A 25-year friendship has brought perspective on life

By Kim Fenneman

Life takes unexpected twists and turns over the years, but when you’re 7 years old it’s still a simple, extraordinary world of wonder and possibilities. But as you grow older you understand the important things in life…health, happiness, family and friends.

Friends. How simple yet life-changing they can be. Let me start from the beginning….

I always knew I was adopted and it never bothered me. I didn’t always know exactly what it meant; I just thought I was special, and since no one in my family or community treated me any differently than anyone else, I had no reason to feel awkward or self-conscious. I was just a young Korean child running around and exploring the broad countryside of a small, dairy farm in north central Iowa. What’s so unusual about that? I value the time I had on the farm, but that all changed on July 18, 1983. It was a day that drastically changed my life and the lives of my family. It was around 7:30 a.m. when my older brother screamed, “The house is on fire!”

A few months before that tragic day, I wrote Holt to request a pen pal. They published the request in an issue of their magazine. I received over fifteen letters from girls all over the country and was shocked and excited that so many people had responded. I wish I could have kept in contact with all of them, but I kept a few and let my friends write to the others. As the months went by some had stopped writing, but one continued to write. Ironically, her letter was the very first one I had received. Read the rest of this entry »

Some foster parenting programs in China are in danger of closing

by John Aeby, Director of Communications, with Tony Nolan, special guest speaker at Winter Jam 2009 and dedicated advocate for Holt International. Tony recently adopted a daughter from China and visited Holt-supported foster care programs in that country.

“As I witnessed the love that Mrs. Lee, one of Holt’s devoted foster mothers, showed to the babies in her care,” said Tony Nolan recently, “I thought about how God has a great love for every child in need….”

Tony isn’t the first person to be overwhelmed by the devotion and sacrificial love of Holt foster parents. Their selfless love nurtures homeless children while Holt completes the adoption processing for permanent families. When that processing is done, the foster parents release these children to their new adoptive families. Despite the tears, emptiness and loss that foster parents may feel at the end of that process, most are willing to take in yet another child.

However, in China recently, some foster care programs are in jeopardy due to the tightening world economy. Many of these foster programs were initiated and developed by Holt: Holt’s expertise in this field provided the training for foster parents as well as social work and medical staff. In some cases Holt turned over the maintenance funding for these programs to other agencies, so that Holt could develop foster programs in other areas.

Now, some of those agencies are no longer able to continue their funding. But Holt cannot allow these children to be brought back into the orphanages. Holt is stepping out on faith to raise the necessary funds to keep these children with the only families they have known—their foster families.

“Without foster families like the Lees…” said Tony, “these children don’t stand a chance. With the help that [Holt donors] provide, foster parents can take such good care of the children. It truly is something to celebrate.”

“The caregivers and foster families are providing tremendous care, but they can’t do it on their own. We will do all that we can to help these children and to tell people to help.”

Donate to help keep children in China with their foster families…

A family is completed through the China Child of Promise program

by Kim Esser

My husband and I went to an informational meeting on adoption in our hometown in 2006. We have three wonderful kids but were open to adding to the family through adoption. After the meeting we immediately started in on the paperwork.

As the one-year anniversary of our log-in date approached we saw the wait time increase triple fold. What were we to do? Stay in the process? Drop out? Switch to special needs?

In the end, we decided to go the China Child of Promise route. My husband and I filled out a minor/correctable needs checklist and then compared our lists, deciding on needs that we thought we could handle. We filed the paperwork in late August 2008 and three weeks later we had our referral! She was a beautiful little girl, about to turn one that week, and she was missing some fingers on her left hand…that was it!

We immediately said, “Yes! This is our child!” and started the process to bring Seren SuPing home. It seemed like everything then took the long route but in reality we were on our way to China in February 2009 to bring home our girl!

Seren SuPing has added so much joy to our family,and we can’t imagine life without her. If you are a family trying to decide if the Child of Promise program is right for you, take that leap of faith. In reality, you are the ones in control because you decide what “special needs” you are open to. There was never any pressure from Holt, and they never tried to persuade us into needs that we weren’t open to.

Holt wants you to feel comfortable with what you decide upon and only wants what is best for the children. I look at our new daughter and can’t imagine not having her. She fits our family perfectly and has made us all appreciate what we have and what we do as a family.

Learn More about the China Child of Promise option…..

View the Minor/Correctable Conditions Checklist

“Part of communicating who we are is our logo, but we wanted it to portray so many aspects of who we are,” said Holt President and CEO Kim S. Brown. “That’s why we knew it would be an involved effort when we started considering updating our traditional logo well over a year ago. I’m very pleased now to present our new Holt International brandmark. We’ll begin publishing this new brandmark on our communications over the next several months.

“With Holt so much can be said. Little things, like the way we make sure infants are held when they’re fed. To big things, like bringing about significant changes in the child welfare system of an entire country where we work. Holt has come a long way since Harry and Bertha Holt sat at their kitchen table and answered letters from prospective adoptive parents. But in many ways, the Holts’ legacy continues as the foundation of our work every day. Simple nutrition and loving care are still our most effective tools for helping weak and under-nourished children to survive. Finding the most appropriate solution for each individual child who needs a family continues to be our hallmark.”

The new brandmark incorporates an image of a couple lovingly embracing a child. This represents the importance of parents in a child’s life—the nurturing, security and encouragement offered by a permanent family. The concept connects with the belief that launched Holt in the mid 1950s—that a family is the right and best place to raise and nurture a child.

A logical update of Holt’s traditional parent/child logo, the new design reinforces the Holt International tagline, “Finding families for children.” Read the rest of this entry »

Power and love flow from the adoption community

by Amy Ostertag

I remember clicking on the Holt International website at the beginning of our adoption journey, and finding the Holt forum. They were a huge comfort and guided us as we navigated the piles of paperwork and felt the anticipation and worry.

This group of adoption community friends rejoiced with us as we shared the joy of finding Joo-sung on the list of children in the Waiting Child program. His face and story seemed to call to us—telling us that we were meant to be together. We had a sense of quiet reassurance that he was the fourth son who was meant to complete our family…and he has!

On the flight to Korea to receive Ben, we met another family who was also on the message boards, and we bonded immediately. We traveled together, met our children on the same day, and flew them home together. We have had play dates in the years that have followed and feel a love and bond that will last a lifetime.

Then, our world changed forever. We stood in the ER hallway and heard the words “large brain mass,” “tumor,” and “emergency ventriculostomy“. In the days that followed the news worsened. Our son had a very aggressive form of brain cancer. Life moved at warp speed as he was rushed to the ICU and embarked on many months of in-patient care and a brutal protocol of chemotherapies.

We received so many messages on Ben’s care page from all the friends we had made through the years on Holt’s website. We received notes, gifts and cards that buoyed our spirit. Our close friends, who had traveled with us to Korea, now traveled up to UCLA hospital to sit with us and reassure us that we were not alone. But nothing could prepare us for the most amazing gift of all. Read the rest of this entry »

Westley, a handsome, young man in Holt’s Waiting Child program,  will turn 14 in September, making him no longer eligible for international adoption.  He has grown up in foster care and has expressed his longing to go home to a loving, permanent family.

Because of the short time-frame to find this beautiful child a permanent home, Westley requires a family who has experience parenting older children and has paperwork ready to adopt from China.

Westley is a talkative young man who enjoys school and playing sports.  He has had initial surgery to repair cleft lip and palate.

Please join us in asking God for a permanent family for Westley.  If you would consider adopting him or know anyone who may be interested in adopting him, please contact Erin Mower.

*Name changed

Learn more about the Waiting Child Program.