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June
Volume
8
25,
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¥
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1999
Number 39
Serving Catholics
Inside
—
Herald ...Page
3
New priest assignments
WEAVERVILLE Children and adults played volleyball or strolled on the green grass around the weathered barn or fished in a nearby pond. Parents shepherded gurgling toddlers eager to explore on legs new to walking.
...Page
3
Not a family reunion but a reunion of families. Some 250 people had come to the Claxton Farm, near Weaverville, from such places as Atlanta, Ga.; Mobile,
Slowing the fast track: Cardinals propose bishops stay put
...Page
Ala.; Alexandria, Va.; Indianapolis, In.,
7
Greensboro, Charlotte and Asheville, N.C.; to enjoy a picnic
—
Local News Church welcomes new
members through RCIA
to
12-13
grounded
in a
shared experience the parents were Americans, the children were natives of Russia and China. The International Adoption Program, sponsored by Catholic Social Services of the Charlotte Diocese, and administered out of CSS's Western Regional Office in Asheville, had made the miracles possible. Parents had achieved "the dream of a lifetime," as Robert Boggs wrote in a letter to the
CSS
CSS Hand
office in Charlotte.
Boggs and
his wife, Denise,
who
live in Alexandria, are typical
Hand program
who
parents
...Page
16
fvery Week Editorials
the Diocese of Charlotte
By JOANITA M. N ELLEN BACH Correspondent
Catholic News
State honors
in
to international adoption program
staff of The
...Pages
Western North Carolina
CSS lends services, essential spirit
Writer joins
&
in
& Columns ...Pages
4-5
Entertainment Pages 10-11
of the avail themselves of the
International Adoption Program. They had found their best route to adoption by going to another country. The Boggs started with a private nonprofit agency in Washington, D.C., but things didn't work out. "We contacted Catholic Social
Photo by Joanita M. Nellenbach
A
dandelion intrigues Grace Kohrs, now 19 months old. She came home from Russia Dec. 23 with her new parents, Kathy (holding her) and Richard Kohrs of Hickory, N.C. tell them apart. "We put them facing each other on the couch,
sister,
Services in North Carolina (Asheville)
and their eyes
based on an excellent article written in
for
my
ment," Boggs said at the picnic.
contact with Lois Miller (the International Adoption coordinator in Atlanta) and
company's newspaper by a very satisfied couple who had adopted a little boy from Russia," Boggs wrote. They worked with Carol wife's
Meyerriecks, the International Adoption coordinator in the Asheville CSS office, to complete the necessary pa-
perwork and home study. In December, the lAP offered them the chance to adopt twin girls who had been born the previous August. They immediately accepted, and in April traveled to
Moscow
to see the children.
first visit with Anna and was emotional. "We were just crying," Boggs said at the picnic. "We couldn't believe how great they
Their
Irina
looked." first
Meeting their new parents for the time was also an eye-opener, of
sorts, for the babies,
kept
in
who had been
separate cribs so hospital per-
sonnel could
and they reached each other; that was a neat molit
up,
Emma, is 18 months old. "We knew we wanted two
dren,"
Marlene
said.
"Our
chil-
first
—
we felt so comthem we never considered going anywhere else."
Anna and Irina, renamed Glenna Roberta and Natalie Alyene in honor of their new American grandmothers, were kicking and cooing in their portable playpen and smiling at all the admiring looks from parents whose own stories were similar to the Boggs'. Over by the pond, Aaron Kohrs, 5, was fishing while his mother, Kathy, watched over Russian-born 19month-old Grace, blowing the seeds off" dandelions nearby. Kathy and her husband, Richard, had adopted Aaron, born in this country, through CSS in
she had wanted to parent her own youngsters. "I had always wanted children, but never found the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with," she
Charlotte.
said.
"I
trust CSS,"
Kathy
said. "It
must
be wonderful to know you're a part of getting all these children homes." Marlene and Jim Sidon of Atlanta also adopted two children through the lAP. Nikolai is now 2 l/2; his new
Carol Meyerriecks
fortable with
Jim said
his greatest joy has been,
"Just seeing the changes in the chil-
dren.
It's
such a blessing having the
two of them. We're so Clara Brunk also
fortunate." feels fortunate.
Principal of a school in Mobile, Ala.,
Through lAP she is the mother of Dawson Eugene, now 11, and
Vasily
Vladimer Ethan Ross, now 6, whom she adopted last summer. Clara said
See
adoption
PICNIC, page
15