoy there helps to undo much of the damage done by early abandonment, neglect, and abuse. The institutional directors are strong KIDSAVE supporters; they believe, as we do, that families who want adopt older children should get to know them first. Summer Miracles meets this need by reducing the separation anxiety that kids inevitably develop at the prospect of leaving familiar surroundings, and fosters a smoother adjustment to life in the States. Among many other surprises, we learned in Bogota that the quality of many Colombian orphanages is actually very good, especially in view of the scarce resources available to these institutions. We were also struck by the immediate camaraderie and friendship we were able to establish with other adopting families, and the genuine warmth and easy-going hospitality of the orphanage directors, staff, and volunteers. Never before in our lives had we met so many generous and committed people.
Gladys and Juan Carlos have been at home with us since late February. They are 11 and 14 years old, respectively. Despite some hesitation and concern on their part during our stay in Colombia, as well as a few tense moments since, they have made a rapid adjustment and are plainly happy to be here. Juan Carlos is a full-blown adolescent with a sensitive temperament, an analytical mind, an excellent sense of humor, and a typically Colombian will of iron. He is affectionate with us and naturally kind, qualities which make the stubbornness more palatable. He has demonstrated the ability to form close friendships quickly, as well as a remarkable capacity to inhale prodigious quantities of ice cream in a matter of minutes. Gladys is a physically active little girl who is socially relaxed and playful. At age 11, she is normally more cooperative than her teenage brother, but she definitely knows what she wants and is not at all reticent about letting us know on the spot! We would not want to minimize the challenges posed by going to school in a new language and cultural environment, or for that matter the problems inherent in the daily give-and-take involved in the creation of a new family. But the children’s progress, and ours, is visible every day.
In short, the rewards for us have been great, the change in our lives positive, and the momentary setbacks and frustrations insignificant by comparison. We love them dearly, are loved in return, and are confident that they both recognize the value of their new family in their lives as rapidly maturing young people. Eudora and I are not the kind of people who are comfortable talking about miracles generally, but the past year has given us a richness of miracles small and large, all of them made possible by Kidsave. |
