Mormon Life - Adoption tag

Dave Says: He Needs Love Right Now

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:03:00 -0600

by Dave Ramsey
source: MormonLife.com

Mormon Life says: We're adopting my nephew out of a bad family situation. Should we temporarily put the baby steps on hold and spend more on family stuff? Dear Dave,

My husband and I are adopting my nephew. His mom is involved with drugs and alcohol, and his father isn’t in the picture. We’ve got $1,000 in the bank, and we’re in the process of paying off all our debt, except the house. Should we slow down or stop the Baby Steps temporarily, and spend more on family things since my nephew is a teenager?

Jocelyn

Dear Jocelyn,

Hugs are free. Making cookies costs next to nothing, and spending quality time with a young man or woman doesn’t cost a thing. I call that a teenager-friendly environment.

I know your heart is in the right place, but I don’t want you to fall into the American trap of thinking he’ll be happy if he has a Wii or you take expensive vacations every year. It sounds to me like he’s coming straight out of a big mess. He wants and needs someone to put their arms around him, tell him he’s a good guy, and teach him how to grow into a strong man.

Doing some affordable family things once in a while is okay, if you can make it work with your budget. But I wouldn’t spend a bunch of money to try and prove that you love him. You’ve already proven that by bringing him into your home and making him part of your family. Continue cleaning up your finances. Then, when you’ve actually got some money to spend, you all can do some really cool stuff together.

You guys are awesome!

—Dave

* For more financial help, please visit daveramsey.com.

LDS adoption official cited for service

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:22:00 -0700

source: deseretnews.com

Having worked in LDS Family Services for 30 years, the adoption process has become a big part of Fred Riley's professional life.

Now Riley is being honored for his efforts. The National Council for Adoption (NCFA) will induct Riley and two others into the Adoption Hall of Fame, adding them to a distinguished list of adoption advocates who have worked diligently to help children find loving, permanent families.

Riley, currently the project manager for the LDS Church's Humanitarian Services, has served as the commissioner of family services for 12 years and on the NCFA board for 12 years.

10 months after rescue of daughter from Haiti, family is sealed

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:03:00 -0600

by Kate Ensign-Lewis
source: ldsliving.com

Last Friday dawned with the promise that Jeremy and Hollie Wardle would finally reach the culmination of their journey to bring their family together. They and their children would finally be sealed to the last addition to their family—their 7-year-old, Gabbie.

“When all six of the kids came in, in their white clothes, and Gabbie being asked individually to come kneel across the altar with us—it was so beautiful,” Jeremy said afterward.

There were times when they wondered how far away this day was. In particular, January 12, 2010, dawned with a new challenge and a special reason for concern: Gabbie was still living Haiti when the infamous earthquake hit.

Then and Now

Though the Wardles would soon learn that Gabbie was safe, they were told that the crèche where she lived had supplies for only two days. Jeremy and Hollie leapt into action, calling friends and family to help them reach her and help the crèche.

“We always felt like Gabbie was coming home,” said Hollie. “But I just kept saying to [Jeremy], ‘This is so much bigger than I think you or I can imagine.’ Even though Gabbie is our priority, they’re our priority, too.”

Within a week, Jeremy had flown to the Dominican Republic (the only means of access to Haiti during that time), connected with Utah Haiti Relief volunteers who would help bring supplies to the Creche and fly out orphans, and gotten to the orphanage in the nick of time. For three days Jeremy and some of the volunteers stayed at the orphanage, accepting new loads of aid each day, until Gina Duncan, who runs the crèche, returned from a 72-hour stint at the U.S. embassy—18 visas in hand for some of her orphans to get to their adoptive families. Jeremy and the UHR volunteers were able to fly the children out and help bring them to their families in the U.S.

Helping these other orphans was rewarding for Jeremy and Hollie, but it was with particular relief that, on January 23, they were able to bring Gabbie safely home to Bountiful, Utah.

Now, 10 months later, life with Gabbie is finding its rhythm.

“She’s really found her place in the family. It’s been a really good acclimation process,” said Jeremy, though he added that it hasn’t been without challenges. “Anyone can study on adopting older kids, and there’s issues. Not to say that we’re without, but she’s been an angel. A lot of issues are not hers but us getting used to her.”

Gabbie, for instance, loves to find out what other people are doing. “She’s kind of a nosy little girl, which I love about her,” said Jeremy, chuckling, “but it sometimes rubs her older brothers wrong and we have to chitchat about it. The hardest part and the most beautiful part is that everybody is so different.”

With six children—four of them adopted from three different families—the family has a lot of individuality to deal with. Jeremy and Hollie try to emphasize the different strengths and talents of each child and remind the others to value their own talents and never be jealous. “The earlier we parent those potential challenges, it’s easier to deal with it,” Jeremy said.

“None of this would be possible without my wife—being able to stay home and be a good mom,” he added. “There have been sacrifices on all ends, but they’re really not sacrifices in the long run. They’re good things.” And these good things keep them going.

Together Forever

Undoubtedly, one of the best things the Wardles have experienced was their family sealing last Friday.

“It was beautiful,” said Jeremy. “We asked the kids, since it was the very last time we would be there until they received endowments, that they would try to remember everything about the temple—that they would just sponge it up. And they did.”

For Kaden and Cole—the oldest of the Wardle children—this was the third time they got to experience a family sealing. Jeremy believes this latest experience had perhaps the most profound effect on them. “They’re still kids, but they have a spiritual maturity that just makes me pleased. They know that they’ve been able to experience cool things. Kayden has been to Haiti, they’ve experienced the death of their brothers. It’s allowed them to mature,” said Jeremy.

While distance separates the Wardles from some of their family (Hollie’s parents are on a mission in Russia and one of her sisters lives abroad), several friends made it to the occasion, including the three men from Utah Haiti Relief who helped to rescue Gabbie from Haiti. “It took so long to get out of the sealing room because everyone had to hug each one of our kids,” he said, “and our kids really went and hugged everybody.”

But one of the best moments for Jeremy witnessing Gabbie’s excitement and awe as she knelt at the altar on her “special sealing day.” “She just kept looking back and forth at our eyes the whole time—not nervous, but like, ‘wow!’”

Children Ambassadors

Jeremy has returned several times to Haiti during the past year. As part of an ongoing effort with Utah Haiti Relief (UHR, utahhaitirelief.com), Jeremy and Hollie try to promote aid wherever possible, even when they can’t go down. Some of the most exciting developments for UHR have been the building of a hotel, a hospital, and a women’s center, the last of which was built particularly for women who lost husbands and limbs after the earthquake. And of course, he and Hollie continue contact with the crèche that three of their children came from.

In fact, Jeremy will be returning to Haiti in January to help Hollie’s sister in her adoption of a little girl from Gabbie’s crèche. And she’s not the only one adopting. In addition to Hollie’s sister, two UHR friends, the Wardles’ neighbors, and Jeremy’s business partner have decided to adopt children from the crèche because of contact with the Wardles. Gina Duncan, who runs the Creche Enfant Jesus in Haiti, calls these children her “little ambassadors.”

“It just shows how wonderful these kids are,” says Jeremy. “People get attached to their spirits. Something is resonating to others.”

These children have resonated in the lives of many, especially the Wardles, and though the journey to bring their family together has brought unique challenges, they’re happy with where they have come.

“Every family has their own set of challenges, but I think the beautiful part is we have a choice of what the outcome is going to be,” said Jeremy, recalling the loss of two boys that initially motivated them to adopt. “We could still just have two boys and be sad that we lost a couple boys, but we opened our hearts to what the Lord wanted, and not only do we have another four beautiful children, but they have just fulfilled us beyond measure.”

Click here to read LDS Living's Mar/Apr article about Gabbie's rescue.

Journey for a Lifetime

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 17:00:00 -0700

by Kate Ensign-Lewis
source: MormonLife.com

Mormon Life says: Through a chain of events filled with sorrow and joy, Jeremy and Hollie Wardle found the children who were to join their family. And in their journey to rescue one daughter from the after-effects of Haiti's magnitude 7.0 earthquake, they discovered an even greater bond. Jeremy and Hollie Wardle had already started their family journey with two beautiful boys when it took an unexpected detour. For the second time, they lost a son after premature birth. Inconsolable, they wondered what the future held.

But on their way home from the hospital after losing their son, they felt prompted to call their friends, the Kehls, who had also lost children and had chosen to adopt. In a discussion with the Kehls that evening, Hollie and Jeremy suddenly realized the Kehls were meant to help them find a little girl. Within minutes, Ed Kehl was phoning his aunt who ran an adoption agency. It turned out she had a newborn child in Philadelphia--a little girl--who was ready to be adopted.

Just seven days later, their daughter Brooklyn was safe inside their home.

Unexpected Joy Out of the tragedy of death, the Wardles were led to their first daughter. It would become a pattern for their family--each addition has led to the blessing of another. "Each one of our children has played a specific role," says Jeremy.

The adoption of one child led them to consider adopting more. So, four years later, after choice experiences, they were led to adopt two siblings, Robens and Nyah, from Haiti. They thought this adoption would add the last of their children to the family. But on their first visit to Robens and Nyah at the Crèche Enfant Jesus in Haiti, they saw another little girl, Gabrielle, who consumed their thoughts long after the visit. "I just knew she was supposed to be with us," says Hollie.

With odds stacked against them, the Wardles completed Gabbie's adoption one year after Robens and Nyah joined them. And on January 11, 2010, Gabbie was cleared to be with them in two weeks.

Something Bigger The next day, January 12, Haiti was hit with a catastrophic earthquake. It was two days before Gina Duncan, who runs the orphanage just miles from Port-au-Prince, confirmed the safety of Gabbie and everyone in the Crèche. But, she explained, they only had enough food to last two days. Gina asked the Wardles for help. And so this child had led them to an even larger "family." "We always felt like Gabbie was coming home," says Hollie. "But I just kept saying to [Jeremy], 'This is so much bigger than I think you or I can imagine.' Even though Gabbie is our priority, they're our priority, too."

It soon became obvious that the only way to get Gabbie and help the Crèche was for Jeremy to go down to Haiti himself. Bolstered by family and friends--who offered everything from SkyMiles to priesthood blessings--Jeremy departed for the Dominican Republic, planning to get over to neighboring Haiti and help the Crèche, but without any idea how.

Miraculously, everything would fall into place. When he arrived, Jeremy had little more than some food and a cell phone--his lifeline back to Hollie, who would periodically let him know about "angels" who stepped in to help them at just the right moments.

Jeremy would meet the people most instrumental in his trip's success within one day of arriving--twelve men who would get Jeremy and the aid to the Crèche. These men were with Utah Haiti Relief (UHR), an all-volunteer organization has funded the transport of thousands of pounds of aid throughout Haiti.

Jeremy, it turned out, was also able to help them. While other UHR volunteers were already serving elsewhere in Haiti, these twelve men had been directed to Jimaní without a specific idea of what to do. But after hearing about the orphanage and its dire need, these men told Jeremy that he had helped them find their mission: to get aid to the orphans in the Crèche and, afterward, work with Jeremy to find more orphans they could help.

So it was on Monday, January 18, that aid finally made it to the Crèche. As Jeremy and the other men helicoptered over the orphanage, "the aunties that had taken care of the children came running out, their hands were in the air, and they were jumping and clapping," remembers Jeremy. They had made it in the nick of time--sadly, one baby had already died.

Once on the ground, Jeremy found Gabbie and said, "I'm not going to leave without you this time. I promise." But even after helping to attain aid and getting to his little girl, Jeremy felt something larger was yet to be done.

Evacuation For three days Jeremy and some of the volunteers stayed at the orphanage, accepting new loads of aid each day, until Thursday morning when Gina returned from a seventy-two-hour stint at the U.S. embassy--eighteen visas in hand for some of her orphans to get to their adoptive families. She then asked Jeremy if he could arrange for the orphans to fly out with him. He turned to C.J. Wade, one of the UHR volunteers making it all possible, who replied with a smile, "Heck yeah!"

So, in the Wardle's Utah home, Hollie implemented a country-wide phone tree--asking contacts in Chicago, Arizona, and Miami to help arrange for a jet to take the group from Port-au-Prince to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Within hours, they miraculously had the money and the plane. "Things facilitated themselves," says Hollie, who is amazed at how everything came together. "When you're prompted, you act, and great things happen because of it."

Back in Haiti, Jeremy witnessed some tender moments before departure. The orphanage caretakers--the aunties--took their last moments with the children to lovingly dress them in their best clothes and prepare them to meet their new families. Finally, it was time to go. "We were lifting off and I looked at Gabbie--she just had tears streaming down her face and she was blowing kisses to those aunties who had taken care of her since she was two-and-a-half years old. It was so precious. So happy, but so bittersweet." In the end, Jeremy was able to bring Gabbie home on Brooklyn's birthday--six years after their original detour started.

With Gabbie safely at home, the Wardles feel they've come to the end of their journey to find their children. But it isn't the end of their journey to find and help others. The Wardles will continue to serve earthquake victims through UHR. "We're not done in Haiti," says Hollie.

"It's not just about the struggle of getting Gabbie," says Jeremy. "In all that experience, it's just neat how none of us had an objective--it was great teamwork. Just how many families were completed from this. It all starts with a seed. Me going in to get Gabbie was the seed that was planted to get it all going."

The entire experience is a reminder of the phrase inscribed on the only possession Gabbie was able to take from the orphanage--a picture frame holding a photo of Jeremy, Gabbie, and Hollie. A frame the Wardles gave her long before their recent life-changing experiences, which says, "With God all things are possible."

Want to help? Visit UHR's website, utahhaitirelief.org, where you can help the organization reach places outside Port-au-Prince's main humanitarian efforts.

Don't Fall in Love with the Children

Sat, 23 Aug 2003 10:33:00 -0600

by Cathy Geigle
source: MormonLife.com

Mormon Life says: Thirty years later, an adopted son returns to his old Philippines orphanage to adopt a child of his own.

A warm rush ran through James’ body as the taxi pulled up to the front doors of the Philippines orphanage where he’d spent his first eight months of life. An old black-and-white photograph attached to his birth certificate was all he’d seen of the Hospicio de San Jose in the past 30 years, but his heart confirmed the importance of this visit.

“I felt an incredibly strong impression I knew could come from only one place. It told me to be prepared to have a great deal of information revealed to me during these next few days,” James wrote.

Thirty years earlier, James Badham had been adopted by an American family and brought to the United States. An unexpected business trip to the Philippines allowed him to return to the orphanage.

“I remember getting off the plane in awe, thinking to myself that never in my wildest imagination did I think I would have had the opportunity to return to the Philippines, yet here I was in the land of my heritage,” James recalled.

Entering the orphanage, he was greeted by Catholic sisters who took him on a room-to-room tour. When he was escorted to the nursery, he saw the same cribs and thin mats he’d slept on 30 years before when, as a sickly baby, he was adopted by his new mother.

As James looked upon the orphan children, the sisters gave him the same counsel they’d given his mother many years before. “Don’t fall in love with the children,” they said. “It will hurt too much to leave them.”

Strong Promptings

But it was too late. As he played with and hugged those loving little babies, he felt as if they’d been his from the beginning. In a moment of reflection, he realized that the principles of the gospel, instilled in his own heart from childhood, allowed him to feel a profound love for these children. He loved them as individuals and children of God, and he knew he had an important mission to fulfill.

“I probably had as many spiritual experiences in those few days as I’d had in my whole full-time mission in Honduras. It was almost like ‘do this’ and ‘do that.’ It was that strong,” Badham said. “My eyes filled with tears knowing that not long ago it was me being held by another who’d felt the same thing.”

As he hugged and looked upon the little orphans, James’ thoughts turned to his own family back in the states. He thought of his wife Jennifer and their three children. Then he thought of his unborn baby who’d died in the womb a few months earlier without having the chance to come to earth.

As Jennifer recalls, “It took us a year and a half to get pregnant, and we were overjoyed when it finally happened. Just 19 weeks into the pregnancy, we learned that the baby’s heart had stopped beating and we had lost our child. Our hearts were broken.”

The miscarriage sparked an interest, but it wasn’t until a business trip that they seriously considered adoption. Scheduled for the very month she would’ve given birth, James would have been with her instead of going to the Philippines.

After two days spent visiting the orphanage, it was time for James to return home. “I stood and faced the front of the Hospicio de San Jose, pondering on the short visit and the experiences I’d just had. My heart filled with great emotion and I had tears in my eyes—and once again the Holy Ghost came and comforted me.” Immediately upon his return, James related his experience. He and Jennifer began researching to learn all they could about adoption so they, too, could bring one of those children home.

The Badhams searched, and finally found an adoption agency they wanted to work with. “We went to our first meeting and found that it would cost nearly $15,000 to adopt from the Philippines. We went home disappointed. It would take us at least a few years to come up with that much money,” Jennifer wrote.

'A God of Miracles'

While expense was disheartening, James and Jennifer decided they still wanted to do something to help the orphanage during Christmas. They began a fundraiser and wired the $4,400 they collected to the humanitarian missionaries in Manila. They missionaries took the children to a department store and let them pick out their own Christmas presents. The missionaries were also able to buy a DVD player and some movies for the handicapped children, as well as a few computers for educational use.

A week later, the missionaries went to the orphanage to sing songs and celebrate Christmas with the children and the orphanage staff. “It touched our hearts and the hearts of others to watch the video of these missionaries singing ‘I am a Child of God’ to God’s most precious gifts—His children. Oh, how we wish we could have been there,” Jennifer wrote.

While adoption seemed so far away, it remained constantly in their thoughts. In an act of faith, they decided to start filling out the papers right after Christmas, even though they didn’t have the needed money.

Not long after that decision, James lost his job. It seemed yet another setback in their plans, but they didn’t lose faith. Friends and neighbors helped in the job search and offered prayers in their behalf.

Then a miracle happened. “James came in from getting the mail and called me down to the office. He handed me a $10,000 check that had anonymously arrived in the mail,” Jennifer wrote. Adding up the adoption fees, they discovered they now had enough money to cover them.

An Act of Faith

“How many of us say to ourselves, ‘If I were only a multimillionaire, what could I do?’ I’ve felt the Spirit say to me, ‘First, I want to see what you will do without it. Will you give all that you have, even though you don’t have much right now?’ The test is now. Are we like the widow who cast in her mite? Will we give all that we have?” Not long after receiving the check in the mail, James found a job. The job was not only better but paid more as well.

“I was raised in a land of opportunity, but the greatest blessing is that I have the Gospel, and that has given me eternal freedom,” James said. “The adoption allows me to provide this opportunity for someone else. ‘How great shall be your joy’—adopting a child into a covenant family is exactly that.”

James likes to ask himself this question: “‘What am I willing to sacrifice?’ Most people have to really get on their knees,” he said. “I want to be able to reach out and help somebody. You only need to ask, ‘Lord, am I doing it the right way?’ He will consecrate those efforts. Then we will begin to fulfill President Hinckley’s counsel to ‘get out of your comfort zone and watch yourself grow.’”