RANI SUTLIFF KNOWS she can salvage a life, and she can't wait to
try.

She wants to hold an abandoned infant close and let it feel her
life. She wants to hand a struggling baby to the eager parents
adopting it and savor the moment a loving family is born.

She wants to help the way strangers   helped her after her
biological mother relinquished her in Calcutta, India, 19 years ago.
So Rani plans to head to India next year with her mother, Linda
Sutliff, who also was adopted in India.

"I think it'd be neat if I can volunteer where somebody helped
me," Rani says.

Mother and daughter want to help for three months at the
International Mission of Hope hospital, where Rani was born and
lived the first two months of her life. Then, Linda wants to show
Rani the British orphanage and school in northern India where Linda
and her brother Michael spent childhood.

"I've been looking to go back," Linda says. "I just need to go
back."

Linda left India in 1958 with her new Midwestern mother, and
never returned. Linda believes her biological Indian mother either
died during childbirth or was institutionalized. Her father was a
British railroad engineer who worked for the British Broadcasting
Corp.

He put Linda and Michael, 16 months older than his sister, in a
British-run orphanage with 64 children. The orphanage catered to
upscale merchants. Linda was raised on the King's English and
manners at the foothills of the Himalayas. She wore uniforms but no
shoes, and she lived in a cottage with one other girl. She saw
Michael on Sundays.

Ida Hildibrand, a home economics specialist from Kansas, decided
in the early 1950s to help the world situation by adopting children.
Ida was single and well-intentioned but not really nurturing. She
worked for the U.S. government sharing her home economics skills in
India and East Pakistan.

Ida wanted two children and preferred a brother and sister. She
met Linda and Michael in 1956 at their British orphanage. They were
12 and 13 and fit her plan. She took them out of school and dressed
them in tailor-made brown corduroy outfits with shoes. They were
shocked.

"We had never worn shoes," Linda says.

They also had walked everywhere. Ida traveled in a Land Rover.
The car's motion sickened Linda.

Before taking off permanently with Ida, Linda and Michael spent
Christmas with their father in Calcutta. They hardly knew him. He
approved of their adoption because he wanted them well cared for.

"We all agreed we could part," Linda says.

Ida expected gratitude but Linda and Michael were rebellious
young teens. They hated shoes. Linda cut up her clothes. They didn't
understand a mother; they'd experienced house mothers and teachers.
They attached themselves to Ida's servants.

"We felt like we were on display, and we got tired of it," Linda
says.

Ida put them in Indian schools, but Linda and Michael spoke
English. They'd studied Bengali and Hindi like American students
study French and German. They lasted two weeks at the school, then
Ida put them in an American boarding school.

"We learned slang, ate watermelon, heard radio, had hot dogs,"
Linda says.

They stayed a year and a half while Ida traveled. She took them
to the United States via Japan and Hong Kong in 1958, but she
continued to travel. Linda and Michael stayed with Ida's second
cousins.

"It was hard for her (Ida). Our personalities were in place,"
Linda says. "We were kind of hellions. She always thought there was
something wrong with us. We didn't fit in."

Life with Ida took Linda and Michael to Kansas, San Francisco,
Hawaii and Idaho for months at a time. Linda graduated high school
in Montpelier, Idaho, worked with Ida on a Navajo reservation in
Arizona, then started Idaho State University's nursing program.

She met Jerry Sutliff, a pharmacy student, at school. They
eventually married and settled in the Inland Northwest in 1973.
Linda worked as as critical care nurse at Valley Hospital. Jerry was
a pharmacist at Modern Drug in Coeur d'Alene. They wanted children,
but had no luck on their own. So they adopted in 1977.

Baby Erica's biological mother was an unmarried teenager who
wanted a good home for her baby. Linda was determined to be her
"Earth Mother."

But, "I wasn't," she says. "I had no role model."

Linda's skills evolved with Jerry's help. He was a natural father
who had grown up with four sisters. By the time Erica was ready for
preschool, Linda loved her role as mother. The Sutliffs decided to
adopt another child.

In-country adoptions were taking years, so Linda and Jerry
decided on international adoption. India was the only country they
considered.

The Washington Association of Christian Adoptive Parents
connected the Sutliffs with the International Mission of Hope in
Calcutta. Linda requested a baby girl with no irreversible health
problems. She wanted to name her Rani, which means queen.

Rani was born at the mission's hospital and needed a complete
blood transfusion. She had intestinal parasites that took two months
to overcome. Her mother signed release forms right after giving
birth and left without sharing her name.

An off-duty flight attendant accompanied 2-month-old Rani in July
1983 from Calcutta to Seattle to meet her new family. Linda and
Erica immediately took Rani into the airport bathroom, undressed her
and studied their new treasure.

"She was a little brown stick, all hair," Linda says, chuckling.
"She grew into the healthiest of all of us."

Unlike Linda, Rani and Erica spent their childhoods in a close
family that stayed in one place. Jerry died from coronary artery
disease when Rani was 2. Linda raised her girls just north of
Rathdrum. Rani learned about India from the movie "Gandhi."

"Mom forgets she's gone everywhere, and I haven't," Rani says.
She is attending North Idaho College this year. Erica is married
with a new daughter, Serena.

Linda recently heard about organized trips to volunteer in India
through a Seattle University student who's going this year. Linda
wants to go and wants to take Rani with her.  Rani is ready.

"I don't know what to expect, but it doesn't scare me at all,"
Rani says. People often assume she's from India by her looks and she
worries the same may happen when she's in India. "I could be
mistaken for knowing things I don't know."

The Sutliffs need at least a year to arrange work schedules and
raise money. Linda, now a recovery room nurse at Kootenai Medical
Center, hopes to collect donations of medical supplies to take
along. She wants to work in a hospital that restores hope for babies
in hopeless situations.

Rani wants to see where her life began and help find promising
futures for babies just like her.

"I always wanted to go to India when I was older," she says. "And
I want to adopt when I have children."

              
       
   

It was a simple decision.

Steve and Michelle Gardner would travel to India to bring home
their adopted son.

They initially considered saving money and just meeting the 9-
year-old at the airport. But since John is legally blind, they
thought it would be better to meet on his turf and accompany him to
his new home on Spokane's North Side.

It was one of those simple decisions that cause ripples that turn
into tiny waves that wash over things and change them forever.

By making the trip, the Gardners got to see the orphanage where
John had been living, and got to meet his best friend, Joey.

It was a meeting that likely saved his life.

Because of a genetic blood disorder, Joey probably wouldn't have
lived past age 12 if he had stayed in India. So as the Gardners left
with their new son, they promised the 5-year-old they'd do their
best to find him a family in the United States.

Now Joey not only has a new family and the medical care he needs,
but lives only 40 minutes from his best friend.

"Now they have each other," Michelle said. "Something from their
past to connect them."

By the time the Gardners decided to adopt John from India, they
were quite used to the process. After having two sons and a
daughter, they adopted Rebekah from China and Deborah from Russia.

Then Steve, who is the children and family pastor at Fourth
Memorial Church, thought it would be nice to "even out the family"
with another boy. Michelle agreed, but wanted a non-Caucasian boy so
that Rebekah wouldn't be the only non-Caucasian in the family.

Many countries won't allow children to be adopted by families
with lots of kids, but will bend the rules for special
circumstances, like with John.

John is missing his left eye - probably due to infection, the
Gardners said - and has limited vision in his right eye. He sees
only shadows.

When the Gardners arrived at the orphanage near Calcutta in June
2001 to pick up John, they also met his best friend. The two slept
in the same bedroom, and often the same bed.

As John got to know his new parents, Joey tagged along - a little
bit mad, a little morose.

"He was angry with me because we were talking away his friend,"
Steve remembered.

"But we just fell in love with him," Michelle added.

The Gardners would have snatched him up in a second, but they
knew it would be many months before John's adoption would be final.
Because of that, it would be awhile before they could even start the
process with Joey.

They knew he needed someone sooner than that.

Joey's lifelong blood disorder, called thalassemia major,
requires him to have a blood transfusion every three weeks. In
India, he'd probably live until he was 12. In the United States,
because of easier access to medical treatments, people with the
disease can live into their 30s and 40s.

Glad tears mixed with sad ones as the Gardners left the
orphanage. Michelle looked Joey in the eyes and told him, "I'll try
to find a Mommy for you."

When the Gardners returned to Spokane, they started telling
everyone about John's little friend. They had unintentionally
collected many pictures and lots of video of him while they were in
India, just because he was always by John's side.

Several families fell deep into Joey's dark eyes, but got scared
off when they talked with specialists about his condition.

But Scott and Mary Segalla of Veradale had a different attitude.

"We thought we wanted to adopt, but hadn't thought about a child
with special needs," said Mary, the children's ministry director at
Valley Fourth Memorial. "When we heard about Joey, though, we felt a
tug at our hearts and thought maybe God had a different direction
for us."

After a lot of prayer, the Segallas decided Joey was supposed to
join them as the fourth child of their family.

"It was a leap of faith, but we felt God would provide for us to
deal with his condition," Mary said.

Joey arrived in July.

"I just wanted him to come to the United States," Michelle said.
"To have him be in Spokane is a miracle."

"It feels really good," added John. "It's fun having each other
close again."

John, 10, is now a fourth-grader at Evergreen Elementary School
on Spokane's North Side and Joey, 6, is a kindergartner at Valley
Christian School. It took them each about a month to stretch their
English from a list of domesticated animals to typical elementary-
schooler prattle, tinged with just the slightest melodic accent.

The boys get together often to play. They are all smiles when
they talk about their new families, comparing numbers of brothers
and sisters each have.

Their parents smile too, when they think about all the boys have
brought to their families.

A kindergarten class assignment asked Joey to finish the sentence
"I am thankful for...." His answer was "water."

Mary wondered what he meant until they happened to pass by a
decorative well pump. He pointed to it and said that's where his
water came from in India. And sometimes, he said, it broke.

Not having had anything of his own, Joey also is thrilled with
even the little toys that come in Happy Meals.

"Our other kids see that," Mary said, "and realize how lucky we
are."

The Gardners feel so fulfilled by the children who have come into
their lives through adoption that they started a nonprofit group,
Kingdom Kids Adoption Ministries, to give people the education and
support they need to adopt a child.

"We just want to encourage people to step out of their comfort
zone," Michelle said. "We want to open people's eyes to see how much
we all have, to realize there's more to life."

Another part of their ministry is about changing attitudes.

In India, the Gardners took a taxi with a driver who couldn't
believe they chose John to be their son.

"Why do you want this boy?" the driver asked them. "He won't go
to school, won't get a job, and won't get married."

Michelle didn't miss a beat.

"In America, he can do all those things," she told him.

The Gardners met many people in India with a similar attitude. A
child advocate who argued against the Gardners taking John home, for
instance, thought they must only want to adopt John to be a slave or
an organ donor. Now the Gardners regularly send pictures of John
with his siblings and friends, playing soccer and having fun, to the
orphanage director in India in hopes that word will get out about
the real reason they adopted: love.

"We want to make it easier for the next family who wants to
adopt," Michelle said. "We can't save them all, but for each child
we place in a loving home, we rob the penitentiaries, we rob the
streets. It makes a difference for all of society."

The Segallas are doing their part too. They will welcome another
addition to their family this summer - a 2-year-old girl from the
same orphanage as Joey and John. This time they're hoping to make
the trip to India to pick her up.

Don't be surprised if they come back looking for another mommy.