My Name is Life - Holt International
My Name is Life - Holt International
My Name is Life - Holt International
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<strong>My</strong> <strong>Name</strong> <strong>is</strong> <strong>Life</strong><br />
Many call me “Orphan,”<br />
but my name <strong>is</strong> “<strong>Life</strong>”…<br />
Many call me “Fatherless,”<br />
but my name <strong>is</strong> “Hope”…<br />
Many call me “the Dust of <strong>Life</strong>,”<br />
but my name <strong>is</strong> “Love”…<br />
50th Anniversary 2006 Vol. 48 No. 2<br />
finding families<br />
for children<br />
finding families<br />
for children<br />
Some only see me<br />
the “orphan” child<br />
looking up from the ground,<br />
sad imploring eyes,<br />
and tattered clothes,<br />
the child standing beside the door.<br />
But my spirit <strong>is</strong> steel…<br />
<strong>My</strong> will, a searing flame.<br />
Music resounds in my soul.<br />
Laughter waits inside me.<br />
Generations of children<br />
dwell within me.<br />
<strong>My</strong> own children<br />
Will be your grandchildren.<br />
Though I always have been,<br />
always will be,<br />
my own person,<br />
dreaming my own dreams.<br />
<strong>My</strong> life reflects the touch of all<br />
who have touched my life<br />
by John Aeby, 1996<br />
excerpted from a video narration<br />
finding families<br />
for children<br />
Post Office Box 2880 • Eugene OR 97402<br />
Nonprofit Org<br />
US Postage<br />
Paid<br />
Eugene OR<br />
Permit No. 291<br />
Change Service for<br />
finding children<br />
families<br />
Requested<br />
finding families<br />
for children<br />
Pursuing the dream...<br />
a home for every child
From Your<br />
Heart...<br />
to Your<br />
Home<br />
Fulfilling the dream<br />
of a family<br />
for over 50 years.<br />
Adoption from China<br />
and other countries<br />
www.holtinternational.org<br />
1-888-355-HOLT<br />
finding families<br />
for children<br />
Dear Readers<br />
When we set out to produce th<strong>is</strong> special 50th anniversary edition of <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> magazine,<br />
we knew we could include only some of the highlights of <strong>Holt</strong>’s h<strong>is</strong>tory. The more we worked on<br />
th<strong>is</strong> project, the more wonderful stories and photos we had to leave out. Still, we hope we’ve<br />
captured some of the sweep and breadth of th<strong>is</strong> wonderful story.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s rich h<strong>is</strong>tory <strong>is</strong> populated with the lives of children, with workers and leaders who dedicated<br />
themselves to the principle that children need families, and with contributors whose sacrificial<br />
giving exemplifies a belief in the value of every child. Devoted people have brought their hard<br />
work, skills and resources to place children into the loving arms of permanent parents, and we are<br />
grateful for everyone.<br />
We thank God for the incredible privilege of helping children. God’s hand has guided <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong><br />
through many difficult circumstances. And we pra<strong>is</strong>e Him for so many glorious moments<br />
when we’ve seen H<strong>is</strong> hand touching the life of a child and allowing us to be a part of H<strong>is</strong> work.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s h<strong>is</strong>tory <strong>is</strong> a valuable reminder of the Source of <strong>Holt</strong>’s success, but th<strong>is</strong> h<strong>is</strong>tory only introduces<br />
us to the challenges ahead.<br />
Those of you who read th<strong>is</strong> publication now are a part of the continuing <strong>Holt</strong> story. So much<br />
remains to be done. There are yet children around the world who need the love and belonging of<br />
a family. You have a vital role in the lives of those children… and in the next chapters of <strong>Holt</strong>’s<br />
h<strong>is</strong>tory.<br />
contents<br />
A Legacy of Love<br />
The <strong>Holt</strong> Story 4<br />
A couple from rural Oregon changed<br />
the world of adoption<br />
Harry and Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> 8<br />
Profiles of faith, love and determination<br />
Adopting—the early years 12<br />
The firsthand account of an adoptive mother<br />
who witnessed one of the greatest cr<strong>is</strong>es <strong>Holt</strong><br />
<strong>International</strong> ever faced<br />
Molly <strong>Holt</strong> 13<br />
In 1955 she committed her life to serving<br />
the children of Korea<br />
A Legacy of Caring<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s 50-year legacy 14<br />
of serving children around the world<br />
President’s Message 31<br />
The Power of One… and Many<br />
Gary Gamer highlights people who helped<br />
children to have families.<br />
A n I n t e r n a t i o n a l C o n f e r e n c e H o s t e d b y H o l t I n t e r n a t i o n a l<br />
—John Aeby, Editor<br />
Cover: For 50 years <strong>Holt</strong> has<br />
sought to elevate the status of<br />
homeless children around the<br />
world. While <strong>Holt</strong> develops<br />
innovative programs every year,<br />
simple human caring remains<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s greatest tool for helping<br />
children thrive until they can be<br />
placed with a permanent family.<br />
Two girls in China, 2005.<br />
A conference for international leaders working on behalf<br />
of orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children around<br />
the world. Go to the website for more information:<br />
www.holtinternational.org/conference<br />
50th Anniversary Edition 2006 vol. 48 no. 2<br />
holt international children’s services<br />
P.O. Box 2880 (1195 City View) Eugene, OR 97402<br />
Ph: 541/687.2202 Fax: 541/683.6175<br />
our m<strong>is</strong>sion<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> <strong>is</strong> dedicated to carrying out God’s plan for<br />
every child to have a permanent, loving family.<br />
In 1955 Harry and Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> responded to the conviction<br />
that God had called them to help children left homeless by the<br />
Korean War. Though it took an act of the U.S. Congress, the<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>s adopted eight of those children. But they were moved by<br />
the desperate plight of other orphaned children in Korea and other<br />
countries as well, so they founded <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> Children’s<br />
Services in order to unite homeless children with families who<br />
would love them as their own. Today <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> serves<br />
children and families in Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Ecuador,<br />
Guatemala, Haiti, India, Korea, Mongolia, the Philippines,<br />
Romania, Thailand, the United States, Uganda, Ukraine and<br />
Vietnam.<br />
president & ceo Gary N. Gamer<br />
vice-president of programs & services Carole Stiles<br />
vice-president of marketing & development Phillip A. Littleton<br />
vice-president of public policy & advocacy Susan Soon-keum Cox<br />
vice-president of finance & admin<strong>is</strong>tration Kevin Sweeney<br />
board of directors<br />
chair James D. Barfoot vice-chair Julia K. Banta president emeritus<br />
Dr. David H. Kim secretary Claire A. Noland members Andrew R.<br />
Bailey, Rebecca C. Brandt, Kim S. Brown, Wilma R. Cheney,<br />
Clinton C. Cottrell, Will C. Dantzler, Cynthia G. Dav<strong>is</strong>, A.<br />
Paul D<strong>is</strong>dier, Rosser B. Edwards, David L. Hafner, Jeffrey B.<br />
Saddington, Shirley M. Stewart, Steven Stirling<br />
holt international magazine <strong>is</strong> publ<strong>is</strong>hed bimonthly by <strong>Holt</strong><br />
<strong>International</strong> Children’s Services, Inc., a nonprofit Chr<strong>is</strong>tian child<br />
welfare organization. While <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> <strong>is</strong> responsible for the<br />
content of <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> magazine, the viewpoints expressed in<br />
th<strong>is</strong> publication are not necessarily those of the organization.<br />
editor John Aeby<br />
managing editor Alice Evans<br />
graphic design & LAYOUT Brian Campbell<br />
ass<strong>is</strong>tant Sara Moss<br />
subscription orders/inquiries and address changes<br />
Send all editorial correspondence and changes of address to <strong>Holt</strong><br />
<strong>International</strong> magazine, <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong>, P.O. Box 2880, Eugene,<br />
OR 97402. We ask for an annual donation of $20 to cover the<br />
cost of publication and mailing inside the United States and $40<br />
outside the United States. <strong>Holt</strong> welcomes the contribution of<br />
letters and articles for publication, but assumes no responsibility<br />
for return of letters, manuscripts, or photos.<br />
reprint information<br />
Perm<strong>is</strong>sion from <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> <strong>is</strong> required prior to reprinting any<br />
portion of <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> magazine. Please direct reprint requests<br />
to editor John Aeby at 541/687.2202 or johna@holtinternational.org.<br />
arkansas office<br />
5016 Western Hills Ave., Little Rock, AR 72204<br />
Ph/Fax: 501/568.2827<br />
california office<br />
3807 Pasadena Ave., Suite 115, Sacramento, CA 95821<br />
Ph: 916/487.4658 Fax: 916/487.7068<br />
midwest office serving iowa, nebraska and south dakota<br />
10685 Bedford Ave., Suite 300, Omaha, NE 68134<br />
Ph: 402/934.5031 Fax: 402/934.5034<br />
m<strong>is</strong>souri office/kansas office<br />
203 Huntington Rd., Kansas City, MO 64113<br />
Ph: 816/822.2169 Fax: 816/523.8379<br />
122 W. 5th St., Garnett, KS 66032<br />
M<strong>is</strong>souri@holtinternational.org<br />
oregon office<br />
Capitol Plaza 9320 SW Barbur Blvd., Suite 220, Portland, OR 97219<br />
Ph: 503/244.2440 Fax: 503/245.2498<br />
new jersey office<br />
340 Scotch Rd. (2nd Floor), Trenton, NJ 08628<br />
Ph: 609/882.4972 Fax: 609/883.2398<br />
Copyright ©2006 by <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> Children’s Services, Inc.<br />
ISSN 1047-7640<br />
www.
The <strong>Holt</strong> Story<br />
Harry and Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> would ins<strong>is</strong>t that they were ordinary. And in their simplicity abides<br />
much of the beauty of what they accompl<strong>is</strong>hed. The work was never about them… it was<br />
always about the children and following God.<br />
Left: Harry walks with h<strong>is</strong> adoptive children—Seoul,<br />
Korea, 1955. Above: Bertha feeds adopted daughter<br />
Betty. Below: An older girl protectively hugs a<br />
younger girl on the play yard by the m<strong>is</strong>sion school<br />
and orphanage at Hyo Chang Park, Korea, 1956.<br />
Harry <strong>Holt</strong> negotiated to build a school on land<br />
owned by the Church of Chr<strong>is</strong>t, which allowed him<br />
to use the building for the year as an orphanage.<br />
CConsider the tens of thousands of children from Korea<br />
whose lives were forever changed by the notion that “Every<br />
child deserves a home.”<br />
Consider the hundreds of thousands of children in India,<br />
China, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Romania,<br />
Guatemala and more than a dozen other countries around<br />
the world who came to be loved in a secure family environment<br />
because of the work begun by Harry and Bertha <strong>Holt</strong>.<br />
And yet, the <strong>Holt</strong>s with their six children from 22 to 9<br />
years old, were a regular sort of family—hardworking,<br />
practical, living a simple, quiet life in a rural Oregon community.<br />
One day as he climbed a hill to size up timber,<br />
Harry suffered a near fatal heart attack. He was only 45<br />
years old. A self-made, self-reliant and stubborn man,<br />
Harry was suddenly vulnerable. Both Harry and Bertha<br />
reached out to God and were comforted. As an expression<br />
of their thanks, they offered themselves for the Lord to use<br />
in some small way.<br />
Harry and Bertha were already practicing Chr<strong>is</strong>tians, but<br />
their faith and practice deepened at th<strong>is</strong> time. In a fundamentally<br />
different way, they began to prepare the soil<br />
of their spirits for God’s planting. Five years later Harry<br />
and Bertha’s 11-year-old daughter, Suzanne, came home<br />
from school with a request: Could the family attend a film<br />
presentation in Eugene about the plight of Korean War<br />
orphans?<br />
Harry had already made other plans. But after he prayed<br />
about h<strong>is</strong> daughter’s request, and because her friend<br />
needed a ride, Harry decided they would go.<br />
Someone to Care<br />
“I looked at Harry. He was motionless and tense,” Bertha<br />
wrote in Seed from the East, describing their reactions to<br />
the documentary entitled “Other Sheep.” “I knew every<br />
scene had cut him like a knife. I was hurt, too…. We had<br />
never seen such emaciated arms and legs, such bloated<br />
starvation-stomachs and such w<strong>is</strong>tful little faces searching<br />
for someone to care.”<br />
Among them, the <strong>Holt</strong> family agreed to sponsor 13<br />
children. When photographs of their sponsored children<br />
arrived a month later, a profound realization was already<br />
developing in their hearts. Those children needed food<br />
and shelter and clothing, but they needed love, too. They<br />
needed a family where they could belong.<br />
Harry had a waking dream. He saw a girl with almond<br />
eyes and blond<strong>is</strong>h hair. Privately, he asked the Lord what<br />
he should do for that little girl.<br />
Simultaneously, Bertha began to have her own v<strong>is</strong>ion.<br />
She imagined children coming into their home where she<br />
could love and care for them.<br />
“I would walk from room to room thinking of how we<br />
could put a cot here…and another bed there. It even occurred<br />
to me that some of the rooms could be partitioned<br />
and made into two rooms without depriving anyone.”<br />
Just before going to bed one night, Harry cautiously<br />
revealed that he’d been thinking about adopting orphaned<br />
children from Korea. “I’m glad,” Bertha responded, holding<br />
back most of her joy. Astoundingly, they d<strong>is</strong>covered<br />
that each of them had independently arrived at the same<br />
number—eight. They could make room in their home and<br />
in their hearts for eight more children.<br />
Harry <strong>Holt</strong> was not the kind of man to second-guess<br />
himself. Once he and Bertha agreed to adopt eight Amerasian<br />
children, Harry made plans to leave for Korea. Bertha<br />
began investigating the procedures.<br />
When a friend of the family told them it couldn’t be done,<br />
he added as an afterthought, “But if you could get Congress<br />
to agree and pass a law…”<br />
4 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
www.holtinternational.org 5
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” said Bertha matter-of-factly.<br />
She recruited neighbors and friends to join in her letter-writing campaign. Less than two<br />
months later, on the last night of the session, Congress passed a brief bill specifically allowing<br />
Harry and Bertha to adopt eight children from Korea.<br />
When Harry returned with their eight children in October 1955, the press was there.<br />
The <strong>Holt</strong> story quickly spread around the country. Harry and Bertha planned to settle in<br />
quietly with their newly arrived children, but almost immediately other families started<br />
calling and writing, asking how they, too, could adopt a child from Korea.<br />
Harry could not forget the “tiny outstretched arms” of children who remained behind.<br />
Less than a year after they first learned about orphans in Korea, Harry made plans<br />
to return to Korea. With Harry in Korea and Bertha in the United States, they launched a<br />
program to care for children until they could be placed with adoptive families.<br />
In the 1950s adoption was usually a secretive process. Children were matched to families<br />
according to physical character<strong>is</strong>tics in an effort to conceal the fact they were adopted.<br />
The <strong>Holt</strong>s’ example reversed th<strong>is</strong> thinking. Though the <strong>Holt</strong>s weren’t the first to adopt<br />
from overseas, the publicity around their adoption opened the eyes of the world to a<br />
reality that resonated with thousands of families. Th<strong>is</strong> ordinary couple from Oregon<br />
showed the world that a family <strong>is</strong> not limited by race and nationality, and that love<br />
and commitment are the true bonds of a family.<br />
Caring for Orphaned, Abandoned and Vulnerable Children<br />
Officially incorporated in 1956 and initially financed almost entirely by Harry<br />
and Bertha’s personal holdings, the <strong>Holt</strong> program drew international attention,<br />
honor and critic<strong>is</strong>m right from the beginning. The <strong>Holt</strong>s kept their focus on<br />
the children, on literally saving their lives through medical care, nutrition<br />
and finding homes and loving hands to care for them.<br />
Harry and Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> followed their instincts regarding the care of<br />
children, and they were innovators too. They developed attentive styles and<br />
methods of child caring that continue to be the hallmark of <strong>Holt</strong>’s work and<br />
advocacy today:<br />
• Caring touch—childcare workers touch and hold children affectionately. Infants<br />
are held when fed.<br />
• Verbal stimulation—childcare workers speak often to the children, encouraging<br />
the development of language and a connection with others.<br />
• Freedom to explore and develop—children are taken out of cribs as often as<br />
possible so they can develop their motor and sensory skills.<br />
• Comprehensive Intake Procedures—whenever a child comes<br />
into care of a <strong>Holt</strong> partner agency, the child’s birth family<br />
receives counseling to determine if that family can be<br />
kept together. If a child <strong>is</strong> abandoned, <strong>Holt</strong> partners<br />
try to locate the birth family to assess their capabilities<br />
and gather background information. If a child <strong>is</strong><br />
adopted, the background information becomes even<br />
more valuable to the child in the future.<br />
Th<strong>is</strong> page: Harry <strong>Holt</strong> comforts a tiny girl in Korea, 1955. • Opposite, top:<br />
Food donations are delivered to Ilsan in the early 1960s. Images of starvation<br />
and malnutrition among the children of Korea catalyzed a huge response. In<br />
addition to personal donations made by the <strong>Holt</strong> family, many individuals, organizations,<br />
church communities and even the food industry itself sent food to help<br />
feed Korean children. • Center left: Dr. Cho, Byung Kuk, a pediatrician, began working<br />
for Harry <strong>Holt</strong> in 1959. “He never minded any inconvenience if it was for children,” she<br />
said after h<strong>is</strong> death. • Right: As a young nurse in Korea, Molly <strong>Holt</strong> ass<strong>is</strong>ts Dr. Ralph Ten Have in<br />
caring for a malnour<strong>is</strong>hed infant. Harry <strong>Holt</strong> hired Dr. Ten Have as h<strong>is</strong> medical ass<strong>is</strong>tant in 1958.<br />
• Below: Children play on a swing at one of the early <strong>Holt</strong> childcare centers in Korea.<br />
6 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
www.holtinternational.org 7
Harry <strong>Holt</strong>: The Heart of a Humble Servant<br />
H<strong>is</strong> wife said he never changed a diaper… until he followed God’s<br />
leading to Korea.<br />
Harry worked on the land, moving earth, running a combine,<br />
growing wheat, ra<strong>is</strong>ing cattle, milling flour, mining coal or cutting<br />
and milling timber. Though he attended school only through<br />
the third grade, he had a genius for building nearly anything he<br />
needed.<br />
Following a heart attack at age 45, Harry dedicated h<strong>is</strong> life to God.<br />
“Many people say that they received the Lord Jesus and they do it<br />
with their head and their mouth,” Harry said in a message he recorded<br />
for Martha Sue Surdam, a girl whose life he saved in Korea.<br />
“Many are willing to receive Him as their Savior, but many don’t<br />
go all the way and receive Him as their Lord, and that’s the most<br />
important thing.”<br />
Young Soo<br />
Kwak Young Soo would have died if no one had found her. She<br />
was an orphan, scrubbing floors for people who beat her. They<br />
sent her up the mountain to collect wood, and when she returned<br />
they had moved away, leaving her alone in the cold. When<br />
brought to our orphanage her right foot was badly frozen and her<br />
left foot and hands were slightly frostbitten. She was in great<br />
pain but was still able to smile, which was a miracle. Now, in her<br />
American home, she <strong>is</strong> a ray of sunshine and a joy and blessing to<br />
her family and teachers.<br />
—Harry <strong>Holt</strong><br />
<strong>Holt</strong> Adoption Program newsletter, April/May 1961<br />
Harry spent the final eight years of h<strong>is</strong> life changing diapers,<br />
rocking babies and singing songs to them, providing medical<br />
ass<strong>is</strong>tance, rescuing children from imminent death, and burying<br />
hundreds of babies that he wasn’t able to rescue.<br />
He continued to farm, fell trees and move earth, bringing equipment<br />
to Korea to build an entire village for the care of children<br />
with d<strong>is</strong>abilities.<br />
Some might say he not only moved earth, he moved heaven and<br />
earth. But th<strong>is</strong> simple man—who once lived in a sod house in<br />
South Dakota—would most likely say it was heaven that moved<br />
him.<br />
Harry Spencer <strong>Holt</strong><br />
B. 1905—Neligh, Nebraska<br />
D. 1964—Ilsan, South Korea<br />
Right: Martha Sue Surdam, one of the earliest children placed by the <strong>Holt</strong> program,<br />
thanks Harry <strong>Holt</strong> with a k<strong>is</strong>s—late 1950s. Later Harry recorded a letter to<br />
Martha Sue describing how he brought her into care. That recording <strong>is</strong> available<br />
through <strong>Holt</strong>’s website.<br />
Far left: Harry gazes out over the landscape near h<strong>is</strong> home in South Dakota—<br />
1930s. Harry’s background instilled hard work and self-reliance, but he also took<br />
time to dream. The combination of faith, v<strong>is</strong>ion and initiative prepared Harry to<br />
launch the <strong>Holt</strong> program at a time international adoption was mostly unheard of<br />
by the public and largely opposed by authorities.<br />
Left: Harry and Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> wear traditional Korean hanboks—early 1960s. When<br />
the <strong>Holt</strong>s adopted eight children from Korea, they devoted their lives to that<br />
country in many ways. Today, both Harry and Bertha are buried on the hillside<br />
overlooking the Ilsan Center.<br />
Below left: Harry cares for h<strong>is</strong> adoptive children—Korea, 1955. Nurturing care<br />
became a hallmark of the program Harry built in the following years.<br />
Above and below: Accustomed to working with heavy machinery, Harry built<br />
three successively larger childcare centers in Korea trying to keep up with the<br />
need after the war caused thousands of children to become orphaned or abandoned.<br />
Eventually he built the Ilsan Center on nearly 60 acres of hillside property<br />
near the Demilitarized Zone. Children and babies from two of these early facilities<br />
used beds for playing as well as sleeping. The babies were brought outside<br />
for the sunlight.<br />
Background: Harry’s handwritten letter home describes how on h<strong>is</strong> way to Korea<br />
to adopt their children, he was nearly overcome with doubt. When he opened h<strong>is</strong><br />
Bible, h<strong>is</strong> finger landed on Isaiah 43:5-6—“Fear not for I am with thee...bring my<br />
sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.”<br />
8 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
www.holtinternational.org 9
Halmoni: Beloved Grandma<br />
Left: Wearing a traditional Korean hanbok, Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> posed for th<strong>is</strong> portrait<br />
taken for her 80th birthday in 1984.<br />
Top: Bertha was named the American Mother of the Year in 1966. At the official<br />
presentation in Washington, DC, she sat at the head table with then U.S. Vice<br />
President Hubert Humphrey.<br />
Center: Bertha set a world record for her age group in the 400 meter run in<br />
1996 when she competed in the Masters Track and Field Championships held in<br />
Eugene, Oregon. Sometimes known as “the running grandma,” Bertha ran and<br />
later walked to stay in condition. She was walking a mile when she had a stroke<br />
that led to her death. Her children later completed that mile for her.<br />
Bottom, from right: Bertha greets husband Harry when he returned from Korea<br />
with their eight new adoptive children, October 1955.<br />
She made each child feel special. Arriving at the Ilsan Center in Korea<br />
in 1968, Bertha greets every child in care.<br />
Bertha enjoyed traveling to see the children, and she kept meticulous<br />
records of every flight in logs signed by the pilots.<br />
At age 90 Bertha traveled to India, where a recently<br />
built childcare center had been named “Bertha Verada”<br />
(Bertha’s Blessing) in her honor. In th<strong>is</strong> photo, taken<br />
on that same trip, she holds a child in care at <strong>Holt</strong>’s<br />
partner agency in Bangalore.<br />
Bertha, with hair in her signature French braids,<br />
poses with some of the early <strong>Holt</strong>-Korea staff<br />
including David Kim at the far left, circa 1959.<br />
She was simply “Grandma” to thousands of children who were<br />
adopted through <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong>, to all of the adoptive families<br />
including birth children, and especially to thousands of children<br />
who waited and hoped to be adopted.<br />
Bertha studied to be a nurse, but she put that aside to ra<strong>is</strong>e her<br />
six children and blaze a trail to Oregon, where she helped farm,<br />
ra<strong>is</strong>e cattle, and do the multitude of tasks required of a farmer’s<br />
wife.<br />
When Harry was struck down by a heart attack, Bertha joined<br />
him in praying for h<strong>is</strong> recovery with a prom<strong>is</strong>e to serve God in<br />
whatever way He showed them. She and Harry were keepers of<br />
prom<strong>is</strong>es.<br />
When the time came to mobilize efforts to adopt children on<br />
a large scale, she rose to the occasion, proving that beneath the<br />
Excerpt of a July 1999 letter from Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> to <strong>Holt</strong> families:<br />
simple farmer’s wife appearance, she was every bit as capable and<br />
committed as her husband.<br />
When Harry died in 1964, Bertha had the grace and courage to<br />
continue the work. Over the next 36 years Bertha’s faith inspired<br />
the growth and development of <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong>. She never<br />
took a back seat. By the time she, too, passed away, Bertha had<br />
been named “Mother of the Year,” logged more than a million<br />
flight miles traveling for <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> and advocating for<br />
homeless and d<strong>is</strong>abled children, and set a world record for her age<br />
group in the 400 meter run.<br />
But the title she held dearest to her heart was Halmoni, grandmother<br />
in Korean. She should also be remembered as Bunica in<br />
Romania, Lola in the Philippines, Bà Ngoai in Vietnam, and Khun<br />
Yai in Thailand, and other designations of grandma.<br />
The highlight of the trip to Korea was my v<strong>is</strong>it to the Blue House<br />
to see Korea’s first lady, the wife of President Kim, Dae-jung. Her<br />
name <strong>is</strong> Lee, He-ho. Molly and David Kim accompanied me. She<br />
was most gracious. She sorrowed that so many babies were leaving<br />
the country and felt strongly that Koreans should adopt Korean<br />
children. I agreed, but I pointed out that Korea’s culture does not<br />
yet favor adoption except of a relative. It <strong>is</strong> a predicament which<br />
hurts innocent children. I pleaded that the babies not be ra<strong>is</strong>ed in<br />
orphanages because every child needs a father and a mother.<br />
I am happy God allowed me to make th<strong>is</strong> trip to Korea. I so enjoyed<br />
seeing Molly, the workers, Pastor Lee, the residents, <strong>Holt</strong>-<br />
Korea’s staff and Korea’s first lady. I pray that God uses th<strong>is</strong> to H<strong>is</strong><br />
glory.<br />
Lovingly,<br />
Grandma<br />
Bertha Marian <strong>Holt</strong><br />
B. 1904—Des Moines, Iowa<br />
D. 2000—Creswell, Oregon<br />
10 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
www.holtinternational.org 11
Adopting from Korea in the Early Years<br />
Olivia Wassmann and her husband were in Korea to adopt two little girls<br />
on the day Harry <strong>Holt</strong> died.<br />
Fred and I had already adopted four children, three from<br />
Korea, when the foreign adoption law was renewed. Th<strong>is</strong><br />
allowed us to adopt two more Korean orphans if we traveled<br />
to Korea. We applied for two girls and flew to Korea on a<br />
chartered Flying Tigers airplane with a planeload of expectant<br />
parents in April 1964.<br />
When we arrived, we and the other parents were shown to<br />
a large room where we placed our sleeping bags on the hard<br />
floor. The parents who were adopting older children were<br />
allowed to bring in their children to sleep with them.<br />
Mr. <strong>Holt</strong> had taken children back to the orphanage, run up<br />
the hill with an emaciated baby and put her into someone’s<br />
hands, and then staggered to h<strong>is</strong> room. He didn’t quite make<br />
it to h<strong>is</strong> bed.<br />
An enormous mourning arose among the staff, the<br />
children, and the parents. Quite some time went by before<br />
phone communication could be made with Mrs. <strong>Holt</strong> in the<br />
United States. One of the Korean craftsmen immediately<br />
began work on a coffin. Mr. <strong>Holt</strong> previously had said, “If<br />
anything happens to me, bury me on the hillside with my<br />
babies.”<br />
Mrs. <strong>Holt</strong> arrived as soon as she could. After a funeral service<br />
in the chapel, we all followed in line to the burial site.<br />
Molly: “Unee”<br />
Before Harry and Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> decided to adopt, Bertha phoned<br />
her 19-year-old daughter Molly at nursing school to tell her about<br />
the orphaned children in Korea.<br />
“I can’t do anything to help now; but when I fin<strong>is</strong>h training in<br />
two years... if it’s the Lord’s will... I’ll go over to Korea and help<br />
take care of those babies,” Molly responded.<br />
“As I placed the phone back on the hook, I felt wonderfully<br />
blessed,” Bertha wrote a year later. “I knew Molly would be unable<br />
to send money. She... was living on her savings. But somehow,<br />
I felt that Molly was making the biggest contribution of all.”<br />
Prophetic words: Over nearly all of the past 50 years Molly has<br />
fulfilled her prom<strong>is</strong>e. She has served in many capacities from<br />
community health nurse, to internationally known advocate of<br />
d<strong>is</strong>abled children and<br />
adoptees.<br />
Today, she serves as chair of the <strong>Holt</strong>-Korea Board of Directors.<br />
But she continues to be most passionate about the d<strong>is</strong>abled<br />
residents of <strong>Holt</strong>’s Ilsan Center.<br />
At age 70, Molly <strong>is</strong> “unee” (elder s<strong>is</strong>ter) to the 300 residents at<br />
Ilsan Center where she lives and serves. The residents have lost<br />
their families and have varying degrees of d<strong>is</strong>ability. Since her<br />
mother’s passing, Ilsan residents treat her more like their parent,<br />
their family.<br />
Molly champions opportunities for the Ilsan residents, and <strong>Holt</strong>-<br />
Korea’s commitment to them <strong>is</strong> evidenced by a world-class facility<br />
that offers education, vocational training and skill building toward<br />
independent living. Molly even helps arrange weddings for them<br />
when they come of age.<br />
Many days, you’ll find Molly, tool kit in hand, making rounds of<br />
the children’s apartments. Through her efforts, many residents<br />
have wheelchairs that correct their posture and hold them in<br />
positions that allow them to develop more control over their bodies.<br />
Because residents change and grow, the chairs need constant<br />
readjustment to fit properly, but the readjustments also serve as a<br />
way for Molly to monitor residents’ development.<br />
The next morning we were taken up the hill to see our<br />
10-month-old baby, Debbie, a tiny infant who looked about 2<br />
months old. The other baby assigned to us was in the hospital<br />
with a spot on her lungs, unable to pass through Immigration,<br />
so we were told to select another child. Th<strong>is</strong> was one of<br />
the hardest things I’ve ever done. A 3-year-old came running<br />
up and threw her arms around my legs, so I said to Mr. <strong>Holt</strong>,<br />
“Should we take th<strong>is</strong> little girl?” He said, “That’s up to you,<br />
but it’s the infants that we lose. Our hillsides are dotted with<br />
baby graves.”<br />
<strong>My</strong> husband and I started down the long a<strong>is</strong>le of cribs<br />
where the infants were propped up in little seats. Down the<br />
a<strong>is</strong>le we went, looking into each little face, in total confusion.<br />
Then, one 6-month-old baby smiled a crooked smile at<br />
us, and I said, “We’ll take th<strong>is</strong> one!” So that’s how our Donna<br />
entered our family. What a way to make such a life-changing<br />
dec<strong>is</strong>ion, but it was a good choice.<br />
The Death of Harry <strong>Holt</strong><br />
On our second day at the orphanage, we were told that<br />
Mr. <strong>Holt</strong> would be driving a van into Seoul and we parents<br />
could ride with him to the <strong>Holt</strong> office there, from which we<br />
could take sightseeing tours. Parents piled into the van, and<br />
off we went. About halfway to Seoul a tire blew on the van,<br />
and with substantial effort Mr. <strong>Holt</strong> (and probably a helper)<br />
changed the tire. We later wondered if th<strong>is</strong> contributed to<br />
h<strong>is</strong> heart attack. We made it to the Seoul office and waited<br />
for a tour bus, meanwhile watching as tiny abandoned infants<br />
were carried in.<br />
After a full day of sightseeing we and other parents<br />
returned to the Seoul office and waited for the orphanage<br />
van to pick us up again. After a long wait we heard a loud<br />
commotion from the office staff, who told us, “We have just<br />
been notified that Mr. <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>is</strong> dead!” What an unbelievable<br />
shock! Later we were picked up and returned to the orphanage.<br />
We were told that after dropping us at the <strong>Holt</strong> office,<br />
Our Children<br />
Donna was 6 months old and Debbie 10 months, but they<br />
each weighed exactly 10 pounds. Debbie was so emaciated<br />
that when we got off the plane in Detroit we<br />
immediately went to our family doctor’s<br />
office. We knew any little germ could end<br />
her life.<br />
Our doctor looked at her and said,<br />
“Only a miracle will save th<strong>is</strong> baby.” He<br />
turned her over to give her a shot in her<br />
little butt, and there was only a bone<br />
with loose skin hanging onto it.<br />
In the ensuing days, I laughed and<br />
talked with Debbie as I held her and<br />
fed her. She tried to reach for my<br />
face, but her little hands dropped<br />
weakly back when halfway up. She<br />
kept trying to turn her head backwards<br />
to see to whom I was talking. On<br />
the third day the reality hit her that I was<br />
talking to her, and she immediately began<br />
to eat like a little piggy—life was suddenly<br />
worth living. Both babies picked up rapidly<br />
and became a tremendous joy to us.<br />
All our children are well and successful.<br />
I am grateful—so very, very grateful.<br />
—Olivia Wassmann,<br />
Clinton Township, Michigan<br />
January 2005<br />
Left: Molly <strong>Holt</strong> at Ilsan, 1973. Harry <strong>Holt</strong> built the<br />
Ilsan Center in the early 1960s as a temporary home for<br />
orphaned and abandoned children soon to be placed<br />
with adoptive parents. But within a few years the facility<br />
had evolved into a home for d<strong>is</strong>abled children, most of<br />
whom could not be adopted. In the 1980s Ilsan was<br />
completely remodeled to accommodate and serve<br />
those in wheelchairs and on crutches. Today,<br />
Molly <strong>Holt</strong> and a dedicated <strong>Holt</strong>-Korea staff,<br />
care for and train 300 d<strong>is</strong>abled residents at<br />
Ilsan. Facing page: Th<strong>is</strong> sequence of images<br />
comes from the documentary Korean Legacy,<br />
a film which followed a group of adoptive<br />
parents including Olivia and Fred Wassmann<br />
who traveled to Korea in April<br />
1964. The filmmakers had planned<br />
to document the work of Harry <strong>Holt</strong><br />
and international adoption. The<br />
crew filmed the initial interactions<br />
of the parents with their adoptive<br />
children, their trip into Seoul in<br />
the back of a truck driven by<br />
Harry <strong>Holt</strong>, and their arrival at the<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> Office in Seoul. In the final<br />
frame shown here, Harry <strong>Holt</strong> can<br />
be seen rounding the front of the<br />
truck. Later that day, the filmmakers<br />
captured the shock and<br />
grief of staff and the adoptive<br />
parents in the Seoul office when<br />
they learned that after transporting<br />
a sick child back to Ilsan, Harry <strong>Holt</strong><br />
had died from a massive heart attack.<br />
Korean Legacy became a tribute not<br />
only to the spirit of adoption, but also<br />
a memorial to the man who dedicated<br />
the final years of h<strong>is</strong> life to saving<br />
abandoned and vulnerable children.<br />
12 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
www.holtinternational.org 13
Russia, 91–94, 98–02<br />
Ukraine, 2004–<br />
Mongolia, 2000–<br />
Romania, 1989–<br />
Bulgaria, 2002–<br />
Uganda, 2002–<br />
India, 1979–<br />
Bangladesh, 1972–73<br />
Thailand, 1976–<br />
Cambodia, 91–93, 05–<br />
N. Korea, 1998–<br />
China, 1993–<br />
S. Korea, 1956–<br />
Hong Kong, 1980–<br />
Taiwan, 1979–82<br />
Philippines, 1975–<br />
Vietnam, 73–75, 89–<br />
Finding Families For Children<br />
The <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong><br />
movement began in Korea, but<br />
the command to “Bring thy seed from the<br />
East, and gather thee from the West” quickly moved members of<br />
the <strong>Holt</strong> family to work in other countries. Harry v<strong>is</strong>ited Paraguay<br />
and Mexico looking for ways to serve the children there.<br />
But there was so much work to do in Korea that while Harry<br />
was still alive, the work maintained its Korean focus. As the<br />
effects of the war subsided and the Republic of South Korea developed<br />
a thriving post-war economy, Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> and staff at <strong>Holt</strong><br />
<strong>International</strong> were able to lead the agency in new directions.<br />
The brutal last years of another war took <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> to<br />
another part of Asia—Vietnam. In 1972, <strong>Holt</strong> sent a survey team<br />
to assess the needs of children. They d<strong>is</strong>covered that tens of thousands<br />
of children had been orphaned by nearly a quarter-century<br />
of war.<br />
And so it was that country by country, in response to the needs<br />
of orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children, <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong><br />
followed in the footsteps of the <strong>Holt</strong>s, and found ways to<br />
help the suffering children.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> now has programs in Korea, China, India, Vietnam, Cambodia,<br />
Bulgaria, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Mongolia, the Philippines,<br />
Romania, Thailand, Uganda, the United States and Ukraine.<br />
Over the past 50 years, <strong>Holt</strong> has also served children in Bangladesh,<br />
Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras,<br />
Hong Kong (when it was<br />
a Brit<strong>is</strong>h colony), Mexico,<br />
Nicaragua, Peru, Russia<br />
and Taiwan.<br />
The Wide Ranging Services of <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong><br />
Today <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>is</strong> known around the world for its comprehensive<br />
programs and services designed to:<br />
• Meet children’s immediate needs for health and survival.<br />
• Protect children’s rights and interests with a view to their<br />
needs in the future.<br />
• Follow the highest ethical practices in serving children,<br />
birth families and adoptive families.<br />
• Respect and honor cultures while striving to identify<br />
what’s best for each individual child.<br />
The following <strong>is</strong> a brief description of <strong>Holt</strong>’s major services.<br />
U.S.A., 1956–<br />
Family Preservation<br />
Desperation sometimes drives<br />
parents to relinqu<strong>is</strong>h or abandon<br />
their children in the hope that<br />
someone will care for them. Mexico, 2001–02<br />
Most parents intend to reclaim<br />
these children someday, but<br />
reality <strong>is</strong> harsh and reestabl<strong>is</strong>hing<br />
their livelihood can<br />
Guatemala, 1986–<br />
be nearly impossible. <strong>Holt</strong> prevents abandonment and<br />
helps separated families get back together. Counseling El Salvador, 1984–86<br />
and other ass<strong>is</strong>tance help make it possible for parents<br />
Costa Rica, 1986–94<br />
to support themselves and rebuild their lives as families.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> has helped hundreds of thousands of children through<br />
these various services.<br />
Ecuador, 1987–<br />
Domestic Adoption<br />
Circumstances sometimes make it impossible<br />
to reunite a child with h<strong>is</strong> birth family.<br />
However, every country where <strong>Holt</strong> works<br />
has families capable of loving and nurturing<br />
adopted children as their own. Because some<br />
cultures res<strong>is</strong>t adoption of children outside of<br />
the extended family, domestic or in-country<br />
adoption <strong>is</strong> sometimes a developing institution.<br />
Still, <strong>Holt</strong>’s efforts are bringing about changes that encourage adoption<br />
and protect the rights of adoptive parents and adoptive children. <strong>Holt</strong> has<br />
placed over 21,000 children with adoptive families in their birth country.<br />
<strong>International</strong> Adoption<br />
Children cannot wait for cultures to change.<br />
They need loving, secure families while they are<br />
young and developing. Because some children<br />
cannot be returned to birth families or be adopted<br />
domestically within a reasonable length of time,<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> unites children with families<br />
through international adoption. In 50 years <strong>Holt</strong><br />
has placed over 40,000 children with U.S. adoptive<br />
families. Because of its experience and integrity, <strong>Holt</strong>’s policies and practices are<br />
emulated around the world.<br />
Single Parent Programs<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s care of children may begin even before<br />
they are born. Reaching out to expectant parents—often<br />
unmarried young women who have<br />
been rejected by their family and abandoned by<br />
the birth father—<strong>Holt</strong> offers shelter, medical care,<br />
counseling and other ass<strong>is</strong>tance. <strong>Holt</strong> enables<br />
birth parents to make informed and unpressured<br />
dec<strong>is</strong>ions regarding the best course for themselves<br />
and their children. These services help safeguard the health and futures of both<br />
the mother and the child.<br />
Peru, 1984–85<br />
Bolivia, 1985–88<br />
Honduras, 1983–86<br />
Nicaragua, 1976–82<br />
Foster Care<br />
Brazil, 1984–95<br />
Haiti, 2003–<br />
Colombia, 1985–86<br />
Between the time a child comes into care and<br />
the moment the child <strong>is</strong> placed in the arms of h<strong>is</strong><br />
permanent parents, <strong>Holt</strong> helps provide for that<br />
child. Food, shelter, clothing and caring attention<br />
are all essential for development, even for survival.<br />
In many countries <strong>Holt</strong> has pioneered foster<br />
care as an alternative to institutional care. <strong>Holt</strong><br />
has placed thousands of bright, healthy children,<br />
thanks largely to the selfless foster families who love these children as their own,<br />
and then let them go to their permanent parents.<br />
14 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
www.holtinternational.org 15
Medical Treatment<br />
Every homeless child in <strong>Holt</strong>’s programs receives<br />
medical care. Th<strong>is</strong> essential service saves lives and<br />
often makes adoption possible for children. Vaccinations,<br />
regular exams, surgery, medical equipment<br />
and medical supplies are only a few of the<br />
vital elements of medical care that <strong>Holt</strong> provides<br />
for children. Children who have experienced<br />
developmental delays because of a medical condition<br />
can often make dramatic improvement as their health improves. As a result,<br />
their chances for adoption also improve.<br />
Nutrition<br />
Simple food <strong>is</strong> sometimes all it takes to keep a<br />
child with h<strong>is</strong> birth family. Imagine how d<strong>is</strong>couraging<br />
it <strong>is</strong> to see your child become malnour<strong>is</strong>hed.<br />
Several of <strong>Holt</strong>’s partner programs offer nutrition<br />
and nutrition training to prevent child abandonment.<br />
Parents bring their children in for a healthy<br />
meal every day while they are in the program.<br />
Parents also attend classes that teach economic<br />
ways to provide nutritious meals for their children. Almost no families in these<br />
programs relinqu<strong>is</strong>h their children.<br />
Programs for HIV/AIDS Affected<br />
Children<br />
Innocent children have become the most recent<br />
population to suffer terrible consequences<br />
because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, creating two<br />
primary kinds of “AIDS orphans.” HIV-positive<br />
parents and inappropriate medical practices have<br />
infected some children with th<strong>is</strong> deadly d<strong>is</strong>ease.<br />
For many others HIV/AIDS has left them without<br />
parents and sometimes without even extended family members. <strong>Holt</strong> and<br />
its partners have developed a range of services that enable these children<br />
to have safe, nurturing homes with loving caregivers. Sometimes the child’s<br />
family and school simply need education so that the children receive the support<br />
and encouragement they need. The solutions often must take place at<br />
several levels—including the family and the community.<br />
Childcare Centers<br />
Legal requirements, medical needs and other<br />
conditions sometimes require <strong>Holt</strong> to care for<br />
children at childcare centers. Though institutions<br />
cannot provide the level of attention that a foster<br />
family can, <strong>Holt</strong> makes the best of th<strong>is</strong> situation<br />
by providing high staff-to-child ratios, training<br />
child workers and scheduling for cons<strong>is</strong>tency in<br />
children’s care. <strong>Holt</strong>’s dedicated, knowledgeable<br />
and loving childcare workers provide attentive care to children awaiting permanent<br />
families.<br />
Programs for Children<br />
with Special Needs<br />
Children who are older, have d<strong>is</strong>abilities or are part<br />
of sibling groups often wait to be adopted, sometimes<br />
for years. These “waiting” children need and<br />
deserve families as much as other children. But the<br />
likelihood of locating adoptive families for them in<br />
their birth countries <strong>is</strong> often very low. <strong>Holt</strong> offers<br />
programs that provide medical treatments and various<br />
therapies to help children develop their “abilities.” And, fortunately, many<br />
families in the United States find special joy in adopting these waiting children.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> encourages the adoption of waiting children through advocacy, fee reductions<br />
and other financial subsidies.<br />
Post Adoption and Adoptee<br />
Outreach<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> <strong>is</strong> pioneering services to address the continuing<br />
needs of adoptees, adoptive parents and birth<br />
parents. These services cover a wide range of<br />
needs such as referral services for families who<br />
need counseling, documentation for those who<br />
need legal records, a search reg<strong>is</strong>try and ass<strong>is</strong>ted<br />
search services for adoptees and birth parents<br />
seeking to contact each other. <strong>Holt</strong> also offers Heritage Camps for international<br />
adoptees 9–16 years old and Heritage Tours, which enable adoptees to experience<br />
the land of their birth.<br />
Dancing in the Hallways<br />
There <strong>is</strong> a magical moment when<br />
adoptive parents learn that they have a child<br />
Twelve floors above the busy streets<br />
of New York, the annoying honking of<br />
horns faded into the pleasing r<strong>is</strong>e and fall<br />
of baritone saxophone scales. A yellow<br />
legal pad sat on my desk, just a few lines<br />
of copy—dark blue-inked words that now<br />
marked a memorable and personally h<strong>is</strong>toric<br />
significance.<br />
A few minutes earlier I had hung up the<br />
phone with Mike from <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong>,<br />
and I played the conversation over and<br />
over again in my mind. “Great news” and<br />
“Congratulations” were the words that<br />
were delivered with emphasized and heartfelt<br />
enthusiasm.<br />
I tore off the piece of paper along its<br />
perforated edge, folded it, and tucked it in<br />
my breast shirt pocket. Minutes later, sitting among colleagues<br />
at a large table at Asia de Cuba for an intense lunch<br />
meeting, I d<strong>is</strong>cretely seized the note and unfolded it for<br />
another peek. Co-workers continued to speak, but I heard<br />
no words as I covertly glanced down at the written words<br />
now unfolded on my lap:<br />
Eun Sung, Born November 7, 2004—Girl<br />
Later on my way home I stopped at a market across from<br />
Grand Central Station to pick up a single red rose. The<br />
day’s chill seemed to be gone, warmth filled my heart and<br />
eagerness overtook my stride. Gia and Ethan arrived on<br />
the 7:37 p.m. train from New Haven, after spending the day<br />
with cousins. Back at the apartment all three of us danced<br />
in the hallways. We ate pizza and cake. We couldn’t stop<br />
smiling.<br />
Tomorrow we will receive a much-anticipated FedEx<br />
package. In it will be forms, paperwork, medical reports,<br />
and other fodder. We will put all of it aside for a moment,<br />
however, and go right to the photo of our Daughter. We will<br />
put the photo in a frame, place it on the dining room table,<br />
and begin to complete the forms. Th<strong>is</strong> <strong>is</strong> a ritual we began<br />
with Ethan’s adoption.<br />
—Scott Anderson; Orange County, California<br />
Ethan Anderson pictured above.<br />
Korea<br />
Russia<br />
Left to right: Long-time <strong>Holt</strong> board member Dr. Rebecca<br />
Brandt holds a child in care in Russia, 1994.<br />
These two girls received care from <strong>Holt</strong> in 1994.<br />
After he was abandoned at a local hospital in Russia, 8-<br />
month-old Ervin lived in the infectious d<strong>is</strong>ease ward until<br />
he was d<strong>is</strong>covered by staff workers from one of <strong>Holt</strong>’s Ass<strong>is</strong>tance<br />
to Russian Orphans (ARO) agencies. They were able<br />
to reunite Ervin with h<strong>is</strong> birth father and new mother. In<br />
2001, when th<strong>is</strong> photo was taken, more than 650 children<br />
were returned to their birth families through <strong>Holt</strong> and<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s partner agencies.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> was able to place children, particularly those with special needs, from Russia in the early and mid 1990s. <strong>Holt</strong>’s work later reemerged<br />
at the end of that decade with U.S. government funding in helping to establ<strong>is</strong>h model child welfare services to stem the tide of<br />
institutionalization. <strong>Holt</strong> does not currently have a program in Russia, but the results of our technical support and service development<br />
lives on and continues to ass<strong>is</strong>t children through indigenous Russian agencies.<br />
DDesperate conditions in Korea in the years following the war<br />
caused the early <strong>Holt</strong> program to develop methods to help weak<br />
and malnour<strong>is</strong>hed children survive and regain their heath. Harry<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> along with first Korean ass<strong>is</strong>tant, David Kim, developed practices<br />
that laid the foundations for <strong>Holt</strong>’s work today: attentive, loving<br />
care along with basic good nutrition, shelter and medical treatment.<br />
Harry instinctively knew that all children, and especially<br />
those who were dangerously ill, needed the warmth of a caring<br />
touch and the encouragement of a loving voice. In response, <strong>Holt</strong><br />
pioneered foster care to provide family-like environments for<br />
young children awaiting adoption.<br />
As conditions improved in Korea, needs changed as well.<br />
Fewer children were being abandoned due to poverty while the<br />
number of children born to single mothers increased. <strong>Holt</strong> initiated<br />
counseling programs for single mothers as well as shelter<br />
programs for unwed pregnant women.<br />
Tim and Laura Sperry received their daughter Mee Ja from Korea in 1993.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> and the government of Korea began promoting<br />
domestic adoption in the 1960s, but some cultural traditions<br />
change slowly. The number of children needing families continues<br />
to exceed the number of Korean families open to adoption.<br />
While international adoption has been often a controversial<br />
<strong>is</strong>sue within Korea, the government advocated for children to<br />
have the families they needed. Through the years the Korean<br />
government has regulated a cons<strong>is</strong>tent and well-dev<strong>is</strong>ed adoption<br />
process that helped children to have secure, loving families.<br />
North Korea<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> has been working through the North Korean<br />
Asia & Pacific Peace Committee since 1998 providing support<br />
to th<strong>is</strong> area of the country. <strong>Holt</strong> provides nutritious b<strong>is</strong>cuits for<br />
orphans and children in at-r<strong>is</strong>k families in orphanages and daycare<br />
centers in Pyongan Buk/Nam-do and food support to children in<br />
the Shinuiju area, because food remains scarce.<br />
16 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
www.holtinternational.org 17
Vietnam<br />
Early April 1975—At <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> headquarters in Eugene, Oregon,<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> Executive Director Jack Adams gathered staff to pray. For several days no<br />
calls or communications could get through to <strong>Holt</strong>’s Vietnam office, and news<br />
out of Vietnam was ominous. The last message said that <strong>Holt</strong>’s DaNang Center<br />
had been abandoned and the children evacuated to Saigon.<br />
As the staff prayed, the reception<strong>is</strong>t excitedly got Adam’s attention...<br />
it was a call from the <strong>Holt</strong> office in Vietnam.<br />
Over the following few days, <strong>Holt</strong> mobilized a massive effort to evacuate<br />
children from Vietnam. Adams put all <strong>Holt</strong> staff on round-the-clock work to<br />
complete the necessary documents and arrangements for children in <strong>Holt</strong> care<br />
to be flown to the United States.<br />
When Executive Director Jack Adams sent a <strong>Holt</strong> survey team<br />
to Vietnam in 1972, the situation for children there was similar<br />
to those in Korea at the time of Harry <strong>Holt</strong>’s initial v<strong>is</strong>it. The<br />
withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam, which began in 1973, left<br />
thousands of mixed race children—Amerasians or, as the Vietnamese<br />
called them, buidoi, the dust of life.<br />
By June 1973, <strong>Holt</strong> had establ<strong>is</strong>hed a reception center in Saigon<br />
and set up an extensive foster home program so that children<br />
could have the individual attention of a family while <strong>Holt</strong> worked<br />
at finding homes for them. <strong>Holt</strong> set up two childcare centers in<br />
Saigon and one in DaNang. At that time, some authorities estimated<br />
that Vietnam had over 900,000 orphan children, 25,000 of<br />
whom lived in orphanages and were in desperate need of permanent<br />
homes.<br />
In the final chaotic hours of the war, as it became apparent<br />
Saigon was about to fall to the North Vietnamese, <strong>Holt</strong> leadership<br />
chose to use its own chartered flight—a dec<strong>is</strong>ion that kept <strong>Holt</strong><br />
children from being among those who died in the crash of a U.S.<br />
government jet that was part of what became known as the “Baby<br />
Lift.”<br />
Before mid-April, <strong>Holt</strong> transported nearly a thousand children<br />
from Vietnam to the United States. Most traveled on a chartered<br />
PanAm jet with a volunteer crew—a jet for which <strong>Holt</strong> had to<br />
purchase special insurance for the one hour it would spend on<br />
the ground in a war zone.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> staff refused to take children from desperate parents.<br />
Only children who had been carefully screened and legally<br />
relinqu<strong>is</strong>hed for adoption were sent to the United States.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s bold dec<strong>is</strong>ions and steadfast commitment to ethical<br />
practice protected the lives of children and saved families<br />
from the angu<strong>is</strong>h of correcting wrongs.<br />
Except for a minor role in uniting Amerasian children<br />
with birth parents in the United States, <strong>Holt</strong> was gone from<br />
Vietnam for the next 15 years. <strong>Holt</strong> returned to Vietnam in 1989<br />
at the invitation of the government of Vietnam.<br />
Today, <strong>Holt</strong>’s efforts in Vietnam stretch from Binh Duong in<br />
the south all the way to Hanoi in the north. And like its earlier<br />
version, the new <strong>Holt</strong>-Vietnam program serves through a steadfast<br />
commitment to do whatever <strong>is</strong> best for orphaned, abandoned and<br />
vulnerable children.<br />
Facing page: In the 1970s <strong>Holt</strong> responded to the needs of thousands<br />
of abandoned and vulnerable children in Vietnam, many of<br />
whom were ending up in institutions.<br />
Above, clockw<strong>is</strong>e from bottom left: <strong>Holt</strong>’s initial work in Vietnam<br />
ended dramatically in April 1975, when <strong>Holt</strong> evacuated nearly a<br />
thousand children who had been legally freed for international<br />
adoption.<br />
Today <strong>Holt</strong>’s work in Vietnam encompasses a wide range of services,<br />
including efforts to help at-r<strong>is</strong>k families stay together.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s commitment to the children of Vietnam was recently evidenced<br />
when <strong>Holt</strong> maintained its programs and services throughout<br />
a moratorium on international adoption.<br />
Foster care enables homeless children to benefit from the generous,<br />
attentive care of loving foster mothers and fathers until a permanent<br />
family can be found.<br />
18 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
www.holtinternational.org 19
“At KBF, we believe that the family <strong>is</strong><br />
THE essential structure of society...<br />
where values, traits and attitudes of<br />
individuals are formed and nurtured.<br />
Our goal <strong>is</strong> simple: enable children to<br />
grow up in the love and belonging of a<br />
family whether it be the birth family or<br />
an adoptive family.”<br />
—Rosario “Cherrie” dela Rosa, KBF<br />
Executive Director<br />
Thailand<br />
Above: Finding the best permanent family solution for orphaned, abandoned and vulnerable children <strong>is</strong> the m<strong>is</strong>sion shared<br />
by the Ka<strong>is</strong>ahang Buhay Foundation in the Philippines and <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong>. • Center: KBF celebrated its 30 th anniversary<br />
in December 2005. • Top right: Rosario “Cherrie” dela Rosa, Executive Director of KBF, looks in on a baby in care, December<br />
2005. KBF <strong>is</strong> the only nongovernmental organization in the Philippines licensed and accredited by the Department of Social<br />
Welfare and Development to place children in domestic adoption. • Lower right: Minnie Dacanay, now retired, helped develop<br />
and direct many of KBF’s programs through the 1980s. Later she worked with the Philippines and other Asian programs<br />
from the <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> headquarters in Oregon.<br />
The Philippines<br />
As <strong>Holt</strong> branched out from Korea to Vietnam, and then on to<br />
Thailand and the Philippines in 1975, a new model was maturing.<br />
Although the ultimate goal remained to unite every orphaned,<br />
abandoned or vulnerable child with a permanent, loving family,<br />
the first priority would be to keep a child with h<strong>is</strong> or her birth<br />
parents if that were in the child’s best interest. <strong>Holt</strong> would accompl<strong>is</strong>h<br />
th<strong>is</strong> through a broad range of services, developing a<br />
strong in-country program intent on long-term solutions.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s work in Korea and Vietnam showed that building a<br />
devoted and capable team from within the country offered many<br />
benefits. As <strong>Holt</strong> initiated work in the Philippines, <strong>Holt</strong> began<br />
developing a partner agency led and staffed by Filipino people.<br />
The Philippines presented a unique condition: a childcare<br />
agency was not allowed to be a childcare institution. <strong>Holt</strong>’s previous<br />
programs had been built on providing attentive care until<br />
children could be placed with a family, but in the Philippines,<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> had to find another solution.<br />
20 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s partner agency, the Ka<strong>is</strong>ahang Buhay Foundation (working<br />
together), was <strong>Holt</strong>’s m<strong>is</strong>sion adapted to the particular needs<br />
of the Philippines—a model for nearly all of <strong>Holt</strong>’s future partner<br />
programs. In th<strong>is</strong> case, KBF became a resource for the many<br />
orphanages around the country.<br />
KBF offered technical ass<strong>is</strong>tance and financial support to<br />
improve childcare conditions and redirect the institutions toward<br />
a new m<strong>is</strong>sion—to move children into permanent families rather<br />
than retain them in their facilities until they were grown. KBF<br />
also developed a model foster care program, single mothers home,<br />
daycare and other services to children.<br />
Most recently, KBF has developed a model independent living<br />
program to support education of children from long-term institutional<br />
care.<br />
Over the 30 years since its founding, the reach and expert ass<strong>is</strong>tance<br />
of KBF has brought hope into the lives of thousands of<br />
children.<br />
Nearly 30 years of serving homeless children and families at<br />
r<strong>is</strong>k gave the <strong>Holt</strong> Sahathai Foundation the tools and skills to<br />
respond to a cataclysmic event—the tsunami of December 2004.<br />
A year later the stories of people served indicate the depth of th<strong>is</strong><br />
program <strong>Holt</strong> helped build from the ground up.<br />
In 1975 <strong>Holt</strong> sent a survey team to Thailand. Having recently<br />
built a program in Vietnam, <strong>Holt</strong> was ready for expansion. Thailand<br />
already had excellent, trained people. <strong>Holt</strong> could provide<br />
funding and technical ass<strong>is</strong>tance. Not long after the survey<br />
was completed, <strong>Holt</strong> staff gathered a team within Thailand and<br />
together they launched a new organization—the <strong>Holt</strong> Sahathai<br />
(united hearts) Foundation.<br />
From the beginning, it was a Thai program operated by Thai<br />
nationals. John Williams, who later became <strong>Holt</strong>’s President and<br />
CEO, helped guide the program over its first four years. Acharn<br />
Darawan Dhamaruksa, at that time a professor of social work at<br />
Thammasat University in Bangkok, led and mentored the staff<br />
who built <strong>Holt</strong> Sahathai into a leading child welfare and family<br />
agency in Thailand.<br />
Top right: Shortly after the waters of the December 2004 tsunami receded, <strong>Holt</strong> Sahathai staff arrived on the scene and<br />
began bringing help to families. Rebuilding devastated lives takes time, caring and skills. HSF was well prepared and<br />
committed to provide long-term help for the families of th<strong>is</strong> region. • Top left: Children watch from a porch as they<br />
await a v<strong>is</strong>it from their HSF social worker. Social workers pay home v<strong>is</strong>its to families and children regularly in order to<br />
follow up on their situations and the progress they have made as well as to provide necessary guidance, counseling and<br />
superv<strong>is</strong>ion. • Left: Acharn Darawan Dhamaruksa holds Bunchai, a child with multiple birth anomalies, in th<strong>is</strong> 1984 photo.<br />
HSF staff devotedly cared for Bunchai and advocated for h<strong>is</strong> adoption for over eight years until he went to h<strong>is</strong> adoptive<br />
family in the United States. Darawan, who led and mentored the staff that built <strong>Holt</strong> Sahathai into a leading child welfare<br />
and family agency, says “<strong>Holt</strong> Sahathai Foundation has been successful because we have stayed committed to our basic<br />
working principle, that mankind owes to the child the best it has to give and that an opportunity to grow up in a loving<br />
family <strong>is</strong> every child’s right.” • Center: Jintana Nontapouraya, who currently leads HSF as executive director, has served as a<br />
social worker with HSF since the organization’s beginnings. In th<strong>is</strong> 1984 photo Jintana counsels a foster mother.<br />
HSF serves a large number of vulnerable children through a<br />
wide variety of programs, many of which help birth families stay<br />
together through counseling and ass<strong>is</strong>tance. HSF’s strong foster<br />
care program provides a highly nurturing environment for children<br />
who are likely to need adoptive families outside of Thailand.<br />
HSF has a remarkably able and flexible program, one that works<br />
with large state programs and helps them develop services and<br />
one that interfaces with foreign governments. In the early 1980s<br />
HSF provided special care for Cambodian refugee children. HSF<br />
continues to develop services for children who have experienced<br />
or are at r<strong>is</strong>k of hurt and trauma.<br />
The programs that <strong>Holt</strong> Sahathai put into effect along Thailand’s<br />
hard-hit southern coast after the tsunami demonstrate<br />
the breadth and depth of its services. Although the programs<br />
prioritize the needs of children who lost parents or caregivers<br />
and families that lost homes and jobs, they include community<br />
rehabilitation and development, counseling and guidance, educational<br />
sponsorship and nutrition promotion services, and activity<br />
groups for widows, d<strong>is</strong>placed persons, kinship family groups and<br />
teenagers.<br />
www.holtinternational.org 21
India<br />
Dramatic strides for homeless<br />
and vulnerable children<br />
O“Our first priority <strong>is</strong> for the child’s survival...”<br />
These words—spoken some 20 years ago by Lata Joshi, then<br />
executive director of <strong>Holt</strong>’s partner agency, Bharatiya Samaj Seva<br />
Kendra—reveal the urgency of <strong>Holt</strong>’s early work in India. In the<br />
mid 1970s mortality of children under two years old in government-run<br />
institutions ran as high as 70 percent.<br />
Over the 30 years since then, <strong>Holt</strong> establ<strong>is</strong>hed work in farflung<br />
parts of India such as Kashmir in the far north, Tamil Nadu<br />
in the far south and several places in between. Today, <strong>Holt</strong><br />
partner agencies in Pune, Bangalore and Mumbai continue their<br />
life-saving work.<br />
Highly dedicated, caring and professional staff at Bharatiya<br />
Samaj Seva Kendra (BSSK in Pune) and Vathsalya Charitable Trust<br />
(VCT in Bangalore) developed and maintained a level of care that<br />
reduced infant mortality nearly to zero despite taking in some<br />
of the weakest and most vulnerable children. Another longtime<br />
partner, Children of the World, Bombay (CWB) founded by<br />
Children of the World, Norway with <strong>Holt</strong> support, provides<br />
innovative services to meet the needs of vulnerable children in<br />
its community.<br />
Adoption was almost unheard of in India when <strong>Holt</strong> establ<strong>is</strong>hed<br />
its first India efforts. But today over 60 percent of the<br />
children that come into <strong>Holt</strong>’s care are placed with parents<br />
within India.<br />
“Caring for children <strong>is</strong> the best thing....” says Mary Paul,<br />
Executive Director of VCT. “Th<strong>is</strong> <strong>is</strong> not a job. It’s a way of life<br />
for each one of us now. And we wouldn’t want to exchange it for<br />
anything else. And so we thank God for the opportunity to work<br />
for these little ones.”<br />
Top left: Lata Joshi, former Executive Director, led BSSK through many years of<br />
program development and caring for children.<br />
Clockw<strong>is</strong>e from above: Mary Paul, VCT Director, holds a child in care, 2004.<br />
The original BSSK bungalow in Pune, India, c. 1985.<br />
Dr. Navarange examines a baby at the N<strong>is</strong>hant neonatal unit, 2003.<br />
Children beg on the streets in southern India, c. 1978.<br />
Children receive loving care in the playroom at Children of the World Bombay,<br />
2000.<br />
Roxana Kalyanvala, BSSK Executive Director, holds a child at the N<strong>is</strong>hant childcare<br />
center, 2000.<br />
A childcare worker holds a child in front of an earlier VCT building in Bangalore,<br />
1994.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s partner agency, “Share Care” in Srinigar, helped homeless children to have<br />
families until fighting in d<strong>is</strong>puted Kashmir forced the program to close. In th<strong>is</strong><br />
photo then Director of <strong>International</strong> Programs (later President and CEO) John<br />
Williams holds a child while Share Care director Dr. Shanta Sanyal looks on.<br />
Padmini, photographed while in the care<br />
of BSSK in 1988, reflects the sparkle of life<br />
of a child who <strong>is</strong> loved. A year later <strong>Holt</strong><br />
placed Padmini with an adoptive family in the<br />
United States. Today, she <strong>is</strong> Pamela Kaspin,<br />
with Kayla, a daughter of her own. Pamela<br />
<strong>is</strong> a fulltime student planning a career as an<br />
elementary teacher.<br />
22 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
www.holtinternational.org 23
Romania<br />
A steadfast role in improving<br />
child welfare<br />
Latin America<br />
“When I get out of hospital<br />
<strong>My</strong> brothers are expecting me home<br />
Happy that I am out away<br />
And take me in to their game.”<br />
—Translation from a poem<br />
by a young boy dying of AIDS<br />
Close to You Foundation, Romania<br />
Clockw<strong>is</strong>e from top: David Kim, the first person hired by Harry <strong>Holt</strong> to help him in Korea and who later became President<br />
Emeritus of <strong>Holt</strong>, was once asked by fellow <strong>Holt</strong> employee Susan Cox what he believed was the most important contribution<br />
of adoption in Korea. He answered without hesitation, ”Elevating the importance of homeless and orphaned<br />
children.” Dr. Kim, who helped lead <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> into new programs in Latin America, v<strong>is</strong>its with a boy in <strong>Holt</strong> care<br />
in Bolivia, c.1985 • <strong>Holt</strong>-Ecuador, under the leadership of long-time Director Magdalena Cuvi, has helped hundreds of<br />
families stay together through family preservation and reunification services. <strong>Holt</strong>-Ecuador offered a wide variety of<br />
support to families whose children were at-r<strong>is</strong>k. These services included: scholarships for kids, medical treatment, temporary<br />
aid, therapies, and legal protection, advocacy and more. • Blanca de Morales, long-time director of <strong>Holt</strong>’s partner<br />
agency in Guatemala, provides leadership and v<strong>is</strong>ion that make it a priority to give each child personal attention every day, c.1999.<br />
• <strong>Holt</strong> joined with par<strong>is</strong>hioners of a church to help children at the Pimpollo orphanage in southern Mexico—2000–2002.<br />
Over the past 50 years <strong>Holt</strong> has had a presence in over 30 countries,<br />
focused on the needs of children and opportunities to serve<br />
them. <strong>Holt</strong>’s work, particularly in intercountry adoption, <strong>is</strong> based<br />
in part on regulations establ<strong>is</strong>hed by governments that enable<br />
such placements to take place. Governments change, as do other<br />
events and conditions affecting th<strong>is</strong> sometimes politically charged<br />
service.<br />
In the face of harsh socioeconomic factors that leave children<br />
without families and in dire situations, <strong>Holt</strong> establ<strong>is</strong>hed programs<br />
in a number of Latin American countries in the mid-1980s. One<br />
hospital in Brazil reported that out of 400 infants born in that<br />
facility each month, 20 percent would be abandoned.<br />
Since the mid-1980s, much has changed, particularly in Latin<br />
America and countries formerly tied to and relating closely with<br />
the Soviet Union. In many countries in Latin America, authorities<br />
made intercountry adoption more restrictive, which in turn made<br />
it difficult to maintain programs.<br />
In countries such as Costa Rica and Chile, conditions improved<br />
for children, lessening the need for international organizations<br />
like <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong>. Although a number of <strong>Holt</strong> programs in<br />
Latin America never achieved the scale hoped for, the efforts of<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s devoted staff and partners made a profound difference in<br />
the lives of the children they served. In Ecuador, for example,<br />
24 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
our staff establ<strong>is</strong>hed model foster care and family preservation<br />
services that benefited many children.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> in Guatemala<br />
Often recognized as a model of ethical practice, <strong>Holt</strong>’s partner<br />
agency, Asociación Para la Integración Familiar (APIF), strives to<br />
serve the best interests of children, most of whom are young toddlers<br />
who have been referred for care and services by the Minors<br />
Courts.<br />
APIF provides loving care to vulnerable children in its childcare<br />
centers in Guatemala City. The agency offers an alternative<br />
to large institutional care and includes services to reunite families<br />
and promote adoptive placement when returning home <strong>is</strong> not in<br />
the child’s best interest.<br />
In 1998, about 30 percent of the children being cared for by<br />
APIF were in temporary foster care programs. Those numbers<br />
are on the increase as APIF works to place these children with<br />
permanent families.<br />
Everyone’s job description includes the responsibility to pay<br />
extra special attention to a specific child within the group and to<br />
meet their needs as they ar<strong>is</strong>e. Th<strong>is</strong> gives the APIF staff perm<strong>is</strong>sion<br />
to take the time for the children, even if the day-to-day duties<br />
do not always get done.<br />
TThe collapse of the Ceausescu government in 1990 left behind<br />
a deeply wounded society. Haunting images of children in broken-down<br />
institutions mobilized aid of all kinds.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> was among the first to enter. But rather than<br />
immediately move large numbers of children out of the country,<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> trained staff to investigate the backgrounds of institutionalized<br />
children. Many of the children, as it turned out, could be<br />
returned to birth parents or adopted by Romanian families. Using<br />
funds provided through a series of USAID grants in the 1990s,<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> developed a wide range of services in Romania, including<br />
foster care and programs for children who tested HIV-positive.<br />
Clockw<strong>is</strong>e from top: When a family struggles to<br />
have enough food to eat and a safe place to live,<br />
they become increasingly desperate and the children<br />
become dangerously vulnerable. <strong>Holt</strong>’s partner agencies in Romania strive to prevent<br />
the damaging effects of abuse, neglect, abandonment and institutionalization.<br />
• Angela Achitei serves as Executive Director of the Close To You Foundation (CTY), one of two <strong>Holt</strong> partner<br />
agencies in Romania. CTY serves children and families affected by HIV/AIDS. • “‘Each child has the right to h<strong>is</strong> own<br />
family’ <strong>is</strong> more than a fundamental right of the child or a motto that has become so well known all over the world.<br />
It <strong>is</strong> our reason to ex<strong>is</strong>t as a Romanian nongovernmental organization,” says Livia Trif, Executive Country Director,<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> Romania Foundation. • Baby Petru stands on h<strong>is</strong> foster mother’s lap as she showers him with love and k<strong>is</strong>ses in<br />
Tirgu Mures, 1999.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> advocated for well-regulated adoption processes to protect<br />
the rights of children, birth families and adoptive parents, but<br />
weak controls allowed a host of unethical adoption practitioners<br />
to profit from children. In response Romania placed a moratorium<br />
on all international adoptions in 1999. Many agencies left<br />
the country. But <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> remained committed to children<br />
in need. <strong>Holt</strong> continues to reach out to vulnerable children<br />
through its two partner agencies in Romania—the <strong>Holt</strong> Romania<br />
Foundation and Close to You.<br />
Today, <strong>Holt</strong>’s Romania partner agencies continue to touch the<br />
lives of thousands of children—strengthening their families, preventing<br />
abandonment, and enabling families to fulfill their own<br />
w<strong>is</strong>h to provide stable, loving homes for their children.<br />
When <strong>Holt</strong> President and CEO Gary Gamer v<strong>is</strong>ited <strong>Holt</strong>-funded<br />
facilities in Romania in July 2005 and talked to local officials, the<br />
deputy mayor of one town told him that <strong>Holt</strong> had “changed the<br />
way we think about children.” In many ways, <strong>Holt</strong> has brought<br />
about significant changes in the way Romania cares for homeless<br />
and vulnerable children.<br />
www.holtinternational.org 25
China<br />
“Adoption <strong>is</strong> like a journey. You travel<br />
beautiful mountains and valleys,<br />
but sometimes it’s hard too.”<br />
Above: A child in care, 2004 • Clockw<strong>is</strong>e from top: Bi Jian Jun, Executive Director of <strong>Holt</strong> China Children’s Services and<br />
Country Director for <strong>Holt</strong>’s China Program, enjoys the teamwork of her job and considers the work she does for children a<br />
privilege. She says she finds inspiration in those she works with and keeps the goal of finding families for children close to her<br />
heart. Here she hugs a child in care at Lanzhou, March 2005. • The childcare superv<strong>is</strong>or at the Nanchang Orphanage baby<br />
unit models affectionate care that helps children survive and develop, March 2005. • A foster mother holds a child, Fuzhou,<br />
2004. Foster families lav<strong>is</strong>h children placed in their care with love and attention, and then release them to their adoptive<br />
families. Despite the attachment that invariably grows between these children and temporary parents, most foster mothers<br />
and fathers continue to take in children. • At the White Swan Hotel, Renée Lemley gives daughter Emerson Gray her first<br />
bath after she received her, Autumn 2004. • <strong>Holt</strong> adoptees Grace Kirkpatrick, left, and Emily Young, right, play dress-up on<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong>’s first ever Family Tour to China, June 2005. • Jian Chen, <strong>Holt</strong>’s U.S. Director of <strong>International</strong> Programs for<br />
China, v<strong>is</strong>its a boy in care at a group home in Nanchang, March 2005.<br />
When <strong>Holt</strong> President, David Kim, and Director of <strong>International</strong><br />
Programs, John Williams, surveyed conditions in China in 1993,<br />
they came across a ward in one institution where nearly every<br />
child was dangerously weak.<br />
David picked up one especially malnour<strong>is</strong>hed child and asked<br />
for formula. At first the little girl wouldn’t feed, but holding her<br />
tiny body, he massaged her feet to stimulate circulation. The little<br />
girl’s l<strong>is</strong>tless eyes regained some luster as she looked at David and<br />
began to feed.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> immediately began to mobilize for a significant effort in<br />
the People’s Republic of China, operating at first out of its small<br />
program in Hong Kong and ass<strong>is</strong>ting a privately run foster care<br />
project in Guangxi province.<br />
Building on concepts developed in th<strong>is</strong> program, <strong>Holt</strong> took a<br />
new and unique approach. Among its first efforts was to begin<br />
placing orphanage children into well-managed and loving local<br />
foster homes, combining th<strong>is</strong> with a “Baby Care Unit” that<br />
provided intensive care for the highest r<strong>is</strong>k children in the<br />
orphanage. <strong>Holt</strong> worked together as an equal partner with<br />
government-run orphanages to initiate programs that could<br />
26 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
— Bi Jian Jun, Executive Director of <strong>Holt</strong> China Children’s Services<br />
and Country Director for <strong>Holt</strong>’s China Program, speaking at an<br />
orientation for adoptive parents in China to receive their children,<br />
March 2005.<br />
gradually be taken over by local<br />
management and support,<br />
saving the lives of hundreds<br />
of children while protecting<br />
them from the debilitating<br />
effects of growing up in an<br />
institution.<br />
To th<strong>is</strong> day, <strong>Holt</strong> enjoys a relationship<br />
of trust with the Chinese government and <strong>is</strong> recognized as<br />
a pioneer in cooperative and culturally sensitive foster care and<br />
other support, reaching out to nearly 3,000 abandoned children<br />
every year around China in locations far from the larger well-traveled<br />
cities.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> was one of the first American adoption agencies to facilitate<br />
adoptions from China and <strong>is</strong> among those officially sanctioned<br />
for placement of children by the China Center for Adoption<br />
Affairs, the government agency that oversees international adoption.<br />
Now with offices in Beijing and Guangzhou, <strong>Holt</strong> stands out<br />
with its team of full-time experienced local staff, who guide adoptive<br />
parents on their journey in China and oversee a host of efforts<br />
helping homeless children across China.<br />
Into Our Arms<br />
A father celebrates the joy and wonder of adoption<br />
Four years ago in a sun-dappled room in Wuhan, Hubei Province,<br />
China, 14 families waited to meet their daughters. A provincial official<br />
greeted us through a translator and explained the process we would go<br />
through over the next few days. She concluded her talk with: “We are<br />
giving into your care our daughters.”<br />
She explained that China expected us to love and care for these young<br />
girls. “They will become your daughters soon,” she said, “and when they<br />
do, you will be part of the family of China. I welcome you to our family.”<br />
That was the day we received Marit. Now 5 years old, she <strong>is</strong> a true<br />
wonder. She <strong>is</strong> tall and lithe, excels at ballet and loves to dance. Her<br />
bright, nearly black eyes are a window on a mind that <strong>is</strong> constantly at<br />
work. Smart, articulate, kind and sensitive, she loves to draw and <strong>is</strong><br />
rather good at it. She has been infinitely patient with us as we learn how<br />
to be the parents she needs and deserves. Since traveling to China with<br />
us in 2003 to bring Mattie home, she has grown into a fantastic big s<strong>is</strong>ter.<br />
Put simply, she has become the daughter we could only dream about a<br />
few short years ago. When she calls us Mommy and Daddy, we marvel at<br />
our good fortune to be the ones to bear those titles for her and her s<strong>is</strong>ter.<br />
Mattie was a tiny 15-month-old when we welcomed her in a hotel<br />
room in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Since then, Mattie has grown into a<br />
happy, self-assured 3-year-old with an infectious laugh, a personality that<br />
knows no strangers, and a smile that could light up any of the smaller,<br />
Eastern states. She thinks nothing of walking up to any person on the<br />
street and saying, “<strong>My</strong> name’s Mattie! What’s your name?” We try not to<br />
get too unnerved by th<strong>is</strong> little habit and, to date, the only result has been<br />
that several persons needing a kind word got their day brightened. She’s<br />
taught us quite a lot in two short years.<br />
As always on our “Forever Family Days,” we take a moment to remember<br />
the birth parents of our daughters. For unknown reasons they set<br />
our girls on their paths to us. For those acts of hope and love, we will<br />
always be thankful. We only w<strong>is</strong>h that some day we could meet them to<br />
thank them in person and tell them that everything has worked out just<br />
fine.<br />
To those of you who have been on a similar journey of your own, all<br />
we can say <strong>is</strong> “Ain’t life grand?” And to those of you waiting for that first<br />
moment with your child: May that wait be short, your journey safe and<br />
swift and may it bring you all the joy and wonder we have come to know.<br />
—Tim Chauvin<br />
Nacogdoches, Texas<br />
Top: Tim and Wynter Chauvin<br />
with Marit at the U.S. Consulate<br />
in China, 2001.<br />
That’s Marit Chauvin on the left<br />
and Mattie, with pigtails, on the<br />
right.<br />
www.holtinternational.org 27
Mongolia<br />
After the abrupt d<strong>is</strong>solution of the Soviet Union in the early<br />
1990s, Mongolia lost all economic subsidies literally overnight.<br />
Some 40 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line.<br />
Half of those are under 16 years old. Unable to provide for their<br />
children, some families abandoned their children. Others sought help<br />
from the government.<br />
In 1999 <strong>Holt</strong> began a partnership with the Naidvar Center in Ulaanbaatar<br />
to ass<strong>is</strong>t homeless children in Mongolia. <strong>Holt</strong> provided training and<br />
technical ass<strong>is</strong>tance through staff such as John Williams and Gary Gamer,<br />
who went there to adv<strong>is</strong>e, and David Lim, who traveled there to lead<br />
workshops. The <strong>Holt</strong>-supported Rainbow Special Baby Care unit began<br />
caring for toddlers in cooperation with the government institution.<br />
Many of the children enter th<strong>is</strong> program malnour<strong>is</strong>hed; however,<br />
the care and ass<strong>is</strong>tance provided by <strong>Holt</strong> enables most of the<br />
children to be healthy by the time they are returned to birth<br />
parents or united with their adoptive parents.<br />
Haiti<br />
PProtecting children in the Western hem<strong>is</strong>phere’s poorest country<br />
Peter and Shay Fontana founded the facility that in 2004 became <strong>Holt</strong> Fontana Village. In<br />
a country virtually devoid of social services and where many parents are unable to find work<br />
to support even basic human needs, children often suffer the most.<br />
“Orphans literally live on the streets, eating out of garbage cans,” Peter Fontana says.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> joined with the Fontanas and began accepting children into care in late 2004, helping to<br />
develop intake policies and childcare procedures to protect the children’s rights and encourage<br />
healthy development.<br />
“Here we are in one of the poorest countries in the world, but the Fontana Village <strong>is</strong> one of the<br />
best childcare facilities anywhere,” says Gary Gamer, <strong>Holt</strong> President and CEO. “The Fontana’s built<br />
the place and <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> provides the services. The ‘least of these’ are really coming first.<br />
They really deserve th<strong>is</strong>.”<br />
The village has room for 30 children, and new buildings are under construction. Peter Fontana,<br />
a physic<strong>is</strong>t, installed state-of-the-art water purification and solar electrical systems. <strong>Holt</strong> provides<br />
the services and <strong>is</strong> the only agency in Haiti integrating services with the intention of doing family<br />
preservation work. <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>is</strong> actively engaged in intercountry adoption for children in care.<br />
Uganda<br />
Offering children<br />
a hope and a future<br />
28 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
LLike a tidal wave of death, AIDS swept across Africa leaving millions of children<br />
without parents. Suddenly young children became the heads of households,<br />
trying to ra<strong>is</strong>e, protect and provide for themselves and even younger<br />
siblings.<br />
To address th<strong>is</strong> need <strong>Holt</strong> joined with Action For Children (AFC) to develop<br />
support among extended family members and within the children’s communities<br />
to create new stable family units and enable the children to attend school.<br />
“If no one cares, we do,” says AFC Chairperson Jolly Nyeko, who founded<br />
AFC in 1997. “It changes a child’s whole world view, just to know that someone<br />
outside h<strong>is</strong> household <strong>is</strong> there for him or her.”<br />
Although international adoption was not permitted at the time, <strong>Holt</strong> and AFC<br />
developed comprehensive programs to help orphaned Ugandan youth reach<br />
“atenge,” which means stability and commitment to staying together within a<br />
family or community context. Th<strong>is</strong> insures as close as possible to family-like<br />
conditions. Dan Lauer, <strong>Holt</strong> Senior Executive for Latin America, Eastern Europe,<br />
Africa and Haiti, describes AFC’s family preservation program as the most in<br />
depth and comprehensive <strong>Holt</strong> has.<br />
AFC’s services contain a community and group component that surrounds<br />
children with community and group support. Services include child sponsorships,<br />
grandparent support for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, home-based parenting<br />
groups, children’s clubs, parent education, training and start-up funds for<br />
small family-run businesses (every family must work) and other forms of help.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> <strong>is</strong> working to develop intercountry adoption for those children who were<br />
abandoned.<br />
Far left: The devastating effects of the AIDS pandemic in sub-<br />
Saharan Africa has left nearly a whole generation of children without<br />
parents. Children’s Brigade <strong>is</strong> one of the initiatives promoted<br />
by <strong>Holt</strong>’s partner agency in Uganda,<br />
Action for Children. AFC forms small<br />
local councils to determine the best<br />
strategies for children to have safe,<br />
stable homes. • Center: Jolly Nyeko,<br />
Founder and Chairperson of AFC, walks<br />
with a group of youngsters, 2003.<br />
“Our children are our future,” she says.<br />
• Left: AFC Director Lydia Nyesigomwe<br />
hugs two children receiving <strong>Holt</strong> care<br />
in Uganda, 2005.<br />
Clockw<strong>is</strong>e from top: These seven girls, among the first children to be cared for at <strong>Holt</strong> Fontana<br />
Village, celebrate Chr<strong>is</strong>tmas 2004 in their finest clothes. • Children in care pose with<br />
staff members in front of one of the <strong>Holt</strong>-funded houses, June 2005. • Th<strong>is</strong> <strong>is</strong> the doctor<br />
who makes frequent v<strong>is</strong>its to <strong>Holt</strong> Fontana Village to check on the children’s health. • Shay<br />
Fontana worked briefly for <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong> as a translator in Latin America in the 1980s,<br />
and she remembered <strong>Holt</strong> when she and her husband, Peter, wanted to develop their work in<br />
Haiti. Shay, shown here with one of her daughters, v<strong>is</strong>its with children in Haiti, c. 2003.<br />
Ukraine<br />
Fresh air and sunshine at a camp in the Ukrainian countryside. Imagine what<br />
th<strong>is</strong> might mean to an HIV-positive child.<br />
Children from <strong>Holt</strong>’s street shelter program and from families in cr<strong>is</strong><strong>is</strong> attended<br />
last summer’s Sunshine Camp program. Staff got to know the children well and<br />
used th<strong>is</strong> program as a springboard to provide services best suited for them, including<br />
foster placements and family reunification and preservation activities.<br />
Establ<strong>is</strong>hed during the tumultuous 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, <strong>Holt</strong>’s<br />
new Families for Children Project (FCP) <strong>is</strong> being funded by a three-year, $3.2 million<br />
grant from the U.S. Agency for <strong>International</strong> Development.<br />
Based on lessons learned from long experience in Russia, <strong>Holt</strong> now provides<br />
family-based care for homeless, abandoned and at-r<strong>is</strong>k children in Ukraine. <strong>Holt</strong><br />
focuses on children who are d<strong>is</strong>abled or who have other special needs. <strong>Holt</strong> also serves<br />
families and children affected by HIV/AIDS. <strong>Holt</strong> trains social workers and provides family<br />
support as a means to prevent and alleviate the impact of HIV/AIDS on children and to<br />
lessen the stigma and d<strong>is</strong>crimination faced by these children.<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s goal <strong>is</strong> to develop sustainable model programs and improved standards of services that<br />
will reduce institutionalization of children and promote family-based care alternatives, including<br />
family preservation, foster care, family-type homes and domestic adoption.<br />
www.holtinternational.org 29
Gatherings such as the annual <strong>Holt</strong> picnic held at the <strong>Holt</strong> family farm in Creswell, Oregon,<br />
presented an opportunity for families to support one another and share helpful information on<br />
ra<strong>is</strong>ing adopted children from another country.<br />
United States<br />
They were pioneers—the families who adopted<br />
children during <strong>Holt</strong>’s early years.<br />
Several times they banded together to defend international<br />
adoption from detractors who sought to outlaw the practice.<br />
They had to learn from each other how best to ra<strong>is</strong>e their adopted<br />
children. And so they shared a special kinship when they gathered<br />
together.<br />
In 1957 Harry and Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> invited adoptive families to a<br />
sort of reunion on the <strong>Holt</strong> farm near Creswell, Oregon. That was<br />
the beginning of an annual tradition that has grown and spread<br />
around the United States. Families still get together at <strong>Holt</strong> picnics—to<br />
share their adoption stories, admire each other’s children<br />
and give their children a chance to play with other international<br />
adoptees.<br />
Adoptive family picnics are but one example of <strong>Holt</strong>’s life-long<br />
commitment to international adoptees and their families. David<br />
Kim, a former president of <strong>Holt</strong>, recognized the great value of<br />
bringing adult adoptees back for a tour of their birth country.<br />
These “Motherland Tours” enable adoptees to gain a firsthand appreciation<br />
for their cultural heritage. Tours often bring the solace<br />
that they were loved in their birth country and that adoption was<br />
a necessity in their lives.<br />
Top to bottom: Adoptees from several nations appear in<br />
th<strong>is</strong> photo from the 2002 Oregon Heritage Camp.<br />
In collaboration with three other organizations, <strong>Holt</strong><br />
sponsored the first international conference for adult<br />
Korean adoptees in 1999 in Washington, DC.<br />
In th<strong>is</strong> 1977 photo of one of the first Motherland Tours<br />
to Korea, Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> appears in the center with David<br />
Kim at far right.<br />
For child welfare officials, staff and foster parents, the return<br />
of confident, successful, well-educated adult adoptees <strong>is</strong> a strong<br />
confirmation of the dec<strong>is</strong>ions they are making in the lives of children<br />
today.<br />
Dr. Kim’s first Motherland Tour brought adoptees back to Korea<br />
in 1975. Since then over 3,000 adoptees have gone on similar<br />
tours to Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, India and,<br />
most recently, China.<br />
In the early 1980s David Kim also developed a camp for young<br />
adoptees. The original camps focused on cultural activities, but<br />
some of the strongest benefits were long-lasting friendships between<br />
international adoptees and the opportunity to benefit from<br />
the experiences of more mature adoptee counselors.<br />
In the 1990s <strong>Holt</strong> developed a collection of services to promote<br />
a successful adoption and adjustment throughout the adoptee’s<br />
life. Some of these “Post Adoption Services” include: referral<br />
services for professional counseling, information searches for<br />
medical or personal h<strong>is</strong>tory, and searches to connect adoptees<br />
with their birth relatives.<br />
The Power of One, the Power of Many<br />
by Gary N. Gamer, President and CEO<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> staff recently celebrated the birthday of<br />
Grandma Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> by telling stories of her life.<br />
We remembered how she made all children feel special. We<br />
remembered how she faithfully recorded prayer requests—and<br />
God’s answers—in a simple notebook. We all knew Grandma<br />
kept on praying until the person who made the request let her<br />
know the prayer had been answered.<br />
Anyone who met Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> sensed immediately the pureness<br />
in her heart and actions. People resonated with th<strong>is</strong> purity. It<br />
drew out the best in all of us. And it enabled <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong><br />
to identify others with the same commitment to children across<br />
national boundaries and cultures.<br />
It drew in Susan Cox, an early adoptee from Korea, who joined<br />
<strong>Holt</strong>’s Board of Directors at age 24. In 1993 she participated in<br />
designing the Hague Convention of <strong>International</strong> Adoption Law.<br />
Today she positively affects the lives of many people around the<br />
world as <strong>Holt</strong>’s Vice President of Public Policy and External Affairs.<br />
Susan says that the work she does to secure policies in the<br />
best interest of the child <strong>is</strong> a direct reflection of the work initiated<br />
by Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> some 50 years ago, when Bertha led the charge for<br />
leg<strong>is</strong>lation enabling the adoption and immigration of the <strong>Holt</strong>’s<br />
eight children from Korea.<br />
David Kim was drawn in by the tough, tireless and compassionate<br />
commitment he witnessed in Harry <strong>Holt</strong>. In the five decades<br />
since David became Mr. <strong>Holt</strong>’s first hire in Korea, he has put h<strong>is</strong><br />
faith into action as <strong>Holt</strong>’s Ambassador to the World.<br />
Just last October, we celebrated the 50th Anniversary of <strong>Holt</strong><br />
Children’s Services of Korea, where Dr. Kim was honored with<br />
the highest civilian award that can be conferred by the Korean<br />
government. Dr. Kim took h<strong>is</strong> unique ability to transcend culture<br />
on behalf of children to many corners of the world.<br />
Former <strong>Holt</strong> CEOs Jack Adams and John Williams worked closely<br />
with Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> and David Kim. They were inspired to move<br />
<strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong>’s m<strong>is</strong>sion for every child to have a permanent,<br />
loving home to new levels of professional<strong>is</strong>m and new geographic<br />
areas. Along with Glen Noteboom, who worked for <strong>Holt</strong> in a<br />
number of key capacities, they traveled with Grandma <strong>Holt</strong> to<br />
many countries where <strong>Holt</strong> was called to set up programs. They<br />
encountered individuals such as Acharn Darawan Dhamaruksa<br />
in Thailand and<br />
Mrs. Lata Joshi<br />
in India. These<br />
two v<strong>is</strong>ionaries<br />
became leaders<br />
of agencies in<br />
their respective<br />
countries—agencies<br />
that are<br />
unequalled in skill,<br />
commitment and<br />
service to children.<br />
I think you are<br />
getting the picture<br />
here. The torch<br />
has been passed to<br />
many, the flames<br />
have spread and<br />
taken on fresh colors<br />
and shapes through new people and new countries.<br />
Each of these people I mentioned has d<strong>is</strong>played at least two essential<br />
character<strong>is</strong>tics.<br />
One <strong>is</strong> faith and the imperative the Almighty brings to th<strong>is</strong><br />
m<strong>is</strong>sion. The <strong>Holt</strong>s’ commitment to Jesus undergirded all that<br />
they did. Such a strong belief requires action and gives hope even<br />
under the most trying of circumstances.<br />
Another <strong>is</strong> a commitment to children—particularly those who<br />
are powerless—and an understanding that families are crucial for<br />
every child to realize their God-given potential.<br />
Each of the individuals I have mentioned would say that their<br />
success was heavily dependent on others. They made an impact<br />
only because of other’s compassion and commitment. Examples<br />
include:<br />
• the Filipino childcare worker who gives unqualified love<br />
and care<br />
• the government official who l<strong>is</strong>tens to that nagging little<br />
voice within that says, “Yes, I can and should put th<strong>is</strong> child<br />
ahead of many other more v<strong>is</strong>ible and politically advantageous<br />
interests.”<br />
• the U.S. family or a business in China giving <strong>Holt</strong> financial<br />
support to change the lives of many children<br />
• foster parents in Romania or adoptive parents in India who<br />
can make extra room in their hearts and home to create a<br />
better future for a child<br />
• the d<strong>is</strong>tant relative in Uganda who, with just minimal outside<br />
support, can take in the orphan who lost her parents to<br />
AIDS.<br />
Engaging people of good will—and such people are everywhere—<strong>is</strong><br />
crucial to <strong>Holt</strong> <strong>International</strong>’s ability to make inroads in<br />
addressing the global cr<strong>is</strong><strong>is</strong> of children outside of family care.<br />
I thank all of you taking part in <strong>Holt</strong>’s m<strong>is</strong>sion to children.<br />
Through your prayers, your dedication and your support, you<br />
inspire me and others—just as Harry and Bertha <strong>Holt</strong> inspired others<br />
in their time.<br />
Left: Pat Keltie, long-time <strong>Holt</strong> social worker who served for many years as the<br />
Director of <strong>Holt</strong>’s New Jersey office, holds the first child brought into <strong>Holt</strong> care in<br />
Vietnam. File photo, 1973. • Above: Gary Gamer, <strong>Holt</strong> President and CEO, holds a<br />
child in care at the Fengcheng orphanage nursery, Jiangxi Province, China 2005.<br />
30 50th Anniversary 2006<br />
www.holtinternational.org 31