We should not be asking who this child belongs to, but who belongs to this child. ~~Jim Gritter

I am amazed at the emotions I feel on this trip. I knew that I would care for these people, I can't believe how much I find myself climbing into their skin. The emotions they are feeling are so raw and intense that it is exhausting. As I listen and talk to many of these wonderful families, I am amazed at their courage, strength, and love for one another.

Tonight we had parent talk time. As people shared their experiences, all the emotions that came three years ago hit me like it was yesterday. One parent shared how it struck him when his child was walking down the street ahead of him with his foster mother, that his child had had another life before coming home to him. He knew it in his head, but seeing the person that raised his son for 5 months made it so concrete. Our children had a life before us! This is so hard for us to wrap our head around. We want to be the one and only, and that is not possible.

A couple of the children found out that their "adoption story" was false. That may not seem like a big thing, but when it is the only thing that they had that connected them to their birthfamily--it is huge. One child found out that his birthday was actually two days after the day he always thought it was. We might think that it's not that important but again, that was the one day in his past that he was connected to his birthmom, a day when he thought about her a lot. Now with the opening of a file and a few words from a social worker even that truth has been taken away.

While many children are so excited to have met their foster mothers, some didn't get the chance and others women who really didn't remember them. They had so many children that they fostered and these children were just one of many. She was glad to know he was doing well, but....
Thus, the connection that was hoped for, the information desired--whether he was a fussy baby or a contented one, whether he was a good eater or a finicky one, cannot be given. For some of those kids it was another sense of loss or rejection.

What a pandora's box we open...yet how could we not. We are in Pusan tonight and one young man who was born here shared that whenever he walked outside, he was always looking into the faces of the women around him wondering if one them happened to be her. It saddened him to know she might be within miles of him, but because of rules, both government and agency, he is denied the chance to meet her.

I think this trip is important, imperative, and immeasurable. All will go home having peeled off another layer in the search for identity. For some it opened up a whole new world waiting to be explored and this was just the beginning, while others solidified the fact that they are happy knowing what they know, and they don't need more. Adoption is a two-sided coin: gain and loss, trying to find out who your are with out having the history of who you were, joy and sorrow.

I am so thankful to have had this opportunity to accompany the people on this trip. I have gained so much insight into my own family.

And by the way, I really miss them.
Peg