Holt International's 50th Anniversary issue by Brian Campbell

50th Anniversary 2006 Vol. 48 No. 2

Pursuing the dream... a home for every child

From Your

Heart...

to Your

Home

Fulfilling the dream of a family for over 50 years.

Adoption from China and other countries www.holtinternational.org 1-888-355-HOLT

finding families for children

Dear Readers When we set out to produce this special 50th anniversary edition of Holt International magazine, we knew we could include only some of the highlights of Holt’s history. The more we worked on this project, the more wonderful stories and photos we had to leave out. Still, we hope we’ve captured some of the sweep and breadth of this wonderful story. Holt’s rich history is populated with the lives of children, with workers and leaders who dedicated themselves to the principle that children need families, and with contributors whose sacrificial giving exemplifies a belief in the value of every child. Devoted people have brought their hard work, skills and resources to place children into the loving arms of permanent parents, and we are grateful for everyone. We thank God for the incredible privilege of helping children. God’s hand has guided Holt International through many difficult circumstances. And we praise Him for so many glorious moments when we’ve seen His hand touching the life of a child and allowing us to be a part of His work. Holt’s history is a valuable reminder of the Source of Holt’s success, but this history only introduces us to the challenges ahead. Those of you who read this publication now are a part of the continuing Holt story. So much remains to be done. There are yet children around the world who need the love and belonging of a family. You have a vital role in the lives of those children… and in the next chapters of Holt’s history.

—John Aeby, Editor

50th Anniversary Edition 2006

48 no. 2

P.O. Box 2880 (1195 City View) Eugene, OR 97402 Ph: 541/687.2202 Fax: 541/683.6175 our mission

Holt International is dedicated to carrying out God’s plan for every child to have a permanent, loving family. In 1955 Harry and Bertha Holt responded to the conviction that God had called them to help children left homeless by the Korean War. Though it took an act of the U.S. Congress, the Holts adopted eight of those children. But they were moved by the desperate plight of other orphaned children in Korea and other countries as well, so they founded Holt International Children’s Services in order to unite homeless children with families who would love them as their own. Today Holt International serves children and families in Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Korea, Mongolia, the Philippines, Romania, Thailand, the United States, Uganda, Ukraine and Vietnam. president

& ceo Gary N. Gamer

vice-president of programs

& services Carole Stiles

vice-president of marketing

& development Phillip A. Littleton

vice-president of public policy vice-president of finance

CONTENTS

vol.

holt international children’s services

& advocacy Susan Soon-keum Cox

& administration Kevin Sweeney

board of directors chair James D. Barfoot vice-chair Julia K. Banta president emeritus Dr. David H. Kim secretary Claire A. Noland members Andrew R.

Bailey, Rebecca C. Brandt, Kim S. Brown, Wilma R. Cheney, Clinton C. Cottrell, Will C. Dantzler, Cynthia G. Davis, A. Paul Disdier, Rosser B. Edwards, David L. Hafner, Jeffrey B. Saddington, Shirley M. Stewart, Steven Stirling

A Legacy of Love

holt international magazine is published bimonthly by Holt

The Holt Story

International Children’s Services, Inc., a nonprofit Christian child welfare organization. While Holt International is responsible for the content of Holt International magazine, the viewpoints expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the organization.

A couple from rural Oregon changed the world of adoption

editor

John Aeby

managing editor

Harry and Bertha Holt

assistant

Profiles of faith, love and determination

Adopting—the early years

Brian Campbell

Sara Moss

subscription orders/inquiries and address changes

The firsthand account of an adoptive mother who witnessed one of the greatest crises Holt International ever faced

Molly Holt

Alice Evans

graphic design & LAYOUT

In 1955 she committed her life to serving the children of Korea

Cover: For 50 years Holt has sought to elevate the status of homeless children around the world. While Holt develops innovative programs every year, simple human caring remains Holt’s greatest tool for helping children thrive until they can be placed with a permanent family. Two girls in China, 2005.

Send all editorial correspondence and changes of address to Holt International magazine, Holt International, P.O. Box 2880, Eugene, OR 97402. We ask for an annual donation of $20 to cover the cost of publication and mailing inside the United States and $40 outside the United States. Holt welcomes the contribution of letters and articles for publication, but assumes no responsibility for return of letters, manuscripts, or photos. reprint information

Permission from Holt International is required prior to reprinting any portion of Holt International magazine. Please direct reprint requests to editor John Aeby at 541/687.2202 or johna@holtinternational.org. arkansas office

5016 Western Hills Ave., Little Rock, AR 72204 Ph/Fax: 501/568.2827 california office

A Legacy of Caring

3807 Pasadena Ave., Suite 115, Sacramento, CA 95821 Ph: 916/487.4658 Fax: 916/487.7068

Holt’s 50-year legacy

of serving children around the world

President’s Message

midwest office serving iowa, nebraska and south dakota

10685 Bedford Ave., Suite 300, Omaha, NE 68134 Ph: 402/934.5031 Fax: 402/934.5034 missouri office/kansas office

The Power of One… and Many Gary Gamer highlights people who helped children to have families.

203 Huntington Rd., Kansas City, MO 64113 Ph: 816/822.2169 Fax: 816/523.8379 122 W. 5th St., Garnett, KS 66032 Missouri@holtinternational.org oregon office

Capitol Plaza 9320 SW Barbur Blvd., Suite 220, Portland, OR 97219 Ph: 503/244.2440 Fax: 503/245.2498 new jersey office

A conference for international leaders working on behalf of orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children around the world. Go to the website for more information: www.holtinternational.org/conference An International Conference Hosted by Holt International

www.

The Holt Story Harry and Bertha Holt would insist that they were ordinary. And in their simplicity abides much of the beauty of what they accomplished. The work was never about them… it was always about the children and following God.

Consider the tens of thousands of children from Korea whose lives were forever changed by the notion that “Every child deserves a home.” Consider the hundreds of thousands of children in India, China, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Romania, Guatemala and more than a dozen other countries around the world who came to be loved in a secure family environment because of the work begun by Harry and Bertha Holt. And yet, the Holts with their six children from 22 to 9 years old, were a regular sort of family—hardworking, practical, living a simple, quiet life in a rural Oregon community. One day as he climbed a hill to size up timber, Harry suffered a near fatal heart attack. He was only 45 years old. A self-made, self-reliant and stubborn man, Harry was suddenly vulnerable. Both Harry and Bertha reached out to God and were comforted. As an expression of their thanks, they offered themselves for the Lord to use

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in some small way. Harry and Bertha were already practicing Christians, but their faith and practice deepened at this time. In a fundamentally different way, they began to prepare the soil of their spirits for God’s planting. Five years later Harry and Bertha’s 11-year-old daughter, Suzanne, came home from school with a request: Could the family attend a film presentation in Eugene about the plight of Korean War orphans? Harry had already made other plans. But after he prayed about his daughter’s request, and because her friend needed a ride, Harry decided they would go.

Someone to Care “I looked at Harry. He was motionless and tense,” Bertha wrote in Seed from the East, describing their reactions to the documentary entitled “Other Sheep.” “I knew every

Left: Harry walks with his adoptive children—Seoul, Korea, 1955. Above: Bertha feeds adopted daughter Betty. Below: An older girl protectively hugs a younger girl on the play yard by the mission school and orphanage at Hyo Chang Park, Korea, 1956. Harry Holt negotiated to build a school on land owned by the Church of Christ, which allowed him to use the building for the year as an orphanage.

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.” Among them, the Holt family agreed to sponsor 13 children. When photographs of their sponsored children arrived a month later, a profound realization was already developing in their hearts. Those children needed food and shelter and clothing, but they needed love, too. They needed a family where they could belong. Harry had a waking dream. He saw a girl with almond eyes and blondish hair. Privately, he asked the Lord what he should do for that little girl. Simultaneously, Bertha began to have her own vision. She 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 could be partitioned and made into two rooms without depriving anyone.” Just before going to bed one night, Harry cautiously revealed that he’d been thinking about adopting orphaned children from Korea. “I’m glad,” Bertha responded, holding back most of her joy. Astoundingly, they discovered that each of them had independently arrived at the same number—eight. They could make room in their home and in their hearts for eight more children. Harry Holt was not the kind of man to second-guess himself. Once he and Bertha agreed to adopt eight Amerasian children, Harry made plans to leave for Korea. Bertha began investigating the procedures. When a friend of the family told them it couldn’t be done, he added as an afterthought, “But if you could get Congress to agree and pass a law…”

www.holtinternational.org

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” said Bertha matter-of-factly. She recruited neighbors and friends to join in her letter-writing campaign. Less than two months later, on the last night of the session, Congress passed a brief bill specifically allowing Harry and Bertha to adopt eight children from Korea. When Harry returned with their eight children in October 1955, the press was there. The Holt story quickly spread around the country. Harry and Bertha planned to settle in quietly with their newly arrived children, but almost immediately other families started calling and writing, asking how they, too, could adopt a child from Korea. Harry could not forget the “tiny outstretched arms” of children who remained behind. Less than a year after they first learned about orphans in Korea, Harry made plans to return to Korea. With Harry in Korea and Bertha in the United States, they launched a program to care for children until they could be placed with adoptive families. In the 1950s adoption was usually a secretive process. Children were matched to families according to physical characteristics in an effort to conceal the fact they were adopted. The Holts’ example reversed this thinking. Though the Holts weren’t the first to adopt from overseas, the publicity around their adoption opened the eyes of the world 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 and commitment are the true bonds of a family.

Caring for Orphaned, Abandoned and Vulnerable Children Officially incorporated in 1956 and initially financed almost entirely by Harry and Bertha’s personal holdings, the Holt program drew international attention, honor and criticism right from the beginning. The Holts kept their focus on the children, on literally saving their lives through medical care, nutrition and finding homes and loving hands to care for them. Harry and Bertha Holt followed their instincts regarding the care of children, and they were innovators too. They developed attentive styles and methods of child caring that continue to be the hallmark of Holt’s work and advocacy today: • Caring touch—childcare workers touch and hold children affectionately. Infants are held when fed. • Verbal stimulation—childcare workers speak often to the children, encouraging the development of language and a connection with others. • Freedom to explore and develop—children are taken out of cribs as often as possible so they can develop their motor and sensory skills. • Comprehensive Intake Procedures—whenever a child comes into care of a Holt partner agency, the child’s birth family receives counseling to determine if that family can be kept together. If a child is abandoned, Holt partners try to locate the birth family to assess their capabilities and gather background information. If a child is adopted, the background information becomes even more valuable to the child in the future.

This page: Harry Holt comforts a tiny girl in Korea, 1955. • Opposite, top: Food donations are delivered to Ilsan in the early 1960s. Images of starvation and malnutrition among the children of Korea catalyzed a huge response. In addition to personal donations made by the Holt family, many individuals, organizations, church communities and even the food industry itself sent food to help feed Korean children. • Center left: Dr. Cho, Byung Kuk, a pediatrician, began working for Harry Holt in 1959. “He never minded any inconvenience if it was for children,” she said after his death. • Right: As a young nurse in Korea, Molly Holt assists Dr. Ralph Ten Have in caring for a malnourished infant. Harry Holt hired Dr. Ten Have as his medical assistant in 1958. • Below: Children play on a swing at one of the early Holt childcare centers in Korea.

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Harry Holt: The Heart of a Humble Servant His wife said he never changed a diaper… until he followed God’s leading to Korea. Harry worked on the land, moving earth, running a combine, growing wheat, raising cattle, milling flour, mining coal or cutting and milling timber. Though he attended school only through the third grade, he had a genius for building nearly anything he needed. Following a heart attack at age 45, Harry dedicated his life to God. “Many people say that they received the Lord Jesus and they do it with their head and their mouth,” Harry said in a message he recorded for Martha Sue Surdam, a girl whose life he saved in Korea. “Many are willing to receive Him as their Savior, but many don’t go all the way and receive Him as their Lord, and that’s the most important thing.”

Young Soo Kwak Young Soo would have died if no one had found her. She was an orphan, scrubbing floors for people who beat her. They sent her up the mountain to collect wood, and when she returned they had moved away, leaving her alone in the cold. When brought to our orphanage her right foot was badly frozen and her left foot and hands were slightly frostbitten. She was in great pain but was still able to smile, which was a miracle. Now, in her American home, she is a ray of sunshine and a joy and blessing to her family and teachers. —Harry Holt Holt Adoption Program newsletter, April/May 1961

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Harry spent the final eight years of his life changing diapers, rocking babies and singing songs to them, providing medical assistance, rescuing children from imminent death, and burying hundreds of babies that he wasn’t able to rescue. He continued to farm, fell trees and move earth, bringing equipment to Korea to build an entire village for the care of children with disabilities. Some might say he not only moved earth, he moved heaven and earth. But this simple man—who once lived in a sod house in South Dakota—would most likely say it was heaven that moved him. Harry Spencer Holt B. 1905—Neligh, Nebraska D. 1964—Ilsan, South Korea

Right: Martha Sue Surdam, one of the earliest children placed by the Holt program, thanks Harry Holt with a kiss—late 1950s. Later Harry recorded a letter to Martha Sue describing how he brought her into care. That recording is available through Holt’s website. Far left: Harry gazes out over the landscape near his home in South Dakota— 1930s. Harry’s background instilled hard work and self-reliance, but he also took time to dream. The combination of faith, vision and initiative prepared Harry to launch the Holt program at a time international adoption was mostly unheard of by the public and largely opposed by authorities. Left: Harry and Bertha Holt wear traditional Korean hanboks—early 1960s. When the Holts adopted eight children from Korea, they devoted their lives to that country in many ways. Today, both Harry and Bertha are buried on the hillside overlooking the Ilsan Center. Below left: Harry cares for his adoptive children—Korea, 1955. Nurturing care became a hallmark of the program Harry built in the following years. Above and below: Accustomed to working with heavy machinery, Harry built three successively larger childcare centers in Korea trying to keep up with the need after the war caused thousands of children to become orphaned or abandoned. Eventually he built the Ilsan Center on nearly 60 acres of hillside property near the Demilitarized Zone. Children and babies from two of these early facilities used beds for playing as well as sleeping. The babies were brought outside for the sunlight. Background: Harry’s handwritten letter home describes how on his way to Korea to adopt their children, he was nearly overcome with doubt. When he opened his Bible, his finger landed on Isaiah 43:5-6—“Fear not for I am with thee...bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.”

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Left: Wearing a traditional Korean hanbok, Bertha Holt posed for this portrait taken for her 80th birthday in 1984. Top: Bertha was named the American Mother of the Year in 1966. At the official presentation in Washington, DC, she sat at the head table with then U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Center: Bertha set a world record for her age group in the 400 meter run in 1996 when she competed in the Masters Track and Field Championships held in Eugene, Oregon. Sometimes known as “the running grandma,” Bertha ran and later walked to stay in condition. She was walking a mile when she had a stroke that led to her death. Her children later completed that mile for her. Bottom, from right: Bertha greets husband Harry when he returned from Korea with their eight new adoptive children, October 1955. She made each child feel special. Arriving at the Ilsan Center in Korea in 1968, Bertha greets every child in care. Bertha enjoyed traveling to see the children, and she kept meticulous records of every flight in logs signed by the pilots. At age 90 Bertha traveled to India, where a recently built childcare center had been named “Bertha Verada” (Bertha’s Blessing) in her honor. In this photo, taken on that same trip, she holds a child in care at Holt’s partner agency in Bangalore. Bertha, with hair in her signature French braids, poses with some of the early Holt-Korea staff including David Kim at the far left, circa 1959.

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Halmoni: Beloved Grandma She was simply “Grandma” to thousands of children who were adopted through Holt International, to all of the adoptive families including birth children, and especially to thousands of children who waited and hoped to be adopted. Bertha studied to be a nurse, but she put that aside to raise her six children and blaze a trail to Oregon, where she helped farm, raise cattle, and do the multitude of tasks required of a farmer’s wife. When Harry was struck down by a heart attack, Bertha joined him in praying for his recovery with a promise to serve God in whatever way He showed them. She and Harry were keepers of promises. When the time came to mobilize efforts to adopt children on a large scale, she rose to the occasion, proving that beneath the

simple farmer’s wife appearance, she was every bit as capable and committed as her husband. When Harry died in 1964, Bertha had the grace and courage to continue the work. Over the next 36 years Bertha’s faith inspired the growth and development of Holt International. She never took a back seat. By the time she, too, passed away, Bertha had been named “Mother of the Year,” logged more than a million flight miles traveling for Holt International and advocating for homeless and disabled children, and set a world record for her age group in the 400 meter run. But the title she held dearest to her heart was Halmoni, grandmother in Korean. She should also be remembered as Bunica in Romania, Lola in the Philippines, Bà Ngoai in Vietnam, and Khun Yai in Thailand, and other designations of grandma. Bertha Marian Holt B. 1904—Des Moines, Iowa D. 2000—Creswell, Oregon

Excerpt of a July 1999 letter from Bertha Holt to Holt families: The highlight of the trip to Korea was my visit to the Blue House to see Korea’s first lady, the wife of President Kim, Dae-jung. Her name is Lee, He-ho. Molly and David Kim accompanied me. She was most gracious. She sorrowed that so many babies were leaving the country and felt strongly that Koreans should adopt Korean children. I agreed, but I pointed out that Korea’s culture does not yet favor adoption except of a relative. It is a predicament which hurts innocent children. I pleaded that the babies not be raised in orphanages because every child needs a father and a mother. I am happy God allowed me to make this trip to Korea. I so enjoyed seeing Molly, the workers, Pastor Lee, the residents, HoltKorea’s staff and Korea’s first lady. I pray that God uses this to His glory. Lovingly, Grandma

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Adopting from Korea in the Early Years

Olivia Wassmann and her husband were in Korea to adopt two little girls on the day Harry Holt died. Fred and I had already adopted four children, three from Korea, when the foreign adoption law was renewed. This allowed us to adopt two more Korean orphans if we traveled to Korea. We applied for two girls and flew to Korea on a chartered Flying Tigers airplane with a planeload of expectant parents in April 1964. When we arrived, we and the other parents were shown to a large room where we placed our sleeping bags on the hard floor. The parents who were adopting older children were allowed to bring in their children to sleep with them. The next morning we were taken up the hill to see our 10-month-old baby, Debbie, a tiny infant who looked about 2 months old. The other baby assigned to us was in the hospital with a spot on her lungs, unable to pass through Immigra-

tion, so we were told to select another child. This was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. A 3-year-old came running up and threw her arms around my legs, so I said to Mr. Holt, “Should we take this little girl?” He said, “That’s up to you, but it’s the infants that we lose. Our hillsides are dotted with baby graves.” My husband and I started down the long aisle of cribs where the infants were propped up in little seats. Down the aisle we went, looking into each little face, in total confusion. Then, one 6-month-old baby smiled a crooked smile at us, and I said, “We’ll take this one!” So that’s how our Donna entered our family. What a way to make such a life-changing decision, but it was a good choice.

The Death of Harry Holt On our second day at the orphanage, we were told that Mr. Holt would be driving a van into Seoul and we parents could ride with him to the Holt office there, from which we could take sightseeing tours. Parents piled into the van, and off we went. About halfway to Seoul a tire blew on the van, and with substantial effort Mr. Holt (and probably a helper) changed the tire. We later wondered if this contributed to his heart attack. We made it to the Seoul office and waited for a tour bus, meanwhile watching as tiny abandoned infants were carried in. After a full day of sightseeing we and other parents returned to the Seoul office and waited for the orphanage van to pick us up again. After a long wait we heard a loud commotion from the office staff, who told us, “We have just been notified that Mr. Holt is dead!” What an unbelievable shock! Later we were picked up and returned to the orphanage. We were told that after dropping us at the Holt office,

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Mr. Holt had taken children back to the orphanage, run up the hill with an emaciated baby and put her into someone’s hands, and then staggered to his room. He didn’t quite make it to his bed. An enormous mourning arose among the staff, the children, and the parents. Quite some time went by before phone communication could be made with Mrs. Holt in the United States. One of the Korean craftsmen immediately began work on a coffin. Mr. Holt previously had said, “If anything happens to me, bury me on the hillside with my babies.” Mrs. Holt arrived as soon as she could. After a funeral service in the chapel, we all followed in line to the burial site.

Our Children Donna was 6 months old and Debbie 10 months, but they each weighed exactly 10 pounds. Debbie was so emaciated that when we got off the plane in Detroit we immediately went to our family doctor’s office. We knew any little germ could end her life. Our doctor looked at her and said, “Only a miracle will save this baby.” He turned her over to give her a shot in her little butt, and there was only a bone with loose skin hanging onto it. In the ensuing days, I laughed and talked with Debbie as I held her and fed her. She tried to reach for my face, but her little hands dropped weakly back when halfway up. She kept trying to turn her head backwards to see to whom I was talking. On the third day the reality hit her that I was talking to her, and she immediately began to eat like a little piggy—life was suddenly worth living. Both babies picked up rapidly and became a tremendous joy to us. All our children are well and successful. I am grateful—so very, very grateful. —Olivia Wassmann, Clinton Township, Michigan January 2005

Molly: “Unee” Before Harry and Bertha Holt decided to adopt, Bertha phoned her 19-year-old daughter Molly at nursing school to tell her about the orphaned children in Korea.

Today, she serves as chair of the Holt-Korea Board of Directors. But she continues to be most passionate about the disabled residents of Holt’s Ilsan Center.

“I can’t do anything to help now; but when I finish training in two years... if it’s the Lord’s will... I’ll go over to Korea and help take care of those babies,” Molly responded.

At age 70, Molly is “unee” (elder sister) to the 300 residents at Ilsan Center where she lives and serves. The residents have lost their families and have varying degrees of disability. Since her mother’s passing, Ilsan residents treat her more like their parent, their family.

“As I placed the phone back on the hook, I felt wonderfully blessed,” Bertha wrote a year later. “I knew Molly would be unable to send money. She... was living on her savings. But somehow, I felt that Molly was making the biggest contribution of all.” Prophetic words: Over nearly all of the past 50 years Molly has fulfilled her promise. She has served in many capacities from community health nurse, to internationally known advocate of disabled children and adoptees.

Molly champions opportunities for the Ilsan residents, and HoltKorea’s commitment to them is evidenced by a world-class facility that offers education, vocational training and skill building toward independent living. Molly even helps arrange weddings for them when they come of age. Many days, you’ll find Molly, tool kit in hand, making rounds of the children’s apartments. Through her efforts, many residents have wheelchairs that correct their posture and hold them in positions that allow them to develop more control over their bodies. Because residents change and grow, the chairs need constant readjustment to fit properly, but the readjustments also serve as a way for Molly to monitor residents’ development.

Left: Molly Holt at Ilsan, 1973. Harry Holt built the Ilsan Center in the early 1960s as a temporary home for orphaned and abandoned children soon to be placed with adoptive parents. But within a few years the facility had evolved into a home for disabled children, most of whom could not be adopted. In the 1980s Ilsan was completely remodeled to accommodate and serve those in wheelchairs and on crutches. Today, Molly Holt and a dedicated Holt-Korea staff, care for and train 300 disabled residents at Ilsan. Facing page: This sequence of images comes from the documentary Korean Legacy, a film which followed a group of adoptive parents including Olivia and Fred Wassmann who traveled to Korea in April 1964. The filmmakers had planned to document the work of Harry Holt and international adoption. The crew filmed the initial interactions of the parents with their adoptive children, their trip into Seoul in the back of a truck driven by Harry Holt, and their arrival at the Holt Office in Seoul. In the final frame shown here, Harry Holt can be seen rounding the front of the truck. Later that day, the filmmakers captured the shock and grief of staff and the adoptive parents in the Seoul office when they learned that after transporting a sick child back to Ilsan, Harry Holt had died from a massive heart attack. Korean Legacy became a tribute not only to the spirit of adoption, but also a memorial to the man who dedicated the final years of his life to saving abandoned and vulnerable children.

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Russia, 91–94, 98–02

Ukraine, 2004–

Mongolia, 2000–

Romania, 1989–

N. Korea, 1998– S. Korea, 1956–

Bulgaria, 2002–

China, 1993– Hong Kong, 1980– India, 1979–

Taiwan, 1979–82 Philippines, 1975–

Uganda, 2002–

Bangladesh, 1972–73 Thailand, 1976–

Vietnam, 73–75, 89–

Cambodia, 91–93, 05–

Finding Families For Children The Holt International movement began in Korea, but the command to “Bring thy seed from the East, and gather thee from the West” quickly moved members of the Holt family to work in other countries. Harry visited Paraguay and Mexico looking for ways to serve the children there.

Hong Kong (when it was a British colony), Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Russia and Taiwan.

But there was so much work to do in Korea that while Harry was still alive, the work maintained its Korean focus. As the effects of the war subsided and the Republic of South Korea developed a thriving post-war economy, Bertha Holt and staff at Holt International were able to lead the agency in new directions.

The Wide Ranging Services of Holt International

The brutal last years of another war took Holt International to another part of Asia—Vietnam. In 1972, Holt sent a survey team to assess the needs of children. They discovered that tens of thousands of children had been orphaned by nearly a quarter-century of war. And so it was that country by country, in response to the needs of orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children, Holt International followed in the footsteps of the Holts, and found ways to help the suffering children. Holt now has programs in Korea, China, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Mongolia, the Philippines, Romania, Thailand, Uganda, the United States and Ukraine. Over the past 50 years, Holt has also served children in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras,

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Today Holt is known around the world for its comprehensive programs and services designed to: • Meet children’s immediate needs for health and survival. • Protect children’s rights and interests with a view to their needs in the future. • Follow the highest ethical practices in serving children, birth families and adoptive families. • Respect and honor cultures while striving to identify what’s best for each individual child. The following is a brief description of Holt’s major services.

U.S.A., 1956–

Family Preservation Desperation sometimes drives parents to relinquish or abandon their children in the hope that someone will care for them. Mexico, 2001–02 Most parents intend to reclaim these children someday, but reality is harsh and reestablishing their livelihood can Guatemala, 1986– be nearly impossible. Holt prevents abandonment and helps separated families get back together. Counseling El Salvador, 1984–86 and other assistance help make it possible for parents Costa Rica, 1986–94 to support themselves and rebuild their lives as families. Holt has helped hundreds of thousands of children through these various services.

Domestic Adoption

Haiti, 2003–

Colombia, 1985–86 Honduras, 1983–86 Nicaragua, 1976–82

Ecuador, 1987–

Brazil, 1984–95

Circumstances sometimes make it impossible to reunite a child with his birth family. However, every country where Holt works Peru, 1984–85 has families capable of loving and nurturing adopted children as their own. Because some Bolivia, 1985–88 cultures resist adoption of children outside of the extended family, domestic or in-country adoption is sometimes a developing institution. Still, Holt’s efforts are bringing about changes that encourage adoption and protect the rights of adoptive parents and adoptive children. Holt has placed over 21,000 children with adoptive families in their birth country.

International Adoption Children cannot wait for cultures to change. They need loving, secure families while they are young and developing. Because some children cannot be returned to birth families or be adopted domestically within a reasonable length of time, Holt International unites children with families through international adoption. In 50 years Holt has placed over 40,000 children with U.S. adoptive families. Because of its experience and integrity, Holt’s policies and practices are emulated around the world.

Single Parent Programs Holt’s care of children may begin even before they are born. Reaching out to expectant parents—often unmarried young women who have been rejected by their family and abandoned by the birth father—Holt offers shelter, medical care, counseling and other assistance. Holt enables birth parents to make informed and unpressured decisions regarding the best course for themselves and their children. These services help safeguard the health and futures of both the mother and the child.

Foster Care Between the time a child comes into care and the moment the child is placed in the arms of his permanent parents, Holt helps provide for that child. Food, shelter, clothing and caring attention are all essential for development, even for survival. In many countries Holt has pioneered foster care as an alternative to institutional care. Holt has placed thousands of bright, healthy children, thanks largely to the selfless foster families who love these children as their own, and then let them go to their permanent parents.

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Medical Treatment Every homeless child in Holt’s programs receives medical care. This essential service saves lives and often makes adoption possible for children. Vaccinations, regular exams, surgery, medical equipment and medical supplies are only a few of the vital elements of medical care that Holt provides for children. Children who have experienced developmental delays because of a medical condition can often make dramatic improvement as their health improves. As a result, their chances for adoption also improve.

Nutrition Simple food is sometimes all it takes to keep a child with his birth family. Imagine how discouraging it is to see your child become malnourished. Several of Holt’s partner programs offer nutrition and nutrition training to prevent child abandonment. Parents bring their children in for a healthy meal every day while they are in the program. Parents also attend classes that teach economic ways to provide nutritious meals for their children. Almost no families in these programs relinquish their children.

Programs for HIV/AIDS Affected Children Innocent children have become the most recent population to suffer terrible consequences because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, creating two primary kinds of “AIDS orphans.” HIV-positive parents and inappropriate medical practices have infected some children with this deadly disease. For many others HIV/AIDS has left them without parents and sometimes without even extended family members. Holt and its partners have developed a range of services that enable these children to have safe, nurturing homes with loving caregivers. Sometimes the child’s family and school simply need education so that the children receive the support and encouragement they need. The solutions often must take place at several levels—including the family and the community.

Childcare Centers Legal requirements, medical needs and other conditions sometimes require Holt to care for children at childcare centers. Though institutions cannot provide the level of attention that a foster family can, Holt makes the best of this situation by providing high staff-to-child ratios, training child workers and scheduling for consistency in children’s care. Holt’s dedicated, knowledgeable and loving childcare workers provide attentive care to children awaiting permanent families.

Programs for Children with Special Needs Children who are older, have disabilities or are part of sibling groups often wait to be adopted, sometimes for years. These “waiting” children need and deserve families as much as other children. But the likelihood of locating adoptive families for them in their birth countries is often very low. Holt offers programs that provide medical treatments and various therapies to help children develop their “abilities.” And, fortunately, many families in the United States find special joy in adopting these waiting children. Holt encourages the adoption of waiting children through advocacy, fee reductions and other financial subsidies.

Post Adoption and Adoptee Outreach Holt is pioneering services to address the continuing needs of adoptees, adoptive parents and birth parents. These services cover a wide range of needs such as referral services for families who need counseling, documentation for those who need legal records, a search registry and assisted search services for adoptees and birth parents seeking to contact each other. Holt also offers Heritage Camps for international adoptees 9–16 years old and Heritage Tours, which enable adoptees to experience the land of their birth.

Left to right: Long-time Holt board member Dr. Rebecca Brandt holds a child in care in Russia, 1994. These two girls received care from Holt in 1994. After he was abandoned at a local hospital in Russia, 8month-old Ervin lived in the infectious disease ward until he was discovered by staff workers from one of Holt’s Assistance to Russian Orphans (ARO) agencies. They were able to reunite Ervin with his birth father and new mother. In 2001, when this photo was taken, more than 650 children were returned to their birth families through Holt and Holt’s partner agencies.

Russia Holt was able to place children, particularly those with special needs, from Russia in the early and mid 1990s. Holt’s work later reemerged at the end of that decade with U.S. government funding in helping to establish model child welfare services to stem the tide of institutionalization. Holt does not currently have a program in Russia, but the results of our technical support and service development lives on and continues to assist children through indigenous Russian agencies.

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Dancing in the Hallways

There is a magical moment when adoptive parents learn that they have a child Twelve floors above the busy streets of New York, the annoying honking of horns faded into the pleasing rise and fall of baritone saxophone scales. A yellow legal pad sat on my desk, just a few lines of copy—dark blue-inked words that now marked a memorable and personally historic significance. A few minutes earlier I had hung up the phone with Mike from Holt International, and I played the conversation over and over again in my mind. “Great news” and “Congratulations” were the words that were delivered with emphasized and heartfelt enthusiasm. I tore off the piece of paper along its perforated edge, folded it, and tucked it in my breast shirt pocket. Minutes later, sitting among colleagues at a large table at Asia de Cuba for an intense lunch meeting, I discretely seized the note and unfolded it for another peek. Co-workers continued to speak, but I heard no words as I covertly glanced down at the written words now unfolded on my lap: Eun Sung, Born November 7, 2004—Girl Later on my way home I stopped at a market across from Grand Central Station to pick up a single red rose. The day’s chill seemed to be gone, warmth filled my heart and eagerness overtook my stride. Gia and Ethan arrived on the 7:37 p.m. train from New Haven, after spending the day

Korea

Desperate conditions in Korea in the years following the war caused the early Holt program to develop methods to help weak and malnourished children survive and regain their heath. Harry Holt along with first Korean assistant, David Kim, developed practices that laid the foundations for Holt’s work today: attentive, loving care along with basic good nutrition, shelter and medical treatment. Harry instinctively knew that all children, and especially those who were dangerously ill, needed the warmth of a caring touch and the encouragement of a loving voice. In response, Holt pioneered foster care to provide family-like environments for young children awaiting adoption. As conditions improved in Korea, needs changed as well. Fewer children were being abandoned due to poverty while the number of children born to single mothers increased. Holt initiated counseling programs for single mothers as well as shelter programs for unwed pregnant women.

with cousins. Back at the apartment all three of us danced in the hallways. We ate pizza and cake. We couldn’t stop smiling. Tomorrow we will receive a much-anticipated FedEx package. In it will be forms, paperwork, medical reports, and other fodder. We will put all of it aside for a moment, however, and go right to the photo of our Daughter. We will put the photo in a frame, place it on the dining room table, and begin to complete the forms. This is a ritual we began with Ethan’s adoption. —Scott Anderson; Orange County, California Ethan Anderson pictured above.

Tim and Laura Sperry received their daughter Mee Ja from Korea in 1993.

ing domestic adoption in the 1960s, but some cultural traditions change slowly. The number of children needing families continues to exceed the number of Korean families open to adoption. While international adoption has been often a controversial issue within Korea, the government advocated for children to have the families they needed. Through the years the Korean government has regulated a consistent and well-devised adoption process that helped children to have secure, loving families.

North Korea Holt International has been working through the North Korean Asia & Pacific Peace Committee since 1998 providing support to this area of the country. Holt provides nutritious biscuits for orphans and children in at-risk families in orphanages and daycare centers in Pyongan Buk/Nam-do and food support to children in the Shinuiju area, because food remains scarce.

Holt International and the government of Korea began promot-

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Vietnam Early April 1975—At Holt International headquarters in Eugene, Oregon, Holt Executive Director Jack Adams gathered staff to pray. For several days no calls or communications could get through to Holt’s Vietnam office, and news out of Vietnam was ominous. The last message said that Holt’s DaNang Center had been abandoned and the children evacuated to Saigon. As the staff prayed, the receptionist excitedly got Adam’s attention... it was a call from the Holt office in Vietnam. Over the following few days, Holt mobilized a massive effort to evacuate children from Vietnam. Adams put all Holt staff on round-the-clock work to complete the necessary documents and arrangements for children in Holt care to be flown to the United States.

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Only children who had been carefully screened and legally relinquished for adoption were sent to the United States. Holt’s bold decisions and steadfast commitment to ethical practice protected the lives of children and saved families from the anguish of correcting wrongs.

When Executive Director Jack Adams sent a Holt survey team to Vietnam in 1972, the situation for children there was similar to those in Korea at the time of Harry Holt’s initial visit. The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam, which began in 1973, left thousands of mixed race children—Amerasians or, as the Vietnamese called them, buidoi, the dust of life. By June 1973, Holt had established a reception center in Saigon and set up an extensive foster home program so that children could have the individual attention of a family while Holt worked at finding homes for them. Holt set up two childcare centers in Saigon and one in DaNang. At that time, some authorities estimated that Vietnam had over 900,000 orphan children, 25,000 of whom lived in orphanages and were in desperate need of permanent homes. In the final chaotic hours of the war, as it became apparent Saigon was about to fall to the North Vietnamese, Holt leadership chose to use its own chartered flight—a decision that kept Holt children from being among those who died in the crash of a U.S. government jet that was part of what became known as the “Baby Lift.” Before mid-April, Holt transported nearly a thousand children from Vietnam to the United States. Most traveled on a chartered PanAm jet with a volunteer crew—a jet for which Holt had to purchase special insurance for the one hour it would spend on the ground in a war zone.

Except for a minor role in uniting Amerasian children with birth parents in the United States, Holt was gone from Vietnam for the next 15 years. Holt returned to Vietnam in 1989 at the invitation of the government of Vietnam. Today, Holt’s efforts in Vietnam stretch from Binh Duong in the south all the way to Hanoi in the north. And like its earlier version, the new Holt-Vietnam program serves through a steadfast commitment to do whatever is best for orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children. Facing page: In the 1970s Holt responded to the needs of thousands of abandoned and vulnerable children in Vietnam, many of whom were ending up in institutions. Above, clockwise from bottom left: Holt’s initial work in Vietnam ended dramatically in April 1975, when Holt evacuated nearly a thousand children who had been legally freed for international adoption. Today Holt’s work in Vietnam encompasses a wide range of services, including efforts to help at-risk families stay together. Holt’s commitment to the children of Vietnam was recently evidenced when Holt maintained its programs and services throughout a moratorium on international adoption. Foster care enables homeless children to benefit from the generous, attentive care of loving foster mothers and fathers until a permanent family can be found.

Holt staff refused to take children from desperate parents.

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“At KBF, we believe that the family is THE essential structure of society... where values, traits and attitudes of individuals are formed and nurtured. Our goal is simple: enable children to grow up in the love and belonging of a family whether it be the birth family or an adoptive family.” —Rosario “Cherrie” dela Rosa, KBF Executive Director

Above: Finding the best permanent family solution for orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children is the mission shared by the Kaisahang Buhay Foundation in the Philippines and Holt International. • Center: KBF celebrated its 30th anniversary in December 2005. • Top right: Rosario “Cherrie” dela Rosa, Executive Director of KBF, looks in on a baby in care, December 2005. KBF is the only nongovernmental organization in the Philippines licensed and accredited by the Department of Social Welfare and Development to place children in domestic adoption. • Lower right: Minnie Dacanay, now retired, helped develop and direct many of KBF’s programs through the 1980s. Later she worked with the Philippines and other Asian programs from the Holt International headquarters in Oregon.

The Philippines

As Holt branched out from Korea to Vietnam, and then on to Thailand and the Philippines in 1975, a new model was maturing. Although the ultimate goal remained to unite every orphaned, abandoned or vulnerable child with a permanent, loving family, the first priority would be to keep a child with his or her birth parents if that were in the child’s best interest. Holt would accomplish this through a broad range of services, developing a strong in-country program intent on long-term solutions. Holt’s work in Korea and Vietnam showed that building a devoted and capable team from within the country offered many benefits. As Holt initiated work in the Philippines, Holt began developing a partner agency led and staffed by Filipino people. The Philippines presented a unique condition: a childcare agency was not allowed to be a childcare institution. Holt’s previous programs had been built on providing attentive care until children could be placed with a family, but in the Philippines, Holt had to find another solution.

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Holt’s partner agency, the Kaisahang Buhay Foundation (working together), was Holt’s mission adapted to the particular needs of the Philippines—a model for nearly all of Holt’s future partner programs. In this case, KBF became a resource for the many orphanages around the country. KBF offered technical assistance and financial support to improve childcare conditions and redirect the institutions toward a new mission—to move children into permanent families rather than retain them in their facilities until they were grown. KBF also developed a model foster care program, single mothers home, daycare and other services to children. Most recently, KBF has developed a model independent living program to support education of children from long-term institutional care. Over the 30 years since its founding, the reach and expert assistance of KBF has brought hope into the lives of thousands of children.

Thailand

Top right: Shortly after the waters of the December 2004 tsunami receded, Holt Sahathai staff arrived on the scene and began bringing help to families. Rebuilding devastated lives takes time, caring and skills. HSF was well prepared and committed to provide long-term help for the families of this region. • Top left: Children watch from a porch as they await a visit from their HSF social worker. Social workers pay home visits to families and children regularly in order to follow up on their situations and the progress they have made as well as to provide necessary guidance, counseling and supervision. • Left: Acharn Darawan Dhamaruksa holds Bunchai, a child with multiple birth anomalies, in this 1984 photo. HSF staff devotedly cared for Bunchai and advocated for his adoption for over eight years until he went to his adoptive family in the United States. Darawan, who led and mentored the staff that built Holt Sahathai into a leading child welfare and family agency, says “Holt Sahathai Foundation has been successful because we have stayed committed to our basic working principle, that mankind owes to the child the best it has to give and that an opportunity to grow up in a loving family is every child’s right.” • Center: Jintana Nontapouraya, who currently leads HSF as executive director, has served as a social worker with HSF since the organization’s beginnings. In this 1984 photo Jintana counsels a foster mother.

Nearly 30 years of serving homeless children and families at risk gave the Holt Sahathai Foundation the tools and skills to respond to a cataclysmic event—the tsunami of December 2004. A year later the stories of people served indicate the depth of this program Holt helped build from the ground up. In 1975 Holt sent a survey team to Thailand. Having recently built a program in Vietnam, Holt was ready for expansion. Thailand already had excellent, trained people. Holt could provide funding and technical assistance. Not long after the survey was completed, Holt staff gathered a team within Thailand and together they launched a new organization—the Holt Sahathai (united hearts) Foundation. From the beginning, it was a Thai program operated by Thai nationals. John Williams, who later became Holt’s President and CEO, helped guide the program over its first four years. Acharn Darawan Dhamaruksa, at that time a professor of social work at Thammasat University in Bangkok, led and mentored the staff who built Holt Sahathai into a leading child welfare and family agency in Thailand.

HSF serves a large number of vulnerable children through a wide variety of programs, many of which help birth families stay together through counseling and assistance. HSF’s strong foster care program provides a highly nurturing environment for children who are likely to need adoptive families outside of Thailand. HSF has a remarkably able and flexible program, one that works with large state programs and helps them develop services and one that interfaces with foreign governments. In the early 1980s HSF provided special care for Cambodian refugee children. HSF continues to develop services for children who have experienced or are at risk of hurt and trauma. The programs that Holt Sahathai put into effect along Thailand’s hard-hit southern coast after the tsunami demonstrate the breadth and depth of its services. Although the programs prioritize the needs of children who lost parents or caregivers and families that lost homes and jobs, they include community rehabilitation and development, counseling and guidance, educational sponsorship and nutrition promotion services, and activity groups for widows, displaced persons, kinship family groups and teenagers.

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India

Dramatic strides for homeless and vulnerable children

“Our first priority is for the child’s survival...”

These words—spoken some 20 years ago by Lata Joshi, then executive director of Holt’s partner agency, Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra—reveal the urgency of Holt’s early work in India. In the mid 1970s mortality of children under two years old in government-run institutions ran as high as 70 percent. Over the 30 years since then, Holt established work in farflung parts of India such as Kashmir in the far north, Tamil Nadu in the far south and several places in between. Today, Holt partner agencies in Pune, Bangalore and Mumbai continue their life-saving work. Highly dedicated, caring and professional staff at Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra (BSSK in Pune) and Vathsalya Charitable Trust (VCT in Bangalore) developed and maintained a level of care that reduced infant mortality nearly to zero despite taking in some of the weakest and most vulnerable children. Another longtime partner, Children of the World, Bombay (CWB) founded by Children of the World, Norway with Holt support, provides innovative services to meet the needs of vulnerable children in its community. Adoption was almost unheard of in India when Holt established its first India efforts. But today over 60 percent of the children that come into Holt’s care are placed with parents within India. “Caring for children is the best thing....” says Mary Paul, Executive Director of VCT. “This is not a job. It’s a way of life for each one of us now. And we wouldn’t want to exchange it for anything else. And so we thank God for the opportunity to work for these little ones.”

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Top left: Lata Joshi, former Executive Director, led BSSK through many years of program development and caring for children. Clockwise from above: Mary Paul, VCT Director, holds a child in care, 2004. The original BSSK bungalow in Pune, India, c. 1985. Dr. Navarange examines a baby at the Nishant neonatal unit, 2003. Children beg on the streets in southern India, c. 1978. Children receive loving care in the playroom at Children of the World Bombay, 2000. Roxana Kalyanvala, BSSK Executive Director, holds a child at the Nishant childcare center, 2000. A childcare worker holds a child in front of an earlier VCT building in Bangalore, 1994. Holt’s partner agency, “Share Care” in Srinigar, helped homeless children to have families until fighting in disputed Kashmir forced the program to close. In this photo then Director of International Programs (later President and CEO) John Williams holds a child while Share Care director Dr. Shanta Sanyal looks on.

Padmini, photographed while in the care of BSSK in 1988, reflects the sparkle of life of a child who is loved. A year later Holt placed Padmini with an adoptive family in the United States. Today, she is Pamela Kaspin, with Kayla, a daughter of her own. Pamela is a fulltime student planning a career as an elementary teacher.

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Latin America Clockwise from top: David Kim, the first person hired by Harry Holt to help him in Korea and who later became President Emeritus of Holt, was once asked by fellow Holt employee Susan Cox what he believed was the most important contribution of adoption in Korea. He answered without hesitation, ”Elevating the importance of homeless and orphaned children.” Dr. Kim, who helped lead Holt International into new programs in Latin America, visits with a boy in Holt care in Bolivia, c.1985 • Holt-Ecuador, under the leadership of long-time Director Magdalena Cuvi, has helped hundreds of families stay together through family preservation and reunification services. Holt-Ecuador offered a wide variety of support to families whose children were at-risk. These services included: scholarships for kids, medical treatment, temporary aid, therapies, and legal protection, advocacy and more. • Blanca de Morales, long-time director of Holt’s partner agency in Guatemala, provides leadership and vision that make it a priority to give each child personal attention every day, c.1999. • Holt joined with parishioners of a church to help children at the Pimpollo orphanage in southern Mexico—2000–2002.

Over the past 50 years Holt has had a presence in over 30 countries, focused on the needs of children and opportunities to serve them. Holt’s work, particularly in intercountry adoption, is based in part on regulations established by governments that enable such placements to take place. Governments change, as do other events and conditions affecting this sometimes politically charged service. In the face of harsh socioeconomic factors that leave children without families and in dire situations, Holt established programs in a number of Latin American countries in the mid-1980s. One hospital in Brazil reported that out of 400 infants born in that facility each month, 20 percent would be abandoned. Since the mid-1980s, much has changed, particularly in Latin America and countries formerly tied to and relating closely with the Soviet Union. In many countries in Latin America, authorities made intercountry adoption more restrictive, which in turn made it difficult to maintain programs. In countries such as Costa Rica and Chile, conditions improved for children, lessening the need for international organizations like Holt International. Although a number of Holt programs in Latin America never achieved the scale hoped for, the efforts of Holt’s devoted staff and partners made a profound difference in the lives of the children they served. In Ecuador, for example,

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our staff established model foster care and family preservation services that benefited many children.

Holt in Guatemala Often recognized as a model of ethical practice, Holt’s partner agency, Asociación Para la Integración Familiar (APIF), strives to serve the best interests of children, most of whom are young toddlers who have been referred for care and services by the Minors Courts. APIF provides loving care to vulnerable children in its childcare centers in Guatemala City. The agency offers an alternative to large institutional care and includes services to reunite families and promote adoptive placement when returning home is not in the child’s best interest. In 1998, about 30 percent of the children being cared for by APIF were in temporary foster care programs. Those numbers are on the increase as APIF works to place these children with permanent families. Everyone’s job description includes the responsibility to pay extra special attention to a specific child within the group and to meet their needs as they arise. This gives the APIF staff permission to take the time for the children, even if the day-to-day duties do not always get done.

Romania A steadfast role in improving child welfare

“When I get out of hospital My brothers are expecting me home Happy that I am out away And take me in to their game.” —Translation from a poem by a young boy dying of AIDS Close to You Foundation, Romania

Clockwise from top: When a family struggles to have enough food to eat and a safe place to live, they become increasingly desperate and the children become dangerously vulnerable. Holt’s partner agencies in Romania strive to prevent the damaging effects of abuse, neglect, abandonment and institutionalization. • Angela Achitei serves as Executive Director of the Close To You Foundation (CTY), one of two Holt partner agencies in Romania. CTY serves children and families affected by HIV/AIDS. • “‘Each child has the right to his own family’ is more than a fundamental right of the child or a motto that has become so well known all over the world. It is our reason to exist as a Romanian nongovernmental organization,” says Livia Trif, Executive Country Director, Holt Romania Foundation. • Baby Petru stands on his foster mother’s lap as she showers him with love and kisses in Tirgu Mures, 1999.

The collapse of the Ceausescu government in 1990 left behind a deeply wounded society. Haunting images of children in broken-down institutions mobilized aid of all kinds. Holt International was among the first to enter. But rather than immediately move large numbers of children out of the country, Holt trained staff to investigate the backgrounds of institutionalized children. Many of the children, as it turned out, could be returned to birth parents or adopted by Romanian families. Using funds provided through a series of USAID grants in the 1990s, Holt developed a wide range of services in Romania, including foster care and programs for children who tested HIV-positive. Holt advocated for well-regulated adoption processes to protect the rights of children, birth families and adoptive parents, but weak controls allowed a host of unethical adoption practitioners to profit from children. In response Romania placed a morato-

rium on all international adoptions in 1999. Many agencies left the country. But Holt International remained committed to children in need. Holt continues to reach out to vulnerable children through its two partner agencies in Romania—the Holt Romania Foundation and Close to You. Today, Holt’s Romania partner agencies continue to touch the lives of thousands of children—strengthening their families, preventing abandonment, and enabling families to fulfill their own wish to provide stable, loving homes for their children. When Holt President and CEO Gary Gamer visited Holt-funded facilities in Romania in July 2005 and talked to local officials, the deputy mayor of one town told him that Holt had “changed the way we think about children.” In many ways, Holt has brought about significant changes in the way Romania cares for homeless and vulnerable children.

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China

“Adoption is like a journey. You travel beautiful mountains and valleys, but sometimes it’s hard too.”

— Bi Jian Jun, Executive Director of Holt China Children’s Services and Country Director for Holt’s China Program, speaking at an orientation for adoptive parents in China to receive their children, March 2005.

Above: A child in care, 2004 • Clockwise from top: Bi Jian Jun, Executive Director of Holt China Children’s Services and Country Director for Holt’s China Program, enjoys the teamwork of her job and considers the work she does for children a privilege. She says she finds inspiration in those she works with and keeps the goal of finding families for children close to her heart. Here she hugs a child in care at Lanzhou, March 2005. • The childcare supervisor at the Nanchang Orphanage baby unit models affectionate care that helps children survive and develop, March 2005. • A foster mother holds a child, Fuzhou, 2004. Foster families lavish children placed in their care with love and attention, and then release them to their adoptive families. Despite the attachment that invariably grows between these children and temporary parents, most foster mothers and fathers continue to take in children. • At the White Swan Hotel, Renée Lemley gives daughter Emerson Gray her first bath after she received her, Autumn 2004. • Holt adoptees Grace Kirkpatrick, left, and Emily Young, right, play dress-up on Holt International’s first ever Family Tour to China, June 2005. • Jian Chen, Holt’s U.S. Director of International Programs for China, visits a boy in care at a group home in Nanchang, March 2005.

When Holt President, David Kim, and Director of International Programs, John Williams, surveyed conditions in China in 1993, they came across a ward in one institution where nearly every child was dangerously weak. David picked up one especially malnourished child and asked for formula. At first the little girl wouldn’t feed, but holding her tiny body, he massaged her feet to stimulate circulation. The little girl’s listless eyes regained some luster as she looked at David and began to feed. Holt immediately began to mobilize for a significant effort in the People’s Republic of China, operating at first out of its small program in Hong Kong and assisting a privately run foster care project in Guangxi province. Building on concepts developed in this program, Holt took a new and unique approach. Among its first efforts was to begin placing orphanage children into well-managed and loving local foster homes, combining this with a “Baby Care Unit” that provided intensive care for the highest risk children in the orphanage. Holt worked together as an equal partner with government-run orphanages to initiate programs that could

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gradually be taken over by local management and support, saving the lives of hundreds of children while protecting them from the debilitating effects of growing up in an institution. To this day, Holt enjoys a relationship of trust with the Chinese government and is recognized as a pioneer in cooperative and culturally sensitive foster care and other support, reaching out to nearly 3,000 abandoned children every year around China in locations far from the larger well-traveled cities. Holt was one of the first American adoption agencies to facilitate adoptions from China and is among those officially sanctioned for placement of children by the China Center for Adoption Affairs, the government agency that oversees international adoption. Now with offices in Beijing and Guangzhou, Holt stands out with its team of full-time experienced local staff, who guide adoptive parents on their journey in China and oversee a host of efforts helping homeless children across China.

Into Our Arms

A father celebrates the joy and wonder of adoption Four years ago in a sun-dappled room in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, 14 families waited to meet their daughters. A provincial official greeted us through a translator and explained the process we would go through over the next few days. She concluded her talk with: “We are giving into your care our daughters.” She explained that China expected us to love and care for these young girls. “They will become your daughters soon,” she said, “and when they do, you will be part of the family of China. I welcome you to our family.” That was the day we received Marit. Now 5 years old, she is a true wonder. She is tall and lithe, excels at ballet and loves to dance. Her bright, nearly black eyes are a window on a mind that is constantly at work. Smart, articulate, kind and sensitive, she loves to draw and is rather good at it. She has been infinitely patient with us as we learn how to be the parents she needs and deserves. Since traveling to China with us in 2003 to bring Mattie home, she has grown into a fantastic big sister. Put simply, she has become the daughter we could only dream about a few short years ago. When she calls us Mommy and Daddy, we marvel at our good fortune to be the ones to bear those titles for her and her sister. Mattie was a tiny 15-month-old when we welcomed her in a hotel room in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Since then, Mattie has grown into a happy, self-assured 3-year-old with an infectious laugh, a personality that knows no strangers, and a smile that could light up any of the smaller, Eastern states. She thinks nothing of walking up to any person on the street and saying, “My name’s Mattie! What’s your name?” We try not to get too unnerved by this little habit and, to date, the only result has been that several persons needing a kind word got their day brightened. She’s taught us quite a lot in two short years. As always on our “Forever Family Days,” we take a moment to remember the birth parents of our daughters. For unknown reasons they set our girls on their paths to us. For those acts of hope and love, we will always be thankful. We only wish that some day we could meet them to thank them in person and tell them that everything has worked out just fine. To those of you who have been on a similar journey of your own, all we can say is “Ain’t life grand?” And to those of you waiting for that first moment with your child: May that wait be short, your journey safe and swift and may it bring you all the joy and wonder we have come to know. —Tim Chauvin Nacogdoches, Texas Top: Tim and Wynter Chauvin with Marit at the U.S. Consulate in China, 2001. That’s Marit Chauvin on the left and Mattie, with pigtails, on the right.

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Mongolia

After the abrupt dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Mongolia lost all economic subsidies literally overnight. Some 40 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line. Half of those are under 16 years old. Unable to provide for their children, some families abandoned their children. Others sought help from the government. In 1999 Holt began a partnership with the Naidvar Center in Ulaanbaatar to assist homeless children in Mongolia. Holt provided training and technical assistance through staff such as John Williams and Gary Gamer, who went there to advise, and David Lim, who traveled there to lead workshops. The Holt-supported Rainbow Special Baby Care unit began caring for toddlers in cooperation with the government institution. Many of the children enter this program malnourished; however, the care and assistance provided by Holt enables most of the children to be healthy by the time they are returned to birth parents or united with their adoptive parents.

Like a tidal wave of death, AIDS swept across Africa leaving millions of children without parents. Suddenly young children became the heads of households, trying to raise, protect and provide for themselves and even younger siblings. To address this need Holt joined with Action For Children (AFC) to develop support among extended family members and within the children’s communities to create new stable family units and enable the children to attend school. “If no one cares, we do,” says AFC Chairperson Jolly Nyeko, who founded AFC in 1997. “It changes a child’s whole world view, just to know that someone outside his household is there for him or her.” Although international adoption was not permitted at the time, Holt and AFC developed comprehensive programs to help orphaned Ugandan youth reach “atenge,” which means stability and commitment to staying together within a family or community context. This insures as close as possible to family-like conditions. Dan Lauer, Holt Senior Executive for Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Haiti, describes AFC’s family preservation program as the most in depth and comprehensive Holt has.

Uganda Offering children a hope and a future

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AFC’s services contain a community and group component that surrounds children with community and group support. Services include child sponsorships, grandparent support for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, home-based parenting groups, children’s clubs, parent education, training and start-up funds for small family-run businesses (every family must work) and other forms of help. Holt is working to develop intercountry adoption for those children who were abandoned. Far left: The devastating effects of the AIDS pandemic in subSaharan Africa has left nearly a whole generation of children without parents. Children’s Brigade is one of the initiatives promoted by Holt’s partner agency in Uganda, Action for Children. AFC forms small local councils to determine the best strategies for children to have safe, stable homes. • Center: Jolly Nyeko, Founder and Chairperson of AFC, walks with a group of youngsters, 2003. “Our children are our future,” she says. • Left: AFC Director Lydia Nyesigomwe hugs two children receiving Holt care in Uganda, 2005.

Haiti

Protecting children in the Western hemisphere’s poorest country

Peter and Shay Fontana founded the facility that in 2004 became Holt Fontana Village. In a country virtually devoid of social services and where many parents are unable to find work to support even basic human needs, children often suffer the most. “Orphans literally live on the streets, eating out of garbage cans,” Peter Fontana says.

Holt joined with the Fontanas and began accepting children into care in late 2004, helping to develop intake policies and childcare procedures to protect the children’s rights and encourage healthy development. “Here we are in one of the poorest countries in the world, but the Fontana Village is one of the best childcare facilities anywhere,” says Gary Gamer, Holt President and CEO. “The Fontana’s built the place and Holt International provides the services. The ‘least of these’ are really coming first. They really deserve this.” The village has room for 30 children, and new buildings are under construction. Peter Fontana, a physicist, installed state-of-the-art water purification and solar electrical systems. Holt provides the services and is the only agency in Haiti integrating services with the intention of doing family preservation work. Holt is actively engaged in intercountry adoption for children in care. Clockwise from top: These seven girls, among the first children to be cared for at Holt Fontana Village, celebrate Christmas 2004 in their finest clothes. • Children in care pose with staff members in front of one of the Holt-funded houses, June 2005. • This is the doctor who makes frequent visits to Holt Fontana Village to check on the children’s health. • Shay Fontana worked briefly for Holt International as a translator in Latin America in the 1980s, and she remembered Holt when she and her husband, Peter, wanted to develop their work in Haiti. Shay, shown here with one of her daughters, visits with children in Haiti, c. 2003.

Ukraine

Fresh air and sunshine at a camp in the Ukrainian countryside. Imagine what this might mean to an HIV-positive child.

Children from Holt’s street shelter program and from families in crisis attended last summer’s Sunshine Camp program. Staff got to know the children well and used this program as a springboard to provide services best suited for them, including foster placements and family reunification and preservation activities. Established during the tumultuous 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, Holt’s new Families for Children Project (FCP) is being funded by a three-year, $3.2 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Based on lessons learned from long experience in Russia, Holt now provides family-based care for homeless, abandoned and at-risk children in Ukraine. Holt focuses on children who are disabled or who have other special needs. Holt also serves families and children affected by HIV/AIDS. Holt trains social workers and provides family support as a means to prevent and alleviate the impact of HIV/AIDS on children and to lessen the stigma and discrimination faced by these children. Holt’s goal is to develop sustainable model programs and improved standards of services that will reduce institutionalization of children and promote family-based care alternatives, including family preservation, foster care, family-type homes and domestic adoption.

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Gatherings such as the annual Holt picnic held at the Holt family farm in Creswell, Oregon, presented an opportunity for families to support one another and share helpful information on raising adopted children from another country.

United States They were pioneers—the families who adopted children during Holt’s early years.

Several times they banded together to defend international adoption from detractors who sought to outlaw the practice. They had to learn from each other how best to raise their adopted children. And so they shared a special kinship when they gathered together. In 1957 Harry and Bertha Holt invited adoptive families to a sort of reunion on the Holt farm near Creswell, Oregon. That was the beginning of an annual tradition that has grown and spread around the United States. Families still get together at Holt picnics—to share their adoption stories, admire each other’s children and give their children a chance to play with other international adoptees. Adoptive family picnics are but one example of Holt’s life-long commitment to international adoptees and their families. David Kim, a former president of Holt, recognized the great value of bringing adult adoptees back for a tour of their birth country. These “Motherland Tours” enable adoptees to gain a firsthand appreciation for their cultural heritage. Tours often bring the solace that they were loved in their birth country and that adoption was a necessity in their lives.

50th Anniversary 2006

Top to bottom: Adoptees from several nations appear in this photo from the 2002 Oregon Heritage Camp. In collaboration with three other organizations, Holt sponsored the first international conference for adult Korean adoptees in 1999 in Washington, DC. In this 1977 photo of one of the first Motherland Tours to Korea, Bertha Holt appears in the center with David Kim at far right.

For child welfare officials, staff and foster parents, the return of confident, successful, well-educated adult adoptees is a strong confirmation of the decisions they are making in the lives of children today. Dr. Kim’s first Motherland Tour brought adoptees back to Korea in 1975. Since then over 3,000 adoptees have gone on similar tours to Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, India and, most recently, China. In the early 1980s David Kim also developed a camp for young adoptees. The original camps focused on cultural activities, but some of the strongest benefits were long-lasting friendships between international adoptees and the opportunity to benefit from the experiences of more mature adoptee counselors. In the 1990s Holt developed a collection of services to promote a successful adoption and adjustment throughout the adoptee’s life. Some of these “Post Adoption Services” include: referral services for professional counseling, information searches for medical or personal history, and searches to connect adoptees with their birth relatives.

The Power of One, the Power of Many by Gary N. Gamer, President and CEO

Holt staff recently celebrated the birthday of Grandma Bertha Holt by telling stories of her life. We remembered how she made all children feel special. We remembered how she faithfully recorded prayer requests—and God’s answers—in a simple notebook. We all knew Grandma kept on praying until the person who made the request let her know the prayer had been answered. Anyone who met Bertha Holt sensed immediately the pureness in her heart and actions. People resonated with this purity. It drew out the best in all of us. And it enabled Holt International to identify others with the same commitment to children across national boundaries and cultures. It drew in Susan Cox, an early adoptee from Korea, who joined Holt’s Board of Directors at age 24. In 1993 she participated in designing the Hague Convention of International Adoption Law. Today she positively affects the lives of many people around the world as Holt’s Vice President of Public Policy and External Affairs. Susan says that the work she does to secure policies in the best interest of the child is a direct reflection of the work initiated by Bertha Holt some 50 years ago, when Bertha led the charge for legislation enabling the adoption and immigration of the Holt’s eight children from Korea. David Kim was drawn in by the tough, tireless and compassionate commitment he witnessed in Harry Holt. In the five decades since David became Mr. Holt’s first hire in Korea, he has put his faith into action as Holt’s Ambassador to the World. Just last October, we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of Holt Children’s Services of Korea, where Dr. Kim was honored with the highest civilian award that can be conferred by the Korean government. Dr. Kim took his unique ability to transcend culture on behalf of children to many corners of the world. Former Holt CEOs Jack Adams and John Williams worked closely with Bertha Holt and David Kim. They were inspired to move Holt International’s mission for every child to have a permanent, loving home to new levels of professionalism and new geographic areas. Along with Glen Noteboom, who worked for Holt in a number of key capacities, they traveled with Grandma Holt to many countries where Holt was called to set up programs. They encountered individuals such as Acharn Darawan Dhamaruksa in Thailand and Mrs. Lata Joshi in India. These two visionaries became leaders of agencies in their respective countries—agencies that are unequalled in skill, commitment and service to children. I think you are getting the picture here. The torch has been passed to many, the flames have spread and taken on fresh colors

and shapes through new people and new countries. Each of these people I mentioned has displayed at least two essential characteristics. One is faith and the imperative the Almighty brings to this mission. The Holts’ commitment to Jesus undergirded all that they did. Such a strong belief requires action and gives hope even under the most trying of circumstances. Another is a commitment to children—particularly those who are powerless—and an understanding that families are crucial for every child to realize their God-given potential. Each of the individuals I have mentioned would say that their success was heavily dependent on others. They made an impact only because of other’s compassion and commitment. Examples include: • the Filipino childcare worker who gives unqualified love and care • the government official who listens to that nagging little voice within that says, “Yes, I can and should put this child ahead of many other more visible and politically advantageous interests.” • the U.S. family or a business in China giving Holt financial support to change the lives of many children • foster parents in Romania or adoptive parents in India who can make extra room in their hearts and home to create a better future for a child • the distant relative in Uganda who, with just minimal outside support, can take in the orphan who lost her parents to AIDS. Engaging people of good will—and such people are everywhere—is crucial to Holt International’s ability to make inroads in addressing the global crisis of children outside of family care. I thank all of you taking part in Holt’s mission to children. Through your prayers, your dedication and your support, you inspire me and others—just as Harry and Bertha Holt inspired others in their time.

Left: Pat Keltie, long-time Holt social worker who served for many years as the Director of Holt’s New Jersey office, holds the first child brought into Holt care in Vietnam. File photo, 1973. • Above: Gary Gamer, Holt President and CEO, holds a child in care at the Fengcheng orphanage nursery, Jiangxi Province, China 2005.

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My Name is Life Many call me “Orphan,” but my name is “Life”… Many call me “Fatherless,” but my name is “Hope”… Many call me “the Dust of Life,” but my name is “Love”…

finding families for children

Post Office Box 2880 • Eugene OR 97402

finding families

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finding families for children

Some only see me the “orphan” child looking up from the ground, sad imploring eyes, and tattered clothes, the child standing beside the door. But my spirit is steel… My will, a searing flame. Music resounds in my soul. Laughter waits inside me. Generations of children dwell within me. My own children Will be your grandchildren. Though I always have been, always will be, my own person, dreaming my own dreams. My life reflects the touch of all who have touched my life by John Aeby, 1996 excerpted from a video narration

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