Names: Towie and Lowie

Lucas (Lowie) and Eli's (Towie) referral photo

First featured in Holt International magazine:  Winter Issue, 2009

Names Today: Lucas and Eli

by Michael and Lori Pickle — Logan, Iowa

Two years ago this month, our family started a journey with Holt to bring our sons home from the Philippines. Our boys actually joined the Holt family months earlier when they were featured in the Waiting Child section of Holt International magazine.

As we look back at that first picture of two little guys holding on to one another, it is amazing to see our growing sons who have grafted into our family so strongly. The physical changes as well as the emotional growth have been monumental.

Anticipating and preparing for older child adoption was a crash course in examining our parenting skills and views on many fronts — discipline, cultural education, family concerns, and even our ages. We have three biological daughters — Alison, 26, Rachel, 21, and Sydney 18 — so the decision to adopt two older boys was definitely a family decision.

When preparing for adoption, one of the many things an adoptive parent learns is that the story of your adoptive child is theirs to share when they are ready. In the case of our sons, Lucas and Eli, they chose early on to embrace their lives in the Philippines and share almost everything with those who were interested.  They also gave us permission to share about our experience with prospective adoptive families.

Lucas and Eli today

Eli and Lucas were 8 and 9 years old when we traveled to Manila to bring them home, having spent five years in an orphanage on Mindanao in the Philippines. They spoke a few words of English, but primarily spoke in Visayan and Tagalog. Within six to eight weeks, they had a very practical grasp of English. As English Language Learning (ELL) students, they continue to delve deeper into more complex words and sentence structures. Academic language comes at a slower rate for most ELL students, but Lucas and Eli are gaining in this area as well.

My boys are now in 3rd and 4th grade. They love playing on the school basketball team and also play summer baseball, Lucas as pitcher and Eli in centerfield.

Learning to be a part of a family is an ever-changing process. Suddenly, Lucas was no longer the oldest, and Eli remains the youngest – much to his dismay. They have both learned what it means to have older sisters. Barring the usual sibling issues, all five of our kids have cemented a relationship with one another that is as fun to watch as it is amazing.

From meeting two fragile and scared orphaned brothers on a hot day in Manila to raising two increasingly independent and confident sons, we are so very grateful for the opportunity to love and live life with our family.

We asked the boys: If you could tell people something about adoption what would you say?

Lucas wants people to know that he still remembers the Philippines and the people he knows there. He also wants people to know that he likes living with his family and his new friends…oh, and baseball is great! Eli, who has turned into our philosopher, says: “I just know that I have a family that I never had, and you take care of me. I like my friends and school. I am smart and I am happy. I have a home.”

Lowie and Towie with their family

Interested in learning more about older children waiting for families in the Philippines?  Click here

A Q&A with Mariia Zimmerman, mom of Zach and Henry

Henry (left) and Zach (right) with the poster they made to help raise funds for Thailand flood relief.

How old are your boys and what grade are they in?
Zachary is 5 and started Kindergarten this fall. Henry is 9 and in the 4th grade.

How long did Zach live with his foster mother in Thailand?
Zachary lived with his foster mom for 16 months. We adopted him when he was 18 months old.

What does he remember about his foster mom (and foster family)?
Zachary doesn’t remember very much, but we talk about his culture and history with him. He’s very curious to know about it all and asks lots of questions. We have pictures of Zachary with his foster mom that Holt sent to us while we were waiting the nine long months between referral and being able to go over to Thailand and bring him home. These are part of Zach’s adoption book, which he likes to read and discuss all the photos.

One of the stories we like to tell is that his foster mother lived very close to a Buddhist temple, which had an area for children to play soccer in the courtyard. Zachary spent a lot of time there when he was a baby, watching the children. His foster mom told us he always had a laugh when they played soccer and he learned to kick a ball shortly after he could walk. When we met Zachary, he already had really good soccer skills and to this day he loves to play. It was one of the things that we did a lot of when he first joined our family, since his older brother also enjoyed playing and it didn’t require either knowing how to speak the other’s language.

What is International Night?
Our school in Arlington, VA has a tremendous amount of diversity among the students who attend. A couple years ago, the PTA came up with the idea to celebrate this diversity and began hosting an “international night.” Students and their families are encouraged to celebrate their cultural heritage. The teachers also were deeply involved. Together we had games, information booths and geography quizzes. Families brought desserts to share from favorite traditional family recipes, and a local international restaurant graciously provided the food.  Kids dressed up in clothing from their culture, and students participated in a talent show, which included Irish Dancing, Japanese drumming, and many other neat musical skills.

Did the boys come up with the idea to hold a fundraiser for Holt? What inspired them?
Everyone was encouraged to participate and given that none of us had the skill to pull off Thai dancing, we discussed other options. My brother, who lives in Thailand, had been telling us about the flooding there; he had 9 feet of water in his house and was evacuated. We also got the email from Holt asking to help the foster families who had been dislocated. Zach was wanting to do something about Thailand and Henry came up with the idea to make a sign and collect money.  We made a poster that highlighted what was happening in Thailand with the flooding.

How did they inspire others to donate to Holt — what was their message?  
The poster board had pictures of the flooding, and told very briefly about Zach’s connection to his birth country and the need to help foster families there. It included a picture of Zach and his foster mom. Given that November was National Adoption Month, it seemed a good way to highlight both important issues. Our family brought in some Thai items – including Thai silk, the Thai flag and Thai candies – and made a display. We even played some traditional Thai music on our iPod. One of the most interesting things was how very few people knew that there was even flooding happening in Thailand. A lot of people wanted to discuss Thailand, adoption, the flooding, and the effects of global climate change.  It was pretty amazing.

How do Zach and Henry envision Holt using the money they raised?  What do they hope to help us accomplish?
The boys asked people to contribute $10 or $5 or whatever they could afford to help. With the flooding still happening at that point, we were asking to raise money for supplies to help the foster families and children.

Zach hopes the money is going to help his foster mom buy a new house. In discussing the flooding, he was really worried about her, and his birth mom. He is pretty sure his foster mom will now be able to get a house like ours, just a little smaller.  His brother likes to point out that is not really what is going to happen. Henry envisions Holt using it to help bring water and food to families. Their cousin Benya, who lives in Thailand, made a video showing what her school is doing to help and both boys hope that the money they raised is being used like this to help.

To read about Holt’s efforts to help foster families affected by the recent flooding in Thailand, click here.

Join Zach and Henry and donate to Holt’s Thailand Rehabilitation Fund!

In the coming weeks and periodically throughout the year, we will feature stories about children who raise funds for Holt, and parents, grandparents and others who raise funds on behalf of the children in their lives. Know of a child or family who helped raise funds for Holt? Share your story with Holt’s senior writer, Robin Munro, at robinmunro@holtinternational.org.

Dear Friends,

Two years ago — On January 12th, 2010 — I walked into Holt’s office with a heavy heart. News reports of the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti were difficult to watch. 230,000 people had lost their lives. Millions more were left homeless and struggling to survive.

Today, the tremendous need remains. Two years have passed, but little has changed in Haiti. Buildings are still in shambles. Families are still without homes. Children aren’t getting enough to eat.

Haiti is still in a state of emergency.

I ask you to pray that God’s healing hand be on the sick, hungry and helpless children and families, and that He would continue to bring the people of this devastated country peace, courage and strength. We, as an organization, are grateful that God has used us these past two years to bring hope to the people of Haiti.

Your donations and prayers have truly made a difference in the past two years! Through your support, we’ve continued to provide temporary care to children at Holt Fontana Village and helped families get back on their feet.

But there is still a lot of work to do! And now, we ask for your help once more.

We remain committed to our work in Haiti. But we can’t bring about hope — we can’t bring about change — without your help!

We will continue to count on your prayers and donations as we move forward for the children of Haiti.

Thank you!

For the Children,

Phillip Littleton

President and CEO

Help a child in Haiti today!

Hunter in July 2011, age 8.

One year to the day we adopted our daughter, Lily – from China through Holt – we got the call about a 4-year-old boy named “Hung” in Vietnam. Holt thought he would be a good match for our family. We had applied to the special needs program only a few months earlier, knowing we wanted to adopt an older child and also that we did not want to wait the 13 months it took to bring our daughter home from China between 2005 and 2006. We had gone to committee once before, but Holt’s social workers decided another family was a better fit for that child. After that, we felt greatly discouraged and weren’t sure we would ever be matched.

We were shocked to receive the call only a month later about Hung.

With a 10-year-old and 2-and-a-half-year-old at home, 4 seemed on the lowest end of the age spectrum we would consider.  And we knew nothing about the Vietnam program.  After praying about it and talking it over as a family for a few days, we requested the file.

One look at Hung’s beautiful brown eyes and we were in love.

In September of 2008, fifteen months after we accepted Hung’s referral, the U.S. and Vietnam decided not to renew their Memo of Understanding regarding adoptions and subsequently suspended all international adoption from Vietnam. We managed to endure the next seven months with the help of weekly telephone calls with Holt staff, hundreds of supportive e-mails, and several visits with our online Holt Vietnam friends and Dong Nai waiting parents group. After our case was finally resolved, we traveled to Bien Hoa, Vietnam, where on April 13, 2009, we met and adopted our son Hung, who we named John “Hunter.”

Hunter came to us with a huge smile and an open heart.

Hunter in his first referral photo, as "Hung."

“Hung” in Vietnamese means “hero” or “brave.”  That describes our son exactly.  We were told he had “special needs” due to his age and an “expressive speech delay.”  We were stunned in Vietnam because he never stopped talking to anyone and everyone in fluent Vietnamese. Apparently, he just wouldn’t speak to his social worker during quarterly visits!

At age 6, after bouncing from an orphanage to two different foster homes, we were his final “placement.” Hunter joined our family and never looked back.  He bonded with all of us immediately, especially his older brother, Marshall, and younger sister, Lily.  He started understanding English immediately and after a few months, we stopped counting the number of new words he acquired each week.

When he started kindergarten, we worried that other students might tease him because of the language barrier, but his teacher told us that he was so confident and helpful that no one would tease him. Initially, Hunter had extreme tantrums of frustration when we could not understand what he was trying to communicate. As we all adjusted to our “new normal,” those heart-wrenching fits of wailing and flailing in frustration disappeared.  Hunter still struggles mightily with reading and writing, but his ESOL teacher tells us he has exceeded all expectations.  He is right on target for science and math and excels at art!  He is in a regular classroom and keeping up with his classmates.  Hunter is all boy – active, active, active and a total ham bone!  He revels in making others laugh.

Hunter with brother Marshall, dad Jim and sister Lily on his adoption day in Vietnam.

A dream that every Vietnamese boy and girl had a home.

This year, the PTA of Hunter’s elementary school held an essay contest for students in grades 2-6.  The kids were asked to submit an essay completing the statement, “If I had $100, the charity I would give it to is…”

Hunter chose Holt and wrote:

I pick Holt International Children’s Agency.  They helped my family adopt me from Vietnam and my sister from China.  They help kids around the world.  They need animals to help poor children with no food.  They need clothes and medicine for kids.  They help kids find forever families.  They build houses and schools.  I would ask them to send the $100 to my orphanage in Vietnam to buy toys, books and crayons for the kids who still wait for families of their own.  Please pick Holt.  They rock!

A winner was chosen from each class and given a $100 check from the PTA for their charity.  Out of hundreds of essays submitted, Hunter won for the second grade!

The winners were asked to read their essays at a “Gift of Giving” assembly at school right before Thanksgiving.  Hunter practiced reading his essay for days and was the last speaker of the night.  There was not a dry eye in the house!

So often we are approached and asked, “Does he know how lucky he is?” Often, Vietnamese people will tell us how “blessed” Hunter is.  Our response is always the same – He is our gift.  He is our special gift from God.  In the two and a half years he has been with us, we have learned many lessons in patience, faith, forgiveness and courage from this little boy with the big smile and the open heart.  We know that his love and compassion will be a gift to the world for the rest of his life.

Hunter's family on Mother's Day 2011. From Left: Jim, Hunter, Lily, Mary Li and Marshall Duda.

Visit Holt’s sponsorship page to learn how you can change a child’s life in Vietnam or another country! 

Click here to read more about Holt’s work in Vietnam.

Know of a child or family who helped raise funds for Holt? Share your story with Holt’s senior writer, Robin Munro, at robinmunro@holtinternational.org.

DOB: 8/1/01 and 3/3/02, Jilin, China

by Robin Munro, Senior Writer

Shen Ying (left) and Shen Jia (right) grew up together as foster brothers.

Two years ago, in November of 2009, we received the following email from Sue Liu, Holt’s (beloved) office manager in Beijing:

Two weeks ago, I went to Jilin (province) where we have had a foster care program for three years. I met three boys whose files are in the CCAA now… All their information has been released many times online, but, for some reason, they have not been matched. All these boys have very good personalities, they like to help others, like to share, like to go to school and get along well with other kids.

All three of the boys were older, and two of them – Shen Ying* and Shen Jia* – grew up together in the same foster home. About these two boys, Sue wrote:

I saw them at their foster home, and both of their foster parents were at home also. They are very close to their foster parents, especially their foster mom. They told me they just call their foster mom “Mom”, and foster dad “Dad”. Every day, after school, their foster mom stays with them and watches them finish their homework. Then they have dinner together. Then, they go walking. All the people think they are a family. Shen Jia and Shen Ying are very good friends, and they call each other “brother.” They are good at math. Like all the boys, they love to play with cars and so one.

At the end of her email, she wrote that she would visit them again soon. She also asked us to help advocate for their adoption, writing, “I do hope we can find families for them, Please!!!”

In March, she wrote again, inquiring about our progress in finding families for these boys. No luck so far.

The following summer, in July of 2010, I traveled to Jilin province with Sue Liu and Jessica Palmer, Holt’s waiting child program manager. Here, we met Shen Ying and Shen Jia. In the months since Sue first wrote about the boys, she had visited them again several times, and they had grown very fond of each other. Upon seeing her, Shen Ying and Shen Jia – dressed exactly alike in matching striped Polo shirts – ran up to Sue and threw their arms around her. They then ran off to play with the other children in the room.

Shen Ying in December 2011.

It was a sweet, sincere moment.

Although not biological brothers, the two boys resembled each other. A year apart in age – one 8, one 9 – they both had telltale scars on their upper lip from cleft lip and palate surgery. Both abandoned within days after they were born, they came to live at the same social welfare institute before joining the same foster family. They had a lot in common, and they grew up, as Sue said, calling each other “brother.”

During our visit, they showed distinct differences in their personalities as well. Although both friendly and exuberant, the older of the two – Shen Ying – seemed a bit more outgoing and expressive. He took more interest in us, and hammed it up, using the props at his disposal – a humongous stuffed bear, a scarf, a long tube – to make us laugh. The younger brother, Shen Jia, kept more to himself.  In child reports, social workers describe Shen Jia as independent, “inner-directed,” disciplined and athletic. They describe Shen Ying as talkative, polite and “good at imitation.” Both boys are described as intelligent, quick learners and diligent, enthusiastic students.

Their foster mom, a warm, youthful woman with long, shiny black hair, also came along for the visit. She seemed proud of her foster sons, and shared with us that they are both their teachers’ favorites in their 2^nd and 3^rd grade classes. They are, she said, very popular with the other children, have excellent manners and help at home. They also sometimes fight “as brothers do.”

“Does he know anyone who’s been adopted?” Jessica asked Sue of Shen Ying, standing nearby.

A photo of Shen Jia from Abbie's recent visit, in December 2011.

Sue then turned the question to Shen Ying, who through translation told us that he loves his foster mother very much, but knows he may be adopted someday.

As we were about to leave, the brothers ran up to hug all of us goodbye – including Jessica and I. They seemed like such good-hearted, intelligent boys, and they left a strong impression on both of us.

A week later, we returned to Oregon and immediately stepped up our efforts to advocate for their adoption. We featured them in the Waiting Child photolisting and on the Holt blog.

But again, no luck. No family. A year passed, and the boys turned 9 and 10.

In December, Abbie Smith – Holt Director of Clinical Services – returned from a trip to China. While there, she also had the chance to visit Shen Ying and Shen Jia and assess their potential for adoption. She visited them at home, with their foster mother at their side.

Her impressions of the two boys reinforced our earlier impressions. She describes Shen Jia as more athletic and less emotionally expressive than his brother. “He acknowledged that his brother is better at relationships,” says Abbie. “He’s better at sports.” She says they seemed very close and accepting of each other, and both expressed the desire to join the same adoptive family.

When the topic of adoption came up, Shen Ying would tear up and briefly leave the room. He feels sad about leaving his foster mother. His brother, meanwhile, was less expressive in his feelings about leaving China, and seemed more resigned.

“Their foster mother wants to stay in touch with the boys after their adoption and it was clear that they want to stay in touch with her,” writes Abbie, who recommends finding a family who “can support their love for their foster mother while they are learning to love their forever family.”

I recently asked Jessica what she remembers about them. “I remember they were super sweet boys, active but not overly so, as active as you would guess for an 8-year-old boy,” she said. “I remember they played well with the other younger kids, and were very attached to their foster mom.”

Without a doubt, Shen Ying and Shen Jia have charmed all of us. They are sweethearts who deserve a family to love and support them in all their endeavors, throughout their lives. Two years after Sue first wrote that pleading email, they are “for some reason” — unknown to us — still waiting.

Who wouldn’t love to raise these boys?

Shen Ying and Shen Jia need a family who can  provide them with access to a craniofacial team to follow-up with speech therapy and further surgeries they will most likely need. Their family should also have experience with adoption and parenting past their ages.

To learn more about Shen Ying and Shen Jia, contact Erin Mower at erinm@holtinternational.org.

* names changed

DOB: April 27, 1998

Sichuan Province, China

In April, Ian will turn 14 and become ineligible for international adoption from China. Eligible and interested families should immediately contact their agency. Holt families should contact Jessica Palmer at jessicap@holtinternational.org. See eligibility requirements below.*

Ian (name changed) entered institutional care when he was 4 years old, in May of 2002. A healthy boy with a “sunny” disposition, Ian was also rather quiet upon admission and tended to stand back and observe his surroundings. At the institute, caregivers quickly enrolled him in a program to help him adjust to his new environment. Here, he got along well with his classmates, and quickly became more talkative and active in the group. The following year, he began primary school near his home at the child welfare institute. He became a diligent student who listened well, eagerly answered questions in class, and regularly completed his homework after school. His teachers all liked him a great deal.

After five years in the institute, Ian went to live with a foster family in July of 2007. Then 9, Ian developed a loving bond with this family, in whose care he continued to grow strong and healthy. He developed a taste for spicy food, honed his basketball skills, and became interested in computer games and remote control toys, as well as drawing and playing the guitar. Described as bright and extroverted, Ian has many friends. His foster mom describes him as “sensible and good.”

Now 13, Ian is in junior high school. He is a serious student with grades that always put him at the head of the class.

Although close to his foster family, Ian understands that his situation is not permanent. Initially, he felt fearful of going to a new place – of feeling lonely, and missing his foster family and friends – but he has grown to understand what it means to join an adoptive family, and now embraces the idea of international adoption.

*Ian has less than four months before he turns 14, at which time he will become ineligible for adoption. Due to the short timeframe to adopt, families must already have a dossier in China or have adopted from China within the past year and have a current USCIS 1800A approval. An ideal family for Ian will have parented past his age and also have previous adoption experience.

Many of the children who enter Holt’s care have living parents or relatives whose lack of resources, not lack of love, compelled them to seek outside care for their child. Rather, relinquishing a child is an act of love. What parent wouldn’t rather separate from their child than watch their child grow sick and malnourished?

At Holt, we believe poverty – or disease or discrimination – should not prevent children from growing up with otherwise loving birth parents. That is why, everywhere we work, we strive to keep at-risk families safe, stable and together.

To that end, we provide basic nutrition and medical care for physical health, and counseling for psychological wellbeing. We assist with education, sending children to school and training parents in income-generating trades. And through microloans for small businesses, we help families achieve both self-reliance – and lasting stability.

One small business is particularly adaptable to many of the regions we serve: raising livestock. After Holt provides the resources and know-how, families can quickly take the reins.

Here are three short family stories from Vietnam, a country where – with international adoption suspended – family preservation efforts have become a major focus, and livestock a major source of support. All three of these children are supported by Holt’s sponsorship program as well:

 A few little chicks can make a big impact…

When Cara’s* mother died in November of 2009, she and her three siblings went to live with her grandmother and aunt. For income, the family harvested rice and raised a few chickens. This barely provided enough to meet their basic needs, however, let alone pay the fees for the children to attend school. Cara and her siblings were at risk of dropping out of school when the local district referred the family to Holt-Vietnam.

To ensure that Cara and her siblings could stay in school – and with their family – Holt provided funding to support the family’s chicken-raising efforts. Holt social workers regularly visit Cara’s family to check on their health and wellbeing, and to advise her grandmother and aunt on how to manage their small business.

Today, Cara and her family are doing well. Now 4, Cara attends kindergarten and is developmentally on track. “She walks, runs and jumps without any problem,” a Holt social worker wrote in a recent sponsorship report. “She is learning colors and counting from 1 to 100.”

A couple pigs can support a family…

Suong* lives with her mom and her sister.  Her parents are divorced, and her father provides no support. As a single mother, Suong’s mom struggled to provide the basics for her two daughters. The girls rarely had enough food, and paying school expenses posed a significant challenge.

To help Suong’s mom care for her daughters, Holt-Vietnam provided start-up funding for the family to raise pigs. When the pigs grew big enough, Cara’s mother was able to sell them at market – generating income to cover the girls’ school fees, and provide nutritious food for her family. She reinvested the money left over by buying more pigs – creating a stable, self-renewing source of income for her family.

Suong is now 3. “She loves dressing up and playing dolls and with new toys,” writes her social worker. “The little girl is really adorable and active.”

Even send a child to school…

After Hai’s* father died in May of 2010, his mother became the sole income-earner for the family. Her work as a farmer provided some support, but not enough to adequately care for her children. After a local women’s union referred the family to Holt-Vietnam, Holt supplied the family with pigs to help generate income. With this resource, Hai’s mom is able to pay the school fees for her children.

Although Hai was sick when Holt began supporting his family, he has recovered and is now in good health. “He loves to go to kindergarten every day where he can play with toys with his friends and learn new things,” writes his social worker. He loves riding tricycles and playing on the slide, knows some children’s songs, and is learning to read poetry and tell stories, his social worker also writes. He is a healthy, happy, 4-year-old boy. Overall, his family is faring much better with the regular income from raising pigs.

* names changed

This holiday season, you can help a struggling family achieve both self-reliance and lasting stability. Click here to give livestock or other gifts of hope to children and families in need.

To learn more about Holt’s sponsorship program, click here.

For more information about Holt’s work in Vietnam, view our Vietnam country brief.

by Robin Munro, Senior Writer

Mrs. Choi with Noah on the eighth anniversary of the day he entered her care.

Mrs. Choi hasn’t seen Isaac in more than a decade. Back then, Isaac wore diapers, and went by the Korean name Dong-joon. Since then, Isaac has sprouted into a lanky 13-year-old boy who plays the trumpet and loves Star Wars memorabilia. He now lives in California with his parents and sisters.

Isaac may have been too young to remember Mrs. Choi, but Mrs. Choi sure remembers Isaac. As a Holt foster mother in Korea, Mrs. Choi, Yeong-sun cared for Isaac during the first five months of his life, before he joined his adoptive family in the U.S. and became Isaac Hughes.

Every year, Holt honors two foster mothers for their devoted service to children awaiting adoption in Korea. Holt Korea flies them from Korea to Holt’s headquarters in Eugene, Oregon, where we treat them like royalty for a few days. Every year, we also invite families of children they’ve cared for to a reception in Eugene. Isaac’s family couldn’t travel to Oregon for the event, but they wanted to do something special for Mrs. Choi. So they put together a picture collage of Isaac over the years, including a photo of Mrs. Choi holding Isaac as a baby. “I was hoping that would spark her memory of him,” says Isaac’s mom, Barbara.

They also recorded a video, in which Isaac takes Mrs. Choi on a virtual tour of his room. He shows her his Lego creations, his trophies, his Star Wars collection. She smiles, amused, as she watches the video during the Holt reception. As he begins to play the Korean National Anthem on his trumpet, Mrs. Choi sighs with joy. Although she can’t understand what he says, she understands this melody.

“Thank you for taking care of me when I was a baby,” he says at the end of the video, smiling broadly. It’s clear. Isaac has a good life and a loving family, and Mrs. Choi is so pleased to see that.

“This opportunity to see the kids I’ve cared for grow up so beautifully and strong brings me such joy. I’m so grateful to the parents who’ve love them so well,” says Mrs. Choi, in Korean, after both foster mothers are presented with awards for their service. Sitting beside Mrs. Choi is her fellow honoree, Mrs. Lee, Wol-seop, both of them wearing traditional hanboks.

Holt staff and visiting families applaud Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Choi.

Although Isaac’s family couldn’t make it, two families did travel to Eugene for the event – the Ellisons, from Springfield, OR, whose daughter Lindsay Mrs. Lee cared for as a baby; and the Gibsons, from Olympia, WA, whose son Noah was in Mrs. Choi’s care.

Today is a particularly serendipitous day for Mrs. Choi and Noah’s reunion. “We think that today is eight years to the day that he came into Mrs. Choi’s care,” says Noah’s mom, Christy, as Noah plays with a remote control truck – a gift from Mrs. Choi. Noah entered foster care the day after he was born. Yesterday was Noah’s eighth birthday.

Bill and Christy Gibson met Mrs. Choi once before, when they traveled to Korea to pick up their son a little less than eight years ago. “It was so heart-wrenching,” Christy says of the moment Mrs. Choi said goodbye to the little boy she had nurtured for the first five months of his life.

“To raise a child like that, knowing you’d have to give that child up, is something I don’t think I could do,” says Paul Kim, Holt’s director of programs for Korea. “Holt Korea loses the most foster moms after the first child. It’s too hard.”

Mrs. Choi confided to Paul that after saying goodbye to her first several foster children, she was ready to quit. But she couldn’t resist the opportunity to care for just one more.

One more turned into another one and then another. Since 1995, Mrs. Choi has cared for 67 children. Mrs. Lee, 312.

“The caring for these children is truly something that I love,” Mrs. Lee says after the award ceremony. “I’m thankful to all of you for honoring me in this way.” Lindsay Ellison, now 14, was one of the first children Mrs. Lee cared for as a foster mother. Her whole family remembers and ask about her, in particular Mrs. Lee’s two sons, who grew very fond of Lindsay during the months she spent in their home.

Lindsay Ellison, 14, with her former foster mom, Mrs. Lee.

Through translation, Mrs. Lee shares the things she remembers about Lindsay. She remembers that she smiled a lot, and that she sunburned easily in the summer. At home, she has photos of Lindsay with her sons and family. “I always hoped to meet her,” she says.

Mrs. Lee’s mention of her sons’ fondness for Lindsay underscores a point made earlier by Paul. The whole foster family raises the children, he says. It’s often just as hard for the foster family to say goodbye as it is for the foster mother.

The love and care these families provide is truly in a category unto itself.

Over 40 years ago, Holt played a major role in developing the Korean model of foster care – a model of attentive, nurturing care later adopted by many other countries. In the U.S., the term “foster care” has such a negative connotation that the Korean system deserves a different name, says Paul. In Korea, fostering a child is considered an honor. Some families have been caring for children for 35 years. Some also pass the torch to their children who, seeing how wonderful it is, choose to become foster parents themselves – becoming, in a sense, “second-generation” foster families.

For the children, the value of foster care is both immediate and long-term. Foster families provide a nurturing attention that children rarely find in orphanage settings. When placed into the warm, soft arms of a Mrs. Choi or Mrs. Lee, they immediately feel safe and comforted. When they cry, someone responds – and with a consistency they can rely on. In an orphanage full of crying infants, caregivers are often too overwhelmed to attend to every child’s needs. Study after study has proven, however, that such devoted care is essential to a child’s development. In that way, foster care serves a lasting purpose in the lives of children. It helps them achieve developmental milestones, and to form healthy attachments – easing the bonding process with their adoptive parents as well.

“There is no point in their lives that they haven’t been truly loved – from their birth mother to their foster family to their adoptive family,” says Paul.

Although Noah was too young to remember Mrs. Choi, his parents made a point of imparting the significance of her role in his life. “When I said, ‘your foster mom is going to be here, do you know who that is?’ he said, ‘yes, that’s the woman who took care of me,’ ” says Christy.

Seeing Noah, Lindsay and Isaac happy, healthy and strong is enough for Mrs. Choi and Mrs. Lee. They don’t need recognition to continue fostering children. But they deserve it.

And even though letting go of children never gets easier, the joy is worth the heartache.

“Caring for the children just brings such happiness and joy to me,” says Mrs. Choi. “That must be why I keep doing it.”

A father and child in Holt's Ethiopia family preservation program with Dan Lauer, Holt's VP of international programs.

More than just a gift…

For children in Holt’s care, a gift from Holt’s Gifts of Hope catalog means an education. A loving foster home.  Or a life-changing surgery.  Last year, over 1,500 children received Gifts of Hope! This year our goal is to reach 2,500 children and families!

A gift of hope is more than just a gift. And as the recent food crisis underscored for families in Ethiopia, a cow is more than just a cow.

Earlier this year, the worst drought in recent history hit the Horn of Africa, causing food shortages and famine in parts of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. According to U.N. estimates, 4.5 million people still need food aid in Ethiopia – a country home to many of the families and children we support.

As the crisis spread throughout the region, Holt’s staff in Ethiopia gathered from limited resources enough life-saving grains to distribute among 600 households, serving nearly 3,400 people.

Although food shortages affected most of the community, some weathered the crisis better than others.

“What we learned was that families in our family preservation program fared better than others in the community,” says Dan Lauer, Holt’s vice president of international programs. “This is interesting to see because these families are considered most ‘at-risk.’”

In Ethiopia, local leaders identify the families most in need of Holt’s help. Some are single parent or child-headed households. Some are affected by illness or disability. Most have multiple risk factors. The support and resources Holt provides these families not only help them achieve stability, but true self-reliance – even in a time of crisis.

In the recent food crisis, one resource proved invaluable: livestock.

WIth a gift of chickens from Holt, this man is able to care for his family.

“Holt families had more food reserves and income because of their animal projects,” says Dan. With your support, Holt provides farm animals, including, chickens, cows, goats and donkeys, for these vulnerable families – giving them a source of regular nutrition, and the means for a small family business.

And as Holt’s Ethiopia staff recently discovered, livestock hold uncommon value for these families in times of greater need.

“It’s not just a cow,” says Dan. “The staff was really happy to see that even in a time of food shortages, the families have resources.”

In the coming year, Holt plans to double the number of families in Holt’s Ethiopia family preservation program. Gifts of livestock received this holiday season will play a vital role in helping our new families achieve stability, self-reliance – and most of all, lasting hope.

Give a gift of livestock or any other Gift of Hope and help us reach our goal to serve over 2,500 children and families this year!

Click here to browse Holt’s Gifts of Hope catalog online.