Finding a home
Finding a home
May 16, 2008
By Amy K.D. Tobik
The Voice
Carlos was in desperate need of someone to love. The 5-year-old's mother had driven him to the end of a dirt road and asked him to get out of the truck and count. When the boy finished reciting his numbers, he turned around and she was gone.
Sue Hedberg, executive director of Celebrate Children International in Oviedo, recalls with emotion the day the young Guatemalan boy told his story to her.
"I had tears in my eyes and patted him on the back and told him God had a special plan for his life and would find him a home. As I was talking to him I was saying to myself, 'You are the biggest liar. You are as bad as they are because who wants to adopt a 5-year-old boy from an orphanage?'"
Most adoptive parents, she explained, request baby girls from a foster home. "I went back to my hotel and put him out on the Internet and within a day a family called me from Tampa. They had been looking on the Internet hoping to adopt a baby boy and when they saw Carlos they knew he would be their son," Hedberg said with a smile. Today, she reports the 12-year-old is happily living in Tampa.
Hedberg, who has worked for Celebrate Children International for seven years, has placed more than 1,100 children into permanent homes.
Once an occupational therapist and a missionary in Venezuela, Hedberg's life purpose changed when she was asked to travel to Guatemala to help translate. "I saw the need and I know I will never go back to doing anything else. I know there is someone else who can do occupational therapy and there are not many people willing to do this," she said.
After a recent visit to Ethiopia, located in the northeast of the African continent, Hedberg realized the immediate needs of the country were extraordinary. "People are not aware that Ethiopia is in a crisis situation and it is not getting better," she said.
"The need is so overwhelming that we feel such a desperation to help. Not only in adoption but in humanitarian aid," Hedberg said. "I have been to orphanages on all continents except Australia and have never seen anything like I have seen in Ethiopia."
Once Hedberg arrived in the capital city of Addis Ababa last month, she traveled 14 hours on a dirt road to Benishangul-Gumuz, an area with no electricity or water. She described the village as "one of the poorest regions of one of the poorest countries in the world." Located on the border of Sudan, Hedberg said she felt like she was at the end of the Earth. At this time, Celebrate Children International is the only agency licensed to provide adoptions from the area.
The children Hedberg met on her visits became available for adoption for a myriad of reasons, ranging from illness to poverty. She has comforted crying mothers who can no longer care for their children and watched fathers with no food relinquish their sons to an orphanage in the hope that they can lead better lives with another family. Hedberg estimates there are 4 to 6 million children in Ethiopia without parents, and the number continues to grow due to AIDS and malnourishment. A great deal of mothers die during childbirth, Hedberg said.
Because of the crisis situation, Hedberg is focusing most of her adoption efforts on Ethiopia at this time. Currently, the United States doesn't allow children to be adopted from Cambodia or Guatemala, and Vietnam is closing its doors as well. Adoptions from China have slowed, she said, because too often they take two to five years to complete. "When there are millions of children sitting in orphanages around the world, I can't see waiting five years for a Chinese baby," Hedberg said.
"I believe in baby adoptions. We get a lot of criticism that we are selling babies," Hedberg said. "But why should a child have to be 12 and watch their father be murdered or see their brother plastered in the street? It shouldn't have to come to that. The sooner they can get out then they won't be damaged. I truly believe we are saving children that no one else cared about."
Hedberg recalled the young girl she met who was recently orphaned when her parents went to the river to fetch water and were swept away by a flood. The girl's 13-year-old brother was raising her and gave her away when he could no longer afford to do it. Hedberg smiled as she announced that a loving family in California adopted the girl.
When Hedberg met a charming 4-year-old girl with no family last month, she said she had high hopes to place her immediately. When the blood work came back, however, the girl tested positive for Hepatitis B and AIDS. "Being placed for adoption will actually save her life," Hedberg said. "I trust I will find a home for her."
Hedberg said her primary wish in life is to find a loving, permanent home for every child. "Their best situation would be to stay with their birth families, but most of them don't have birth families. The second option is to be adopted by a loving family. We know we aren't going to be able to place all those children; we don't have 4 million families knocking on our door," she said dejectedly.
Recent allegations of child abuse by a local adoptive parent have raised questions in the community regarding the adoption screening process. "There are 143 million children around the world without families and this kind of thing can give international adoption a negative spin, but I hope that it opens the eyes of the world to these 143 million children and that some will find homes because of this situation," Hedberg said. "Bad things happen, but God's heart is for the orphan and that needs to be our focus," she added.
"All families go through a rigorous screening process including police checks, medical checks, reference checks, financial checks, et cetera," Hedberg said. "Plus they have to be approved by the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) and the FBI to receive immigration approval to adopt internationally."
"All children are deserving of food, a home and love," Hedberg said. "We are not doing anything special for them; it is a basic human right. I know adopting a child from Africa isn't for everybody," Hedberg said as her eyes welled with tears, "but if it is in their hearts, it's a beautiful thing."
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Donate to or sponsor a child
Celebrate Children International, an Oviedo-based adoption agency and charity, is in need of assistance. They are at 1757 W. Broadway St., Suite 5, Oviedo, FL 32765. Call 407-977-2810 for more information.
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