Every year, Holt awards scholarships to three adoptees graduating high school and planning to pursue further education. This year, we announced an additional $1,000 scholarship to be awarded to an adoptee who is pursuing their dream career in a traditionally underfunded field of study. The Hope Scholarship is generously sponsored by Holt adoptee Mareyuna, who followed her dreams to become a veterinarian, and Mareyuna’s family. Mareyuna and her family felt called to help other adoptees like her who are drawn to a profession that has limited scholarship opportunities available.

Congratulations to Haley Havens, who won Holt’s first Hope Adoptee Scholarship after submitting the following poem:

 Statement: The following poem was created to express the internal wounds that are oftentimes reopened when people question adoptees’ history. Adoption oftentimes leads to lots of questioning. This poem represents what I wished others knew happens in my mind when they ask me questions, while also showing the struggle of a conflicted identity. I hope to shed some light on the complex and vulnerable life of an adoptee. 

Where are you from?

A question I have heard many times. Where am I from? A question that has many ties. Truthfully, I was born elsewhere, in the country of Guatemala, full of despair. While I was only an infant, it is still a part of me. While I may not remember, I believe it is still my history. Yet, this question always causes me to freeze, because I am unsure what the right answer is for me. I have lived in America my entire life, or so it seems. Except for the four months when my life was unknowingly ripping at the seams. As a baby, I have no way of knowing how it felt. So many lives impacted by someone who can’t even remember the cards they were dealt. Well, I was born in Guatemala, I start to say. I lived there for a few months, before going my separate way. I was adopted by a loving family, who is all I’ve ever known. They saved me from poverty and loved me as their own.

Well what about your birth mother?

Another question I tend to hear. What about her? Any memory of her is more distant than near. I never really thought about her much till now. Then I went searching for answers I didn’t necessarily want to know about. Digging up my past disrupted my peace. I was losing my sense of tranquility. I have never met her, nor seen a picture. To me, she wasn’t anything more than my birth giver. There was a lady out there with my face and half my DNA. I started to spiral, wondering should I be feeling a certain way? I began to search and search, hoping to find answers. Digging up information I probably wasn’t ready for. Well, my mother gave me up for a better life, I would say. She saw me for a few weeks, before going her separate way. I was adopted by a loving family, who is all I’ve ever known. I became their daughter and they love me as their own.

Well what about your brother? Is he your real one?

Oh great, now my brother is in the picture. Is he my real one? What type of definition do they figure? While it is true, he is from Guatemala just like me. We don’t necessarily have a biological history. Sure, maybe we aren’t related by blood. But neither is any part of my family, So what’s the difference if he is loved? He’s just like me, been here since he was an infant. If he were to ask for help, I’d be there in an instant. Well, we are not biologically related, I say. But he is my brother, no matter the way. He was adopted by a loving family, who is all he’s ever known. He became my brother, and we love him as our own.

Okay, well have you gone back? Tried to reconnect?

A complicated question. Should I have visited by now? It’s a difficult topic for me to mention. It’s hard to process feelings without showing guilt. Why should I think about the past when my family is fulfilled. Wanting to learn about my past, feels like a burden. It feels like I’m hurting someone, no matter the choices. I understand that adoption is part of my story. And that reconnecting with my culture is important. Well, I haven’t visited yet, I begin to say. But I hope I can someday. It’s a little difficult venturing into the unknown. Especially when I have a family that loves me as my own. Questions have surrounded me all my life. Questions that sometimes feel like a cut with a knife. Questions that make me start to think. Questions that cause my wellbeing to sink. I enjoy sharing my story with the world. But when questions approach me, I begin to fold. Harmless thoughts that people think to ask I don’t necessarily mind them; It’s more so the aftermath that makes me reflect back. I don’t always have the answers, but I’m learning day by day. Being adopted is my beginning, not what stands in my way.

Haley Havens is a Guatemalan adoptee entering her second year at the University of Texas at Austin. She is pursuing an honors degree in advanced human development and family sciences, while also hoping to complete two pre-health related certificates. She hopes to one day become a genetic counselor to help others better understand their genes. “I was adopted from Guatemala at 4 months old, which sparked my initial interest in genetics,” Haley writes. “I found it fascinating how everybody could know their ancestry simply from their DNA, however I didn’t have much information regarding my own genealogy. What started as curiosity about DNA and ancestry has grown into a passion for supporting others as they navigate their own genetic stories.”

Support Adoptees and Adoptive Families!

Help adoptees and adoptive families thrive by ensuring lifetime adoption support services are available to all those whose lives are touched by adoption.

Donate now

The post Congratulations to Holt’s First Hope Adoptee Scholarship Winner appeared first on Holt International.

Every year, Holt awards scholarships to three adoptees graduating high school and planning to pursue further education. We ask them to submit work based around a question or theme relating to the adoptee experience and encourage them to interpret the prompt creatively — whether through an essay, digital art or any other form that inspires them. This year, applicants responded to the prompt, “What is one thing you wish your family, friends or society knew about the adoptee experience?”

For her submission, Lily Rose Macaluso wrote the following poem:

“Those lips, those eyes,” her mother would say, Always took her breath away. From first glance, he loved me so, His forever girl to love and grow. 

They flew across the ocean far and wide, To claim their daughter by their side. Our family complete — my two brothers and I — A house full of laughs and an occasional cry. 

Our love grew strong, like entwined vines, Adoption and biology — just blended lines. “You don’t look like your parents,” some would speak, Echoes linger, soft yet deep. 

These words so simple yet pierced my heart, A subtle stab at my different start. “Where is your real mom?” kids would ask, As if switching moms was a simple task. 

She’s the one who kissed my scraped-up knees, And always embraced me with a warm, tight squeeze. The woman who sang me to sleep every night — Is somehow less real? Is somehow less right? 

They compare my eyes, my skin, my face, Trying to make sense of my family, my place. But family is more than physicality; It shapes our truth, our shared reality. 

So, when you notice that I look different, Know our bond is deep and significant. And when you ask, “Where is your real dad and mom?” Know that they’ve been by my side all along. 

A love so endless, so true, so strong — They are my anchor. They are where I belong. 

Lily Macaluso was adopted from China at 15 months old in 2008, joining her loving family in New Jersey. During high school, Lily was an active student who played on the tennis team and participated in a variety of extracurricular activities. Beyond school, Lily embraced her community — working as a camp counselor and scooping ice cream at a local shop. She also enjoyed babysitting for neighborhood families, quickly becoming a trusted helper to younger kids. Lily is now a student at Florida Gulf Coast University, where she is majoring in exercise science with plans to pursue a career as a physical therapist.

See this year’s other winning Holt Adoptee Scholarship submissions!

Support Adoptees and Adoptive Families!

Help adoptees and adoptive families thrive by ensuring lifetime adoption support services are available to all those whose lives are touched by adoption.

Donate now

The post Where I Belong: A Poem by Holt Adoptee Scholarship Winner appeared first on Holt International.

Holt International Children’s Services is pleased to announce the appointment of Derek Parker as the organization’s first Chief Operating Officer (COO).

The creation of this new executive leadership role reflects Holt’s commitment to strengthening operations and advancing its future strategies. As COO, Parker will provide oversight of Holt’s domestic and international programs, procurement and organizational performance. This structure allows President and CEO Dan Smith to devote more time to external leadership, global partnerships and advocacy, while Parker ensures alignment and accountability across Holt’s operations.

“Adding the COO role is a strategic step for Holt,” said Dan Smith, Holt’s president and CEO. “Derek brings not only extensive executive leadership experience but also his lived experience as a Holt adoptee and his knowledge as a former board chair. This combination of professional expertise and personal connection to Holt’s mission makes him uniquely suited to help lead us into the future.”

Parker brings over 20 years of senior management experience in both nonprofit and corporate sectors. Most recently, Parker served as the COO of the Parent Institute for Quality Education. Parker’s career also includes leadership roles such as President of Kurmac Inc. and Vice President and District Manager at U.S. Bank, where Parker oversaw 21 branches and managed 150 employees.

In addition to his professional background, Parker has a deep personal connection to Holt. As a Holt adoptee and a longtime board member, he has served as board chair and worked closely with the leadership team to guide the organization’s governance. Transitioning from governance to operations, Parker will now contribute his expertise from within the executive team.

“I am honored to step into this new role at Holt,” said Parker. “As a Holt adoptee and a leader committed to the children we serve around the world, I believe in Holt’s mission deeply. I look forward to working with Dan, the board and the entire team to strengthen Holt’s operations and expand its impact for children and families around the world.”

Parker will remain based in Southern California while traveling as required to Holt’s Eugene, Oregon, headquarters and other U.S. and international locations. He will join staff October 13.

Learn more about Holt’s work and history!

At Holt International, we help children thrive in the love and stability of a family. But our services extend far beyond the adoption work we are known for.

learn about holt

The post Holt International Appoints Derek Parker as First Chief Operating Officer appeared first on Holt International.

In the following Q&A, Paul Kim, Holt’s director of Korea and Mongolia programs, reflects on the history and continued importance of this unique post-adoption service — and shares some of his favorite memories from the past 25 years of leading Holt’s annual heritage tour of Korea.

Q: How did the concept for adoptee heritage tours originate?

A: The idea emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the first generation of Korean adoptees began reaching adolescence. At that time, adoptees were grappling with identity questions — who they were, where they came from, and what their heritage meant. Social work practices then focused on assimilation, encouraging adoptees to forget their birth culture and integrate quickly into American society. But as understanding of adoption evolved, it became clear that this approach was deeply flawed.

Q: It was in fact your father, Dr. David H. Kim, who pioneered the first heritage tour. Can you share more about what inspired him to create this unique service for adoptees? [Note: David Kim was the first employee Harry Holt hired in post-war Korea, and together they created the Holt Adoption Program. David also went on to become executive director of Holt International from 1980 to 1990.]

A: My father began receiving letters from adoptees asking about their origins and Korean history. Most people at that time, even after the Korean War, didn’t know much about Korea. He realized the best way of reintroducing them to their birth heritage is to organize travel back to Korea — to show their roots and give them an idea and an understanding of Korean life. In 1975, he organized the first “Motherland Tour” to Korea for a group of 18 adoptees, most of whom were biracial and part of the post-Korean War adoption wave.

Q: What was the impact of that first tour?

A: It was transformative. The adoptees really learned much more about Korea than anyone could ever provide them just by showing them pictures or reading out of books. … Back then, if you wanted to look something up about a country, you went and read an encyclopedia. There was no Internet, there was no Wikipedia. Even television was limited.

A lot of them also really had questions about identity. How do I fit in? And so the trip was a journey of exploration and discovery, but also one of self-understanding and growth and acceptance.

Q: How did the program evolve over time?

A: After the success of the first tour, Holt continued organizing annual heritage tours of Korea. In the 1980s, we began a second tour — the “family tour” — in addition to a tour for individual adoptees traveling by themselves. This was a tour that was designed to accommodate adoptive families whose children were not old enough to come on their own, but also for families that wanted to take this journey of exploration and discovery together.

Q: Did you ever join one of the heritage tours your father led?

A: Yes, I was part of the very first tour in 1975. I also joined subsequent tours during my teens and twenties.

Q: What are some of your memories from those early experiences?

A: Korea was vastly different back then. Today, it’s modern and technologically advanced, but in 1975, it was still deeply affected by poverty. I had an experience where we were out doing some shopping and a little boy, probably about 10-11 years old — about my same age — just appeared in front of me. His clothes were in tatters. He had no shoes. His face was all smudged with dirt. He just stood there standing in front of me with his hand out with palm up, asking for money, but he never said anything, just looked at me. … I think back on that and his face is still just burned into my memory. What I feel now is a deep sense of shame for not having done anything to help him.

The reason I I talk about this is that people need to understand Korea in 1975. This is a generation where a lot of adoptees were placed in the United States. Korea was so different then. There was so much poverty.

Q: You’ve made it your life’s mission to help orphaned and vulnerable children as Holt’s director of Korea and Mongolia programs. Did early experiences like that influence your decision to go into child welfare work?

A: It certainly is something that deeply affected me. However, growing up I never envisioned working for Holt or in child welfare. But it is funny how sometimes the universe has other plans for you.

Q: After your father retired from leading heritage tours, you took up the mantle. How many heritage tours of Korea have you led?

A: I’ve led every tour since 2000. That adds up to over 30 tours so far.

Q: How has the tour changed over the years — either intentionally or organically?

A: One of the biggest changes is the kind of information adoptees have access to. As Korean laws and recordkeeping have improved, more detailed histories have become available. Today, adoptees often have access to birth family information, hospital records and even the opportunity to meet birth relatives. This summer alone, several adoptees on the tour were able to connect with their birth families. And so the tour has really evolved from one of a tourist experience; it has moved away from being so focused on just learning about Korea to where it’s now more about learning about yourself.

Q: Has the structure of the tour changed as well?

A: Yes, we eventually decided to discontinue the “motherland tour,” and our tour is now more of a unified experience. It’s not just an adoptee-only tour and it’s not just a family-only tour. We have found that this mix of life stories, of ages, of experiences really enriches that journey for everyone.

Q: After 25 years of leading Korea Heritage Tours, what are some of your favorite memories?

A: One that I’ll never forget involved a young adoptee celebrating her 16th birthday during the tour. She had enough background information to visit her birth hospital. When she arrived, the staff asked if she’d like to meet the doctor who delivered her — and he was still working there, along with the two nurses who assisted.

They even took her to the delivery room, and she sat on the very bed where her mother had given birth to her. What made it even more incredible was that it happened on her actual birthday — 16 years to the day — and within an hour of her birth time. it was just amazing. It was the most serendipitous experience.

Q: Was she able to meet her birth mother?

A: No, she wasn’t. But even without that, the experience was transformative for her. It gave her a powerful connection to her beginnings.

Q: Are you present for birth family or foster family meetings during the tours?

A: Yes, I’ve actually translated and facilitated quite a number of meetings. It’s incredibly powerful. One of the things that I’m tasked to do during that process is to act as a bridge. I grew up in the U.S. but in a Korean-American family and I was born in Korea, so I have insights into both cultural perspectives. I help navigate the differences in expectations, emotions and communication between adoptees, birth families and adoptive families.

Q: What do adoptees gain by traveling on Holt’s Korea Heritage Tour instead of going on their own?

A: That’s a question we get a lot — and it’s one that’s been answered best by the adoptees who’ve taken our tour. Traveling overseas, especially to a country where you don’t speak the language and may be visiting for the first time, can be exhausting. You’re constantly navigating logistics: where to eat, how to get around, what to do if something goes wrong. On Holt’s tour, all of that is taken care of so adoptees can focus entirely on the experience.

On Holt’s heritage tour, you’re also traveling with people who understand the adoption story. Adoptees often face questions in daily life — about their families, their identity, their background. On this tour, there’s no need to explain yourself. It’s a safe space. And that is something that I cannot overstate. You’re surrounded by people who get it. That sense of belonging is incredibly powerful, especially during such a vulnerable and transformative journey.

Q: What kind of support does Holt provide during the tour?

A: Our staff and guides are with you every step of the way. If something comes up —whether it’s a logistical issue, a health concern, or an emotional moment — you have people you can count on. We’ve been doing this for a long time, and we know how to help adoptees get the most out of their time in Korea.

Q: Can’t adoptees just do a file review on their own?

A: They can, but the difference is in the ongoing support. If questions come up days later —about something in the file, or about processing the experience — who will be there to help? With Holt, our post-adoption services team is available before, during and after the tour. Whether it’s help packing, navigating medical needs or emotional support, we’re here for the entire journey.

Q: What’s the best age for an adoptee to join a heritage tour?

A: That’s one of the most frequently asked questions from adoptive families — and our answer is always: your child will tell you. We’ve had adoptees join the tour as young as 8 and as old as 70. Some are ready early, others much later. Even siblings adopted into the same family can feel differently — one may be eager to go, while the other has no interest.

Q: Should parents encourage their child to go, even if they’re unsure?

A: We always advise parents not to force it. Listen to your child. They’ll give you clues about whether it’s the right time. And it’s not uncommon for adoptees to return to Korea multiple times — once with their parents, and later with a partner or their own children.

Q: What else would you like to share about Holt’s heritage tours?

A: It is founded on the idea that when you place a child from a country overseas, you don’t erase that child’s background. It really is a disservice to the adoptees and their understanding of who they are. Since that time, many other organizations have begun their own tour opportunities, but it all sprang from that very first tour that Holt began in 1975, born out of the idea that we do have a commitment to the children we’ve placed through adoption. This is a lifelong relationship that we have with adoptees and adoptive families.

Travel with Holt on a Heritage Tour!

For adoptees ages 9 and older, Holt offers guided tours of China, Korea, Mongolia and Vietnam. Experience the culture and customs of your birth country and visit sites significant to your adoption story.

Learn About heritage Tours

The post Fifty Years of Holt’s Korea Heritage Tour appeared first on Holt International.

As I head into my 20th summer with Holt Adoptee Camp, I have been reflecting on how Holt Camp has impacted (and continues to impact) my identity, my sense of community, my mental health and the way I view the world. When I first started, I never thought it would become such an integral part of my life. But here I am, 20 years later, still showing up, still loving this community, and still blown away by the way camp continues to shape generation after generation of adoptees. For me, Holt Camp is not just a summer camp — it is another place I call home.

I have been part of Holt Camp in just about every role — first as a camper, then a CIT (counselor in training), a counselor, a member of leadership staff and, for the past few years, camp director. I have literally grown up here. I have seen firsthand how powerful this space is, not just for me, but for hundreds of adoptees who walk through camp every summer. Many of my closest friends today are people I met at Holt Camp. This place gave me a community and a second home where I could just be myself. No explaining, no code-switching, no wondering if people really understood me — because they already did. It was the one place I could always be my authentic myself.

From the outside, Holt Camp can be hard to explain. People typically imagine a traditional summer camp with campfires, swimming, games and songs. And yes, we have those things. But Holt Camp really is a space for adoptees who might be questioning their identity, experiencing for the first time a community that reflects them, or to be around others who just get it. This summer, one teen said, “Every time I come to Holt Camp, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.” Another simply called it: “Magical.” And honestly, that says it all.

Camp is magical because it gives adoptees something rare: mirrors and windows. Mirrors, because they’re surrounded by people who “get it” and reflect their experiences back with understanding. And windows, because they can look in and all around camp and see people who look like them, people with a shared lived experience. Over and over again, I hear campers say Holt is the one place where they can fully be themselves. That is what makes it special.

I have been lucky enough to watch that magic unfold summer after summer. I have seen little kids clinging to their parents at drop-off turn into teenagers and eventually into counselors leading the next generation. I have watched the ones who once needed comfort become the ones offering it. That full circle never gets old.

And none of this happens without the staff. Many of them give up vacation days, sleep and a good chunk of energy just to be here. They don’t come because it is easy — they come because they know how much it matters for adoptees to have role models who understand. Their dedication blows me away every year.

Camp does not end when the week does. The friendships and connections stretch way past our five days together. Campers keep in touch through texts and social media, staff check in from different time zones, and many of us lean on each other for support and guidance — sometimes more than our friends and mentors back home. I know, because I’ve done the same. Some of the friendships I made as a camper are still the ones I lean on today.

When I reflect on nearly 20 summers, it is the little moments that stick: a homesick camper finally laughing with their cabin, a group of teens realizing they have all wrestled with the same questions, or a counselor sitting quietly with someone who just needed to be heard. Those moments add up to something you can’t really explain unless you have experienced it — a space where adoptees do not have to explain themselves and feel like they belong.

Every summer is bittersweet as campers I have known for years age out of the program. I have seen them grow up here, and now they are stepping into the next stage of their lives. For some, that means returning as counselors. For others, it means carrying pieces of camp with them into their own communities. The impact doesn’t end when their time as campers does.

Twenty years in, I can say this: camp isn’t just a week each summer. It is where adoptees find community, connection and understanding. It is another place that we can call home — and where we are reminded that we are not alone.

Holt Adoptee Camps

A week adoptees will always remember! Make new friends, try new things and discuss issues unique to adoptees. Holt’s overnight camps are open to adoptees ages 9-17.

Learn more about summer camps

The post 20 Years of Camp Magic: The Lifelong Impact of Holt Adoptee Camp appeared first on Holt International.

Holt Adoptee Camps

A week adoptees will always remember! Make new friends, try new things and discuss issues unique to adoptees. Holt’s overnight camps are open to adoptees ages 9-17.

Learn more about summer camps

The post What I Love About Holt Camp appeared first on Holt International.

On the way home from Korea, I watched a movie called August Rush. It is one I had seen many years ago but had always loved the themes. (Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it.) A child of musicians ends up in a boys’ home. He is always waiting for his parents to come for him and believes he hears them in the sound of the music he hears everywhere. He is made fun of for this. At some point he runs away and becomes a street musician, earning money for a bad person. He somehow finds himself at Juilliard as a child prodigy but is brought back to the street life by the bad person. But at the end he follows the music he keeps hearing and is eventually reunited with his parents at a concert in the park.

I never really understood why this movie spoke to me so much. And then I went to Korea on the Holt Heritage Tour. As a Korean adoptee I had always grown up with something that felt like a hole in my heart. It was not something I could explain. But I just knew that I was always looking and chasing after something. And when I made it to Korea, I felt this hole start to close.

It was not because I found my birth parents. That did not happen. I’m not sure it ever will. Even though I registered my DNA at the police station in Seoul (arranged by Holt). What I did find was a community. Others who were searching and trying to fill a hole just like me.

As I wrote in my blog, I had a popcorn moment. The Chinese and Korean way of making popcorn involves heating up kernels in a small metal popcorn container until it’s hot enough. Then releasing the steam and allowing the corn to pop all at once into a bag. I felt like my questions and pent-up emotions exploded and popped while on this trip to Korea.

All of the fellow adoptees on the trip had searched for these answers. Some starting the search early in their lives, others like myself beginning this journey of discovery much later. However, even though I was not actively looking as a young person, I always wondered about my birth family and my country of birth. My adoptive parents were not bad people, but they were different from my birth parents, not educated in Korean culture or the challenges of adoption. And they definitely did not understand the difficulty of being a Korean child in America. I knew this. I was reminded constantly because I did not look like any of my family members. I did not have the same color hair or skin. Other children were cruel at times and made fun of me. And although I know now that much of that was a learned racial ignorance that came from their parents, it still hurt.

I knew I did not feel like I belonged where I was. Thus, this journey. I tried to fill my heart hole with friends, family members, marriage, work, my own children, books, hobbies, etc. And although all these things provided something temporary, there was always something missing.

After I had my girls, I realized I had something all “my own.” Children who looked a bit like me. Had features like mine. Skin like mine. Hair like mine. As I fell in love with these girls, I started wondering how my birth mother could have made the decision to abandon me. But I was busy and my children needed me, so I just paused these questions.

However, as the feelings of abandonment and loneliness kept coming up for me, I went through intensive therapy. I started reading books about Korean adoptees such as “The Seed From The East,” an autobiography of Bertha Holt who — together with her husband, Harry Holt — started the Holt adoption agency which I was adopted through, and “I Wish For You a Beautiful Life,” which was a compilation of letters from birth mothers to the children they had given up for adoption. And articles such as “The Surprising Facts Behind Korean Child Abandonment,” which was published in the Huffington Post in 2017, “The Value and Meaning of the Korean Family,” published by the Asia Society, and “Group Resists Korean Stigma for Unwed Mothers,” in the New York Times.

It was through some of this research I started hearing about how difficult it was for young unwed mothers in Korea. And even if they were married, if they were poor, if they had a girl, they might give her up in hopes of having a boy. Even to the point that the baby could be thrown away. I was told by my adoptive parents that if I had been in an orphanage at five, I could possibly have ended up on the streets, so I needed to be grateful that I was adopted.

I did find out on this trip that the “aging out at five” was not true. However, Korea was not ready to handle all the babies and young children that were abandoned since the Korean War. Thus began international adoptions. If Korea wouldn’t accept these children domestically, there were families in other countries wanting a child and willing to accept a foreign child.

Post adoption services are critical, but when an adoptive family does not understand or is not willing to recognize the need for this support system, it creates an angst that the child must live with. This angst caused the hole in my heart to continue to grow. In the book “The Body Keeps the Score,” Bessel van der Kolk talks about how post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) impacts the body both physically and emotionally. Abandonment, moving multiple times in my formative years, and learning different languages and cultures were all things that caused trauma for me. I know I have experienced what trauma does to the body firsthand. Including unhealthy attachments because I was always chasing after love.

So, at the recommendation of my counselor, I wrote my own origin story. One based on my research. I also got a tattoo that said beloved daughter. I got this as a reminder that I know in my heart my birth mother loved me. And there was also never a time when God had not loved me, even when I ignored Him and walked away. I was always loved.

With this, I realized that the next step of the journey was to go back to Korea. To see if there was anything that I would connect to. That opportunity came when I saw an email from Holt International in September of 2024 announcing their Holt Heritage Tour in 2025. With the sale of our home in Oregon and move to Texas, there was a lot going on, but my husband and I also realized that I wasn’t getting any younger and this might be the best opportunity for me to go. I put my deposit down and started blogging about my feelings leading up to this next step in my journey.

I did not immediately remember things when I got off the plane in Korea. I did not recognize certain sites. Nothing looked or smelled familiar or like home.

What I did find was a sense of belonging. I found some answers to questions that I didn’t even know I had. Answers that started to fill that hole in my heart. I found a connection with other adoptees who had similar experiences to mine. And as I talked with the other Korean adoptees on the trip, I found that hole getting smaller and smaller. These fellow adoptees who may have had different journeys, but all found ourselves in Korea at this exact moment.

The emotions I felt just walking up to the Holt Korean Agency in Seoul. Those emotions were leaking out everywhere and I didn’t even know why. But having the hands and arms of other adoptees come around me to hold me, letting me know they understood, and it was ok was like having a family. It was the heaviest of days.

Even though there was precious little in my file, just hearing a post-adoption social worker provide some explanations filled the hole up further. Learning the name Park Soo Yung (박수영) was very likely given to me by my birth mother. Realizing that the birth story I had written, was possibly very close to the truth and that my birth mother loved me so much that she made a sacrificial decision. A decision filled with hope and trust that I would have a much better life than she could provide all just continued to fill that hole in my heart.

The tour included visiting different temples and learning about the history and culture of Korea. This included lesson about the different dynasties as well as the Korean War from our awesome tour guide.

I went to the top of Seoul Tower with a group of 10 others. Most people that know me will not be surprised that I got us a little lost on the way back. Or like my dad used to say, we took the scenic detour. We even saw the love bugs that were in the news and NO, we did not love them. But we did see the love locks as well. There was even a couple in our party that put a lock on.

Going to the Holt Ilsan Center was also full of emotion. This was where I stayed from September of 1969 to April of 1970 when I came to the US. On the wall was a picture of Harry Holt, made up of hundreds or thousands of pictures of adoptees. I also got to see a picture of what the building I likely stayed in looked like at that time.

Jeju Island, which is like the Hawaii of Korea, is beautiful and very tropically hot. Not only was there a beach, but there was a climb to the top of Sunrise Peak as well as exploring a lava tube. The lava tube was 20-30 degrees cooler. But the hike made up for it. I was soaked by the time I got to the top. We were blessed to have sun the entire time we were on Jeju Island. Something that isn’t a guarantee this time of year.

Seeing the site of the orphanage in Busan where I spent the first 3 1/2 years of my life made me feel like I was back in Oregon. I blogged about seeing the reindeer outside of this orphanage. Putting my feet in the water in Busan and seeing the Jalgachi Market (lots of live fish) were all experiences I appreciated. Many did try the live squid. I may or may not have tried it. Busan is definitely a place I will come back to.

We got to visit another temple in Gyeongju and learn more about the history and culture of Korea as well as see some ancient tombs and artifacts.

Probably one of the most meaningful experiences happened at the Holt Morning Garden women’s shelter in Daejeon. We got to hear the amazing story of the work done at this facility as well as celebrate their 20th anniversary. This was also where I got to visually see my name painted in calligraphic Hangul on a fan. And because I had previously received the blessing of owning my name and then learning the meaning of my name, another part of the hole in my heart was filled.

It was a very sobering moment to visit the DMZ. To see what humans are capable of doing to each other.

Attending a baseball game was a very unique experience. They have cheerleaders and cheers and the fans know them all. It was like being at a concert for hours. Apparently they like their fried squid about as much as Americans like their hot dogs.

I also loved wandering around and seeing the sights and sounds of Seoul and taking it all in. Oddly enough, on the last day, I actually had another foreigner ask me for directions and I was able to help her. So it’s like I’m almost a native Korean.

And the food. If I ever had any doubt I would not like the food or might not have enough, it was clear on day one that would not be an issue. So much Korean BBQ, rice, kimchee and all the other banchan (side dishes) including a favorite Japchae. And it was all family style, just like I wondered about before coming on the trip.

However, the piece that is making me feel like I am returning home as a whole person are the precious friends I have made. Lifetime friends who have the common bond of being adoptees from Korea. Some have found their birth families, many have not. But we found each other. And even though they don’t replace my adoptive family or my birth family, they add to that family. And for that I am so grateful. Seeing all these lovely people in their hanboks at the final dinner was amazing.

So, I go back to August Rush. The sound of the New York Philharmonic orchestra. Where all the musical instruments and sections have a part and without each one, the music is missing something. This boy found his family. My life has been a symphony. One that God has orchestrated and one where every single part of the journey has brought me here and let me know that The Detour really was the road to this place where I have started to feel whole and healed.

Susie Bechtle-Mason | Lago Vista, Texas

Read Susie’s further reflections on her trip to Korea in her blog “One Korean Adoptee’s Heritage Journey“

Did you know our team provides support to all Holt adoptees?

Every adoptee has a unique and complex life experience. Our team strives to support all Holt adoptees, by providing help with birth search, citizenship and more.

adoptee support

The post Coming Home: One Adoptee’s Journey to Korea appeared first on Holt International.

Hollee McGinnis was born as Lee Hwa Yeong in South Korea in the early 1970s. Her birth parents did not marry, but Hollee was raised for a time by her birth mother and paternal grandparents, who were seaweed fishermen on an island off the coast of Incheon. When Hollee was 2, her birth family could no longer care for her. So they placed her in the care of a warm and loving couple who ran an orphanage on Deokjeok Island, where she lived with 15 other children. As Hollee recalls, the orphanage was more like a foster home. 

In May 1975, at the age of 3 ½, Hollee came to the U.S. to live with her adoptive family — her parents and two older siblings who were biological to her adoptive parents. Growing up in the suburbs of New York City, Hollee had not considered a career related to adoption. But after she established the adult adoptee organization Also-Known-As in 1996, the trajectory of her life’s work began to change. For the past 30 years, Hollee has been a professor, scholar, writer, policy expert, community organizer and researcher whose work has centered on adoptive and racial/ethnic identity, adverse childhood experiences and complex trauma, cultural loss, and the life course of adoption and adoptee-led mutual aid groups.

Earlier this month, in honor of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month, Hollee spoke with Holt about her early days in the U.S., her involvement in establishing Also-Known-As, her return to Korea as a researcher and scholar, her current passions and interests, and the legacy she hopes to leave behind. Here are some excerpts from the interview.

Hollee, thank you so much for speaking with us. We’re so grateful for all the work you’ve done for the adoption community over the years. So let’s start at the beginning of your life in the U.S. You arrived here at 3½ years of age, speaking no English and thrust into a completely new environment. What was that like for you?

Back in the 1970s, it was assumed that children were blank slates, that we were resilient and we would just handle things. There wasn’t an understanding of how traumatizing it was for a child to be separated from familiar people and places, and experience disrupted attachments. 

When I arrived in the U.S., I was deeply attached to the people who cared for me in South Korea. In fact, a few years after I left Korea, the director of my orphanage wrote a letter to my parents, describing the day that he and his wife brought me to the airport. I had been escorted to a point [at the airport] where they could no longer see me, but I broke loose and ran back to them. I grabbed onto the legs of the orphanage director’s wife and cried, “Eomma! Eomma!,” or “Mommy! Mommy!” Basically, I was fighting to not get on the plane.

In the first months of being in my new adoptive home, I often ran to the front door saying something in Korean that my mother didn’t understand. Later, she learned I was saying, “I want to go home.” I also wanted my older sister to sleep in the room with me the summer I arrived, which she did for a time. That’s because in Korea, young children do not sleep by themselves until they are much older.

I arrived in May, and by September, I was speaking English and able to go to nursery school. I was able to adjust, and my parents’ love did settle me down. But something inside me was broken.

So what happened next for you?

Growing up, I had to shut the door on my past as a coping mechanism and just start my new life. I identified as Hollee McGinnis, part of an Irish Catholic family. I knew I was adopted, but it only came up in conversation if someone pointed it out, or if I had to explain how I got into my family. There were always these little nibbles, though, these microaggressions. For example, my parents and two siblings and I would go to a restaurant, and a waiter would ask if we needed a table for four — not five, not realizing I was part of the family. 

In college, I realized people were expecting things of me because of my race that I could not deliver. They would speak to me in Chinese or Japanese, or praise me on my English. I thought I would major in Asian studies so I could learn about all the things people expected me to know because of my appearance. But then I thought, well, that’s just fulfilling a racial stereotype! So I changed my major to American studies, focusing mostly on 20^th century race relations. I hoped to better understand why people were interacting with me based on my race and not my lived experiences.

In college, I realized people were expecting things of me because of my race that I could not deliver. They would speak to me in Chinese or Japanese, or praise me on my English.

After college, I was working in New York City when I learned about a three-month leadership training program. As part of the program, we were asked to design something for our community. Since I had studied international adoption and its history as an undergrad, and since I was hearing news stories about Chinese adoptees coming to live in America, I thought this could be a compelling focus of the project. I thought it would have been helpful for me to have had mentors or seen other families like my own when I was growing up, so that was the impetus for this project — to find adult adoptees to mentor this upcoming generation of international transracial adoptees. And that’s how the organization Also-Known-As got started in 1996.

It’s amazing that Also-Known-As is still around today. How has the organization changed?

Once we got started, our mission grew because we realized we needed more than just a mentorship program. So we focused on three things: empowering adoptees to understand their own lived experiences, building bridges back to our countries of origin and to ourselves as a way of healing, and transforming conversations about race. As I began building a community of adoptees for Also-Known-As, I started to feel that adoption was much more at the forefront instead of just in the background of my life. That’s when my career focus started to shift.

(Editor’s note: To delve deeper into her work in the adoption community, Hollee returned to school to earn a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University, completed a clinical fellowship at the Child Study Center at Yale University and worked as the policy director at the Donaldson Adoption Institute, with an emphasis on program development, public policy and mental health care. Then in 2013, Hollee returned to Korea for 18 months to conduct research on children living in orphanages as part of her doctoral dissertation.)

What prompted you to return to South Korea to study children living in orphanages?

In 2000, Also-Known-As planned a trip to Korea for adopted adults and I went as one of the tour guides and mentors. We visited an orphanage, where all the children were 6 and under. It was the first time I’d been back to an orphanage since I was a baby. When I was getting my PhD, I wanted to research the mental health outcomes of adolescents in orphanages in Korea. One of my core questions was, Do children in orphanages experience birth parent loss in the same way that adopted children do?

David Brodzinsky [professor emeritus of clinical and developmental psychology at Rutgers University] was one of the first people to really study birth parent loss as a core trauma or a core stressor of adoption. He found that it correlated with higher anxiety and depression in adopted children. So I was curious if this would be true for the kids in the orphanage too. They ranged in age from 12 to about 18 or 19, and I was struck by the fact that 80% of the kids in my study had some contact with their birth parents. But regardless of contact, they still experienced birth parent loss, and in my data at least, it was found to correlate to higher trauma symptoms. One of the things that came up was that the children didn’t know why they were in the orphanage, why they had been abandoned. I think this is a core question for adopted people too. (You can read more about Hollee’s research in South Korea here.)

What did living in South Korea mean for you personally?

I always had a dream to go back to South Korea and live there for at least a year. So personally, this was very special because I went with my husband, who is also adopted from South Korea, and my oldest son, who was 6 at the time we arrived. It was a really profound, foundational experience that really solidified the subtleties of being in another culture. After that experience, I felt that I was truly bicultural — that year and a half put that deeply in my bones.

When we came back to the U.S., the experience seeded in me a desire to eat the food I ate in Korea because I really developed a palate for it. So that motivated me to cook more Korean food at home, including kimchi. And now I teach kimchi-making workshops from time to time, both in my home and on retreats!

That sounds so interesting. What do those classes involve?

For many years, I felt like an imposter, someone who was “performing” Korean culture when I tried to do things that were Korean. Inside me, I felt like I’m not a Korean Korean, like people who live in Korea are. When I approached culture only from my mind, I thought… ‘I didn’t grow up in Korea. I didn’t grow up with Korean parents. I didn’t eat Korean food every day.’ But when I realized that if I could let go of those thoughts, I could actually touch this authentic part of myself that says, ‘Of course, you’re Korean. What are you talking about?’

So in my classes, I use the power of making kimchi as a healing process for adoptees. We let go of the imposter syndrome, the thoughts that say, ‘How can I make someone else’s food?’ And we reclaim and re-indigenize ourselves to our ancestral wisdom through our bodies, hearts and souls.

That’s beautiful! What else have you been working on these days?

One of the things I’ve been interested in is how complex trauma and early adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in adoptees can correlate with physical health and mental health challenges and problems as we age. Most of the research on adoptees stops by the time we’re 20 or 30, so we’ve not looked at these long-term health aspects.

Currently, I’m leading a research study called Mapping the Life Course of Adoption Project, which examines the health, wellbeing and importance of adoptee connections in adulthood. In 2023, we surveyed 465 adoptees over the age of 18, who were adopted domestically, internationally or through foster care. The average age of the survey participant was 36, although we did have a few people in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. We’re analyzing the data now and finding that the average number of ACEs is higher in the adoptee survey participants than in the general population — and we’re assessing what impact that might have on our long-term physical and mental health.  

Through the Mapping the Life Course of Adoption Project, we want to leverage the power of research to benefit all adoptees, including those in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

Complex trauma can show up in in the body in many ways. For example, I have a group of eight close women friends, all adopted from Korea, who I’ve known since my 20s. Five out of the eight of us developed breast cancer in our 40s. Is this related to the fact that the rate of breast cancer is rising among Asian American women in general and at earlier ages? Or is this also somehow connected to our adverse childhood early experiences? We just don’t know because the research isn’t there. That’s part of what we hope to accomplish with this study and others in the future. We want to leverage the power of research to benefit all adoptees, including those in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

Hollee, you’ve done such important work in so many aspects of your life. Is there a particular motto you live by or legacy you’d like to leave behind?

I think for now I’m trying to live by my principles and my ideals, which are to be fully present to my children, my community, the people who matter to me. I think that’s what I would want to most be remembered for — that I lived a life that wasn’t just lip service, right? That I lived a life aligned with my values and wish for all people to believe in their own beauty and worth.

Finally, as we wrap up Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, can you share something about the importance of elevating AANHPI voices — and in particular, AANHPI adoptee voices?

Yes, of course. Adoptees who are of Asian ancestry are a minority within a minority. So it’s very important for us to elevate our experiences. It’s also important for us to connect to how we are immigrants as well, and a part of the Asian American experience. Even though some of our adoptive parents immigrated a long time ago, those legacies of how Asians came into the United States, and our histories as Asian Americans, impact our lived experiences because we walk in Asian bodies. While I also dream that we live in a world where a person is not judged by the color of their skin, the truth is the only way for us to get there is to see how our society has not operated this way. Only when we see how color and race have shaped how we treat each other and ourselves can we move to this dream for all of us.

Holt Post Adoption Services

Holt offers lifelong support to all adoptees, adoptive families, birth parents, caregivers and others whose lives have been touched by adoption.

learn more

The post Adoptee Voices: Hollee McGinnis appeared first on Holt International.

It was a night of celebration — filled with smiles, warm embraces and tears. Women in elegant hanbok were honored on stage for their years of service — some retiring after more than 30 years of caring for foster children.

The foster mothers event in Korea drew hundreds this past December. Although an annual event, this would be the final one.

After 60 years, the Holt foster care program is turning the page to its final chapter, as it transitions to the Korean government in July 2025.

One foster mother, receiving an award for 10 years of service, shared, “Together, we faced the joys and challenges of caring for adorable babies, endured the pain of farewells and grew stronger as a family. When I first brought a baby home, I was overwhelmed by fears and doubts, wondering if I could do it well. But the moment the baby gave me a radiant smile, all my worries melted away. As they [say of babies], their mom is their whole world. Every moment spent being the whole world to these children, whether for three months or over 30 months, has been a precious memory etched in my heart.”

As the evening honored the women who have poured their hearts into the children they cared for, it also marked a poignant moment to reflect on the rich, six-decade history of Holt’s foster care program in Korea.

The Origins of Foster Care in Korea

In the aftermath of the Korean War, Harry Holt dedicated his life to caring for children left orphaned or abandoned. Many of the children coming into care at the time were malnourished and suffering from severe deprivation. Even with the best medical care, food and care from nannies, many children continued to fade — as if they had lost the will to live.

Harry believed that children needed familial love — especially a mother’s love — to give them the encouragement, nurturing and strength to live. Each child needed to feel valued and know their life mattered to someone.

When a sick infant came into care, Harry sometimes carried the child under his shirt, against his chest, so they could feel his heartbeat.

Research supports this practice, showing that skin-to-skin contact between children and their caregivers significantly improves well-being, increases the chances of recovery from illness and aids in the development of healthy attachment and bonding.

After Harry’s sudden passing in 1964, the staff in Korea began to consider how to meet the needs of each child in their care, wanting each one to know they were loved.

Holt Foster Care: A Model Around the World

In 1965, Holt established the first wide-scale foster care program in Korea.

“It started as a response to seeing what the children needed and trying to figure out how best to be able to provide for that need,” Paul Kim, Holt’s program director of Korea and son of David Kim, says. “Except for those children with specific needs that could not be best met in foster care, nearly every child placed in Holt’s care [for adoption over the past 60 years] was in foster care prior to being placed with their permanent adoptive family.”

Holt pioneered foster care as a more nurturing alternative to institutional care, keeping its mission at the center: a world where every child has a loving, secure home. Holt foster families were trained to provide what children frequently miss out on when they grow up in institutional care: the one-on-one attention and nurturing care they need to reach critical developmental milestones — and ultimately, form healthy emotional attachments. Their ability to attach to caregivers also laid the foundation for children to bond with their adoptive families. Always meant to be temporary, Holt’s model of foster care paved the way for children to thrive in permanent, loving homes.

Holt’s foster care model has since been recognized by UNICEF as best practice for children in care and replicated throughout the world. “The foster care system in Korea became a model for deinstitutionalization for every other program that we’ve had,” Paul explains. “The foster care programs in India, Thailand, the Philippines, China, etc., can all find their roots in the Korean system.”

Fostering in Communities

But foster care didn’t take hold immediately in Korea.

Like many countries in the Far East, Korea has a communal culture where bloodlines were — and still are — deeply valued. The idea of taking in a child on a temporary basis was a new concept.

But as time went on, communities began to see how fostering children was something truly special.

“The easiest recruitment method was actually other families seeing the joy that these families were getting out of fostering these children,” Paul says.“We had many … clusters of foster families in certain neighborhoods and also multigenerational foster families.”

As word spread and communities saw families loving children as their own, fostering began to catch on.

Interested families were screened through Holt, and if accepted, underwent training and received visits from social workers. After placement, families returned to the Holt office several times a year for check-ins to monitor children’s health and development. Babies received monthly wellness checks, and with the support of sponsors and donors, Holt provided subsidies for clothing, food, formula and medical care.

“A lot of these families ended up spending so much of their own money for the care of these children, beyond any type of subsidy or support Holt provided,” Paul says. Wanting to ensure their needs were fully met, foster families welcomed each child with great love, giving generously of their time and resources to nurture and care for them.

Saying Goodbye and Starting Again

Foster parents and children bond deeply in Holt’s foster care program — so much so that at the start of the program, many foster families didn’t return to foster again. It was too painful to say goodbye to another child they had grown attached to.

Paul recounts a particularly striking memory of a foster mother saying goodbye to her foster child.

“The foster mom was just sobbing, holding her face with one hand. But she’s staring into the bus, puts her hand up against the window, trying to touch her child one last time and the bus slowly starts to move away,” Paul remembers. “She’s running alongside it with her hand on the window. And finally, as [I] look back, she just stops, turns around and just collapses to the ground with an empty baby carrier.”

“You just understand that, wow, this child was loved,” he continues. “And these are the families you want, because they’re the ones who, without reservation, give all their love and attach to the kids. These are the ones who say, ‘Oh, I’ll never do it again.’ But they come back and say, ‘Okay, I’m ready again.’”

The need for fostering continues, as every child deserves the love and care of a family. Whenever it is in the best interest of the child, we champion family strengthening and reunification efforts in Korea and in other countries. We are also committed to advocating for the thousands of children left in institutional care — without the love and care that every child needs to thrive. Fostering ensures that children are given the nurturing, one-on-one care they need, while waiting to be adopted domestically or reunited with birth family.

Remembering Each Face

Some of these incredible families fostered for years — some continuously for 35 years, fostering over 100 children.

But foster mothers remember each face.

“If you talk to these foster moms and you mention a child, she’ll say, ‘I remember her — when I used to bathe her, she would sing little songs,’” Paul says, smiling. “If an adoptive family comes back to Korea and they have an opportunity to meet [their child’s foster mom], she’ll tell them all about what they were like as a baby.”

Through the years, Holt has facilitated countless foster mother-adoptee reunions, often through heritage tours, whether in Korea or other countries.  Foster mothers have also traveled to the United States on occasion. Some escorted children to their adoptive families, before that practice ended in favor of families traveling to unite with their child in their birth country. Others traveled to attend annual Holt picnics. In these cases, some adoptive families flew across the U.S. to meet foster mothers — even if only to meet for a couple of hours.

“[For many adoptees], the longest, most meaningful relationship they’ve had prior to being adopted was the care that they received from their foster family,” Paul says. “When you convey back to an adoptee, ‘let me tell you something about your foster family,’ that cements in their heart that they were loved and cared for.”

Many Lives Touched

When a child lives with a foster family in Korea, a child truly experiences what it’s like to have an entire family caring for them. Each child’s foster family may include a mother, father, siblings, grandparents and other extended family.

“We talk about foster moms, but without the support of the entire family, [foster care] is not possible,” Paul says.

Often, when the bittersweet day arrives for a family to say goodbye to their foster child in Korea, Paul says it’s not uncommon for the whole family to be there — except the father.

“The foster dads would most often decline to come because they were ashamed to be crying in public — to say goodbye to that child that they loved so much,” Paul says.

This deep sense of love and devotion to caring for children is exactly what has made the foster care program in Korea so profound.

Hope for the Transition

In mid-July 2025, all intercountry adoption processes — domestic and intercountry adoption, child intake, foster care and post adoption services — will transition to the Korean government.

In anticipation of the upcoming changes, Paul says he hopes that Holt’s foster care model can continue to be a beacon of light for caring for children outside of institutions.

“I am wondering if a government can instill the same sense of devotion and compassion in the foster families as Holt has been able to do,” Paul says. “I’m hopeful that the level of care and understanding [of] the children’s needs will not significantly change.  And [I’m] understanding that this is an important, interim step. This should not be seen as an end in itself, but as simply a transition — an important one — for the children as we find a permanent family for them.”

Fortunately, for children who are already in process for adoption, the Korean government has said they will complete the entire process, keeping each child with the foster family they’ve already been with.

Paul hopes that the government will prioritize the needs of the children first, particularly for young children who may be reassigned to a different foster family after living with one family for most of their lives. He also hopes that even after the adoption has been completed that the government will continue to maintain open communication and contact with each child’s birth parents, in hopes that family reunification in the future can happen.

In light of the changes to come, Paul says it’s important to remember this: “These changes are coming about not as some sort of bureaucratic exercise, but because the Korean government truly believes that what they are doing is in the best interest of the children, and the change in system is meant to better ensure that children’s rights and interests are protected.”

While this cornerstone of Holt’s work in Korea is changing, what will remain is our commitment to children and families in need in Korea. Alongside Holt Korea, our in-country partner, Holt International is committed to assisting children and families at risk of separation, advocating and serving children with disabilities, uplifting single-parent families, empowering youth aging out of institutional care and so much more.

A Legacy of Love

Over the course of 60 years, thousands of foster families have joined in the mission of helping children thrive in the love and stability of a family.

Each December, Holt has honored foster mothers in Korea for each five years of service. Each one receives an award for five years of fostering and is recognized with a special ceremony when they retire.

“It’s just remarkable and always impacts me every time I witness it. It’s not just a job to them,” Paul says of the foster mothers honored at the event this past December. “The love and care that the foster moms have for the children they cared for has not changed in six decades. You can see that the love and devotion were just the same and just as strong.”

During the December 2024 event, a special ceremony was held to honor five foster mothers as they retired. In total, 25 women were recognized, with some celebrated for their five years of service and others for up to 30 years.

Dan Smith, Holt International President and CEO, took a moment to address the foster mothers at the event, sharing these words of gratitude: “I hope you understand how your love for children has impacted others. When I think about how many children foster mothers have cared for, and the number of times those children were able to share their love with others, that love has touched hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people on this earth … When you share love with a child, and that child shares love with others, we truly make the world a better place — more loving, more compassionate and caring. This is why we celebrate foster mothers today. Thank you for sharing your love with others … It’s the love that we share with others that makes the world a better place.”

As this chapter closes for Holt, we honor the thousands of foster families who have served with love — each moment a precious memory etched in the hearts of those who share in this 60-year legacy.

Holt Post Adoption Services

Holt offers lifelong support to all adoptees, adoptive families, birth parents, caregivers and others whose lives have been touched by adoption.

learn more

The post Fostering a Legacy of Love in Korea appeared first on Holt International.

On Friday, April 25, nearly 30 Holt staff, board members, adoptees and members of the Holt family gathered for a special event celebrating the book “His Eye is on the Sparrow” by David and Ani Pearman, published in July 2024.

Holt President and CEO Dan Smith opened the event by sharing how he discovered David and Ani’s book.

One day he walked into his office to find a thick, brown envelope on his desk with the name ‘D. Pearman’ scribbled across the front. Curious, he opened the package.

“Inside was a lovely book,” Dan said, smiling at David and Ani.

Cared for by Holt

As a child with polio, David stayed at Holt’s Ilsan Center in Korea — a nurturing care home founded by Harry and Bertha Holt in the mid-1960s for children with disabilities — until joining an adoptive family in 1971. It was at Ilsan that he met Molly Holt, Harry and Bertha’s daughter and a nurse who devoted her life to caring for children with special needs.

Molly could be called the Mother Teresa of Korea for what she had done for the Korean orphans. She devoted her life to caring and advocating for the unwanted children — orphaned or abandoned. She defended the most forgotten, those with developmental problems or physical needs like my handicap from polio. She loved us like her own children, but she knew if the organization could match us with loving families who would adopt us, we would thrive even better.

His Eye is on the Sparrow, pg. 62

In his book, David shares his powerful journey of resilience and faith in his search for identity as an adoptee. He reflects not only on Molly Holt’s lasting impact but also on another of Holt’s early founders, Dr. David Kim, whose kindness and guidance left a profound mark on his life.

Celebrating an Adoptee’s Story

It was a moving and memorable event — full of connection and a few tears as David read emotional excerpts from the book.

“These are tears of joy, really,” David said as he read Jeremiah 29:11, reflecting on his departure from Ilsan at the age of 10. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.”

David read excerpts from the book, tracing his journey from life at Holt’s Ilsan Center to his arrival in the United States to join his adoptive family — a mix of joyful and heart-wrenching moments.

One afternoon when I was attending my watermelon garden, a significant event happened. I saw a tiny bird fall from a tree. It was a brown and beige bird like a sparrow. He cried out in pain, and I could see his wing was hurt badly. I could see he was trying to breathe in and out. Compassion for the helpless hurt bird overtook me. I reached down to pick up the sparrow … caring for the sparrow would later display important values in my life.

His Eye is on the Sparrow, pg. 56

Reception by the Holt Community

Robert Holt and Suzanne (Holt) Peterson, son and daughter of Harry and Bertha Holt, came to the event, along with Nancy Kim, wife of David Kim, who passed away in January 2018 at the age of 86.

“I enjoyed this — it was wonderful,” Suzanne said of the event.

The book was well received by many, including Nancy.

“I couldn’t stop reading,” Nancy said after David finished reading from his book. “I want to give [copies] to my children, grandchildren and some of my church members.”

Nancy was by David Kim’s side throughout his lifelong service to orphaned and vulnerable children. The first employee Harry Holt hired in Korea, David’s dedication to the Holt mission later led him to serve as Holt’s CEO and President for 10 years. Nancy shared about his efforts to help build Ilsan Center in Korea alongside Harry Holt, expressing how meaningful the book was to her — it brought her back to those early days.

“It was totally moving,” Nancy said, looking at David and Ani. “I admire you so much.”

Reflecting on His Journey

“His Eye is on the Sparrow” invites readers to explore themes of identity, belonging, adversity and disability and to consider the power of faith and forgiveness.

“There are many things which can apply to many people,” David said as he reflected on what he wants readers to take away from the book. “For me, God had a plan. The book ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow’ is so good in that the bird, like in the orphanage, is for a purpose. He cares for the fallen bird, as I cared for the fallen bird. God even more cares for us — whatever we’re going through … God has a purpose behind it. And if we trust Him and we open up our hearts to him and to other people around us, that will be a good thing.”

“I just believe that all these things happened for a purpose,” David continued. “It takes time to forgive, but if we just have that willingness to change, to be open to God and to people around us, we will know our purpose and identity.”

Readers can buy David’s book online from various retailers, including Kharis Publishing.

Learn more about Holt’s work and history!

At Holt International, we help children thrive in the love and stability of a family. But our services extend far beyond the adoption work we are known for.

learn about holt

The post Adoptee Book Event Held at Holt Headquarters appeared first on Holt International.