I shared this post earlier this year on my Facebook page, and feel it bears repeating. The above words were uttered by Harry Holt in the mid-1950’s as he personally saw the desperate plight of scores of Korean-American children (fathered by U.S. servicemen) orphaned in the Korean War. Because they were not 100% Korean, these children were largely rejected by Korean society as undesirable. Harry and his wife Bertha, who together founded Holt International Children’s Services in Eugene, Oregon, spent many months in post-war South Korea, setting up an orphanage there for the children. Harry and Bertha eventually adopted six of these orphans who joined them and their five biological children back in Oregon.
Today, 65 years later, Harry Holt’s powerful question, “who will answer for these children?”—is as pertinent as ever. There are millions of truly orphaned children (meaning those who have lost both parents) around the world, many of them adoptable. Here in the U.S. there are over 450,000 children in foster care, of whom an estimated 125,000 are adoptable.
“Who will answer for these children?” The answer is and will continue to be YOU—those of you numbering in the hundreds of thousands over the years—who have adopted a child either internationally or domestically. The “who” are those of you who are selflessly fostering one or more of those 450,000 children in our U.S. system. The “who” also includes those of you who are patiently waiting for that phone call about a waiting child that you lovingly plan to foster or make a permanent part of your family. All of you have been--and continue to be--the answer to this important question!
-Photo courtesy of Unsplash