A Good Example

Twin brothers Somsak and Somchai are thriving in the care of their parents. Although when they were first born, it was a difficult beginning.

Their mom, Sachee, was just 17 years old when she got pregnant. Her boyfriend, Paal, was 15 when he learned he was going to be a father. Neither of them had any income — they were just kids themselves. Then they learned they were expecting twins…

To help care for their sons, Holt sponsors and donors — through our local partner in Thailand — began providing food, clothing, diapers and other basics. With their immediate needs met, Somsak and Somchai began growing stronger and more healthy. Sachee and Paal felt less stress — allowing them to focus on more long-term goals for their family.

Over time, as Sachee and Paal became financially stable and increasingly confident in parenting their sons, they became role models for other teen parents.

“They are a good example,” their social worker says, “because they worked together to care for their children.”

Read their full story here.

The Difference a Family Makes

Amanda and Jared Abuhl had always wanted six children, but when their fifth child, Evangeline, was born with an extremely rare form of genetic epilepsy, they decided that having another child just wouldn’t be possible. But then they learned about Anna, a 1-year-old girl in Bulgaria with the exact same genetic condition as Evangeline…

“I don’t think we would have sought out this experience if it wasn’t for Evangeline,” Amanda says. With five children already, one of whom required complex care, their life was full. But as soon as they saw Anna, they knew that this was something they could do.

They traveled to Bulgaria to bring Anna home in August 2022. Now, with adequate nutrition, medical care and the love of a family, Anna is thriving. She is reaching developmental milestones Amanda and Jared hadn’t even dared to hope for. That’s the difference a family can make.

Read the Abuhl’s full adoption story here.

Stable and Strong

In a rural community in northwestern Cambodia, Kola and Bunthong stand proudly in front of their home, with their five beautiful children. Their life looks entirely different than when we first met them just four years ago.  

They used to be afraid every night when they went to sleep. Twice, poisonous snakes had slithered into their old home — a thatched structure with holes in the floors and the walls.

But now, they are so proud of their beautiful new home, provided by Holt sponsors and donors. They sleep peacefully every night. Even more, their older children are all in school, and receiving the education — and a chance out of poverty — that their parents always dreamed of giving them.

The gift of new home, the gift of dignity, has transformed their lives. Now, not only is their home stable and strong — but their entire family is, too.

A Connection With My Birth Family Means the World to Me

“I was in the middle of the table. I had my adoptive family on one side, and my biological family on one side. Like, emotionally, it just felt like I was in two different corners essentially. And neither corner loved me any less.”

When Nate Schiffer traveled with his family to the Philippines for vacation at 17 years old, he didn’t expect the chance to meet his birth family. But here he was, in their single-roomed home — comprised of three walls and a blanket covering the opening — in an alleyway between two buildings in the city. They directed him to sit on a metal folding chair beside a small table. His biological siblings and biological parents sat feet away on the pallet bed they all shared, and his adoptive family stood near the doorway opening because there wasn’t enough room for everyone inside.

“I visually saw myself between both of them, and I knew that they both loved me. I just felt super loved, and super lucky,” Nate says. “Even though it was a sad situation, I was more just overwhelmed with happiness. I’m glad that I met my birth family. It helped me feel more completed and filled in the missing pieces of my story. Having a connection with my birth family means the world to me.”

Read Nate’s full story about meeting his birth family here.

So Proud

In Pune, India, in a slum neighborhood, through a narrow doorway in a building and up several flights of stairs, you’ll find this family’s home. The father, Suraj, is so proud of their home — and of his children. He can’t stop smiling as he talks about them.

The children, 12-year-old Vasant, 10-year-old Chandra and 8-year-old Meera, are all going to school with support from their Holt sponsors. So many children in their neighborhood don’t get to go to school. So they know just how important it is. Every morning, Suraj leaves early for work and leaves out breakfast for the children. Vasant helps get Chandra ready for school, although Meera likes to wake up even earlier to get ready all by herself!

Their mom works too and wasn’t home to be in their family photo when we last visited, but she too is so proud of her children.

“Do you love your mommy?” their social worker asked Chandra. He smiled shyly and nodded his head.

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The post Celebrating Families appeared first on Holt International.

“Mom? When you’re old someday, can I have custody of Anna?”

This question from her oldest daughter made Amanda Abuhl chuckle, and melted her heart at the same time.

“It was such a statement of, ‘I want this kid. She’s my sister and I love her.’ That’s what I took from it,” Amanda says.

And it’s safe to say this is how the entire Abuhl family feels about Anna, whom they adopted from Bulgaria in August 2022.

Amanda and Jared already had four biological children when their fifth child, Evangeline, was born with a rare genetic form of epilepsy that causes seizures.

“On the spectrum of this condition, Evangeline’s condition is the most severe,” Jared says. Today, Evangeline is 5 years old and still has about 70 seizures a day. She can’t communicate, eats via tube feeding, and can’t move around or hold her head up on her own.

While they had always wanted six kids, Amanda and Jared decided that with the complexity of caring for Evangeline, having another child just wouldn’t be possible. But then they heard about Anna…

Adopting a Child with Complex Medical Needs

“For me, it was the moment I saw her face,” Amanda says. Adoption hadn’t even been on their radar when they first learned about Anna online — that she was about 1 year old, lived in Bulgaria, had the same exact rare genetic condition as their daughter, and that she needed an adoptive family.

Only about 250 people worldwide have this specific genetic condition, called KCNT1 epilepsy. And because of Evangeline, the Abuhls were already experts in taking care of a child with it. They were familiar with how the disease process worked, Amanda is a nurse and their entire family was already comfortable with caregiving, and they already had an expert medical team of neurologists, dieticians, physical and occupational therapists, orthopedic doctors, ophthalmologist and more.    

“I don’t think we would have sought out this experience if it wasn’t for Evangeline,” Amanda says. With five children already, one of whom required complex care, their life was full. But as soon as they saw Anna, they knew that this was something they could do.

Amanda says this wouldn’t have been the case for a child with any other type of medical or special need.

“For example,” she says, “I don’t feel equipped to be the mother of a child with Down syndrome.”

But bringing Anna into their family just made sense.

“This kid needs me,” Amanda remembers thinking, “and we’re probably the only ones equipped to help her.”

So they began the adoption process to bring her into their family.

Adopting Anna from Bulgaria

When the Abuhls expressed their desire to adopt Anna, at first the Bulgarian government was apprehensive. It’s not often that families step up to adopt children with such complex, lifelong medical needs.

But with advocacy from Holt and Holt’s local partner agency in Bulgaria, and the reassurance that the Abuhls were uniquely able to care for a child like Anna, they officially matched with her in the spring of 2022.

Adopt From Bulgaria

Many children in Bulgaria are waiting for a loving, permanent family.

bulgaria adoption info

“It’s not an everyday parent who can do this type of love, and who has the capacity to parent a child with a higher degree of need,” says Amanda Colonia, Holt’s adoption case manager for Bulgaria, who worked with the Abuhls throughout their adoption process. “But for those who can,” she says, “it’s amazing.”

The waiting phase can be long and difficult for all adoptive families. But because of her medical condition, there was an additional element of worry.

At one point, they learned that she was in the hospital with pneumonia. This is a common risk for children with special needs in orphanage care when they are fed incorrectly and then choke and aspirate on their food — causing an infection. At this point, the Abuhls felt the urgency of adopting her so that she could get the high level of medical care that she needed.

“It’s not an everyday parent who can do this type of love, and who has the capacity to parent a child with a higher degree of need. But for those who can, it’s amazing.”

Amanda Colonia, Adoption Case Manager for Bulgaria

“For children who have this genetic condition, or other complex medical needs, the caregivers do the best they can,” Amanda Colonia explains. “But they have all types of children with all types of needs, and none of the caregivers know the specifics of a genetic condition like Anna’s.”

Thankfully, Anna recovered from pneumonia and was back at her orphanage ten days later. But even the best orphanage is no substitute for the care that a family can give — especially for children with medical needs. 

“This particular family is a great unique example of a family opening up their hearts to adopt a child with lifetime care needs,” says Amanda. “And they were so blessed in the process.”

The adoption grants they received were one of these particular blessings.

Help From a Families Not Finances Holt Adoption Grant

“We needed to be ready for Anna as soon as she became available [for travel],” says Jared. But, there’s so much money involved in the adoption process, that we couldn’t have done it without the grants. The Holt grant was especially impactful.”

In addition to grants from other organizations, the Abuhls were awarded a $10,000 Holt Families Not Finances grant to help fund their adoption. This specific grant exists for families just like them who are adopting children with complex special and medical needs.

In the end, they were able to fund one third of their adoption through personal fundraising with friends and family, and the remaining two thirds through adoption grants such as Families Not Finances.

And because of this, they were able to travel to Bulgaria to get to Anna as soon as it was possible — in August 2022.

Opening Up With the Love of a Family

Because of Anna’s medical needs, Amanda and Jared’s time in Bulgaria was very short — just four days compared to the typical ten days.

“It’s hard to describe how it felt to hold Anna in our arms for the first time,” Jared says. But after a whirlwind trip, they were at the orphanage with Anna, completed their work at the embassy, and then headed with her back to their hotel.

The first thing Amanda did when they got there was give Anna a bath, just as if she were a newborn.

“I just sat with her and held her,” Amanda says. Not knowing exactly what she would need, they brought as many medical supplies as they could fit in their suitcase. They saw Anna’s NG tube for tube feeding was too large for her, so they replaced it with a smaller one that would be more comfortable. And they began to get to know her.

“Our older daughter has seizures every 5 to 10 minutes, and we quickly realized Anna was not. We were like, ‘This is very strange!’” Amanda says. Then, to their amazement, she rolled over in her crib that night.

“All of the reports we had about her painted a picture of a child who functioned at about a 6-week-old level, very similar to our older daughter,” Jared says. “We were told not to expect a social smile, movement or much awareness of her surroundings.”

But Anna soon showed she was more developed than they dared to hope.

As they flew home with her to Omaha, Nebraska, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean Anna looked up into their eyes and smiled.

Something New Every Day

In the just three months since she’s been home, Anna has now gained over six pounds. She had a G-button placed in her stomach as a more direct way to receive her tube-feeding — ensuring that she receives adequate calories and fluid every day. With this help, she’s catching up on some milestones — skills that Amanda and Jared were told were impossible.

While there are a lot of unknowns with the type of condition she has, Amanda and Jared are prepared to care for Anna for her entire life. 

“We have you until we don’t have you anymore,” Jared says about Anna. “And while we have you, let’s grow you up and develop you. We were expecting somebody who just laid around. And we were OK with that! But this is pure delight and joy.”

The addition of another child with complex medical needs has definitely brought more complexity to their family. And some things are just too difficult for them to do, like travel together. But Anna’s sweet interactions and the unexpected ways she’s developing in their care has brought so much joy, too.

A Caregiving Family

In addition to the medical care and therapy she’s receiving, the love and attention Anna gets every day from her parents and five siblings is making a huge difference.

“We talk a lot about how God has gifted us with these two beautiful daughters who are made in the image of God,” Amanda says. “They reflect His glory. And every one of our big kids understands this.”

The other day, Anna sat on one of her brother’s laps while he played video games. She made loud noises the whole time, and he just held her, lovingly letting her be a part of what he was doing.

She’s always with one of them, being carried around, smiled at and nurtured.

“There’s a term for our family,” Amanda says, “and it’s called being a caregiving family. Our big kids are involved with both of their little sisters’ care. Anna smiles at her siblings and they smile back. It’s hard not to respond to such a delightful little girl.”

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The post Pure Delight & Joy appeared first on Holt International.

Holt is a long-standing partner of Vesta, a licensed agency in Bulgaria with over 20 years of experience advocating for children, especially children with special needs and older children who have been waiting a long time for a family.

Here are five things you should know about adopting from Bulgaria:

1. Boys, girls and siblings, ages 2 to 15, of Bulgarian, Turkish and Roma heritage are waiting in Bulgaria for families. The majority of children are 5 to 14 years old or part of a sibling group.

2. Children waiting for adoptive families from Bulgaria have varying degrees of special needs. The most common are related to institutionalization, abuse and neglect and parents should be willing to learn about and meet the needs of children with developmental trauma.

3. Bulgaria is one of the most flexible and open country programs in terms of eligibility. Couples, single men and single women are eligible to adopt through the Bulgaria adoption program, although single men will only be approved to adopt a boy age 8 or older with moderate to significant special needs. Applicants must be at least 25 years old. Parent eligibility may be flexible depending on the needs of the child.

4. The wait time to adopt from Bulgaria varies depending on the profile of child and their needs and ages. Your wait time to be matched depends on the profile of child you are approved to adopt, and could be 1 to 5 years. Families who are more open in terms of age, gender and special needs will see shorter wait times. When a family applies to adopt a waiting child, the wait time is limited to the time it takes to assess and approve the match — making the overall process approximately 12-18 months from application to placement.

5. Bulgaria requires two trips. The first trip is one week and will occur about 1-6 weeks after you’re matched with a child, and the second trip is approximately 10 days and will occur 3-6 months after the first trip.

Adopt From Bulgaria

Many children in Bulgaria are waiting for a loving, permanent family.

bulgaria adoption info

The post 5 Things to Know About Our Bulgaria Adoption Program appeared first on Holt International.

November 2008 began a journey in our hearts and lives that would forever change us. God put an unmistakable burden on our heart to adopt. We didn’t know more than that we were to take a step of faith and start the adoption process.  We always thought we would have two sons. At the time, we had three children — one boy and two girls.

My husband and I began praying for a little boy and his mother — that they would both be healthy and protected, and that she would receive the spiritual, emotional and physical support she needed as she made the difficult decision to make an adoption plan for her son. In January 2009, we submitted our paperwork to Holt International to adopt a son from the country of Bulgaria.

We initially explored the adoption program in South Korea as both my husband and I grew up knowing Korean adoptees in our community and family. That led us to Holt International. Due to a variety of factors at the time, we realized that South Korea would not be an option for our family. We felt comfortable with Holt International as an adoption agency and reviewed other country programs in which Holt was participating.

Many people have a natural affinity for a particular country for a variety of reasons. We felt there were several countries that would have been a good fit for us, including India, Ethiopia, the Philippines, South Korea and Bulgaria.  After much prayer we believed that our hearts were directing us towards Bulgaria.

When we started our adoption journey in 2009, Bulgaria had recently joined the Hague treaty and was reopening international adoption after a pause had been put in place to improve their adoption program.  When we finished all of our adoption paperwork and submitted our dossier to Bulgaria in 2010, we were the 25^th family out of 25 families waiting to be matched with a child through Holt.

Bulgaria offered many things that we believed made it a good fit for our family.  Families were able to provide parameters for age, gender, health and medical special needs.  With three children already in our home, we wanted to keep the birth order of our family and that meant we would be adopting a child under 4-5 years old.

Our wait was about 18 months from the time we submitted our application until we received our match from the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice.  We travelled to Bulgaria twice.  Five months after our first trip, we returned to Bulgaria to bring our son home.  He was almost 3 years old at the time he joined our family. From the time we applied, the total time of our adoption process was 24 months.

We have maintained contact with families who have also adopted from Bulgaria. Most families have found the process to be fairly predictable. The two trips last around a week each. This group of families has been a great resource of information, support and understanding during the wait and after bringing our son home, I would strongly encourage families to find a similar group.  These ladies have become some of my best friends and there is a level of understanding among us that none can rival.

Bulgaria has continued to change with time in how it cares for vulnerable children. Since the time we adopted, there has been movement to place children in foster homes while consolidating the government-run children’s homes across the country. In foster care, children receive more one-on-one care than they do in an institution. But families applying to adopt from Bulgaria should know that the child they are matched with could be in either placement.

Our son Anton’s* situation was very typical of a child adopted from Bulgaria in 2011. His family didn’t have the means or circumstances to raise him. His mother placed her son with the children’s home in Sliven following his birth. Culturally, it is accepted in Bulgaria for parents to do this at birth — a relic of the old communist-style orphanage system in Eastern Europe founded on the belief that when families cannot care for their children, the government should step in and care for them. While they do not have open adoptions in Bulgaria, we do have information about his mother. In Bulgaria,  Anton will legally be allowed to search for her when he turns 18.

Our son does have mild-moderate special medical needs and is ethnically Roma, which is a marginalized minority within the country of Bulgaria.  Due to these factors, adoption to a family in Bulgaria was very unlikely for our son. This is the case for many young children in our son’s birth country. Economically, most families in Bulgaria have limited means to raise any more than 1-2 children.  A crisis pregnancy or medical special needs make it very hard for many families to raise children in difficult circumstances.

Today, the circumstances that cause children to come into orphanage care in Bulgaria are very similar, but the profile of children waiting for adoption is a bit different. As with many countries, more younger children needed families when we adopted nine years ago. Today, children waiting for families range in age from 3 to 15 years old. Younger children will have more involved medical and special needs. Children 8 years and older have less diagnosed medical conditions. There are some sibling groups who need families. And children of all ages coming home from Bulgaria need parents who understand and are prepared to meet the needs of children with complex developmental trauma.

International adoption is a blessing and will be an experience that will grow your faith and stretch you as a person. Children from Bulgaria will likely be 2.5 years old or older when they join your family.  Once home with your family, they will grieve the lost relationships they developed in their birth country and will likely have needs that were unmet during their time in protective care.  It is very important to cocoon as much as possible for the first 3-6 months home to develop bonds with your son or daughter. Adoptive parents are not only gaining a son or daughter, but they are also committing to walk through life with this child.

Our son’s underlying medical condition and time spent in the children’s home put him behind on his developmental milestones.  Within the first year he was home in the United States, we had many consults with medical providers and the local public school. The testing showed strengths and weaknesses, and it was recommended that he receive speech and occupational therapy.  Within four months of receiving speech therapy, we saw huge improvements in his ability to communicate, express himself and in his overall speech.

The ability to access these resources was very important for our son and our family. He accessed these resources through the local public school and through private therapy for four years, starting at age 3 1/2. He continues to receive support in school. Each year, he amazes us with new achievements made.

Our son Anton is now 12 years old and it is hard to believe that he has been with our family for nine years. We have been blessed by many wonderful doctors, nurses, speech therapists, occupational therapists and teachers who have used their vocational calling to help Anton realize his full potential. He is a smart boy who has friends and is a delight to have around.

There have been many hard-fought battles of time, energy and work to get to the point he has reached. He has a very resilient spirit which has served him well.  Last fall, he helped deliver a speech to our local city council for his Lego Robotics team. He is your “all boy” type boy. He enjoys sports, video games, Nerf guns, being outside, playing Legos and other things. He is responsible and a good help around our home. We are blessed to have him as part of our family.

Stephanie C | Adoptive Mom

*name changed

Adopt From Bulgaria

Many children in Bulgaria are waiting for a loving, permanent family.

bulgaria adoption info

The post One Mom’s Bulgaria Adoption Story appeared first on Holt International.