Here are some pictures of the San Rok Children's Home we visited Sunday afternoon. As I said before, it was super nice and well run.
Play therapy room and counseling
Abby face painting
I'm supposed to be teaching basic English. Did not go too well! Good thing my interpreter was awesome.
Yesterday we traveled across the peninsula to a province that was hosting an adoptive families conference. We had meetings with Korean families who have adopted. It was super sad. They struggle with keeping adoptions secret because of ridicule in society. One family had moved 5 times to keep the child protected from people knowing she had been adopted. Bloodline is most important in this culture. The families all struggled with when, if ever, they should tell their child about his/her adoption story. We couldn't relate to their problems and shared with them that in our case, we began telling the children their birth/adoption story the minute they were placed in our care--yes, as babies. This way, the parents are comfy talking about adoption and birth with their child instead of it popping up out of the blue. It was rather awkward at moments. Afterward we had a traditional Hanbok ceremony. Here we 3 are looking smashingly feminine :)
Today we visited a home for unwed mothers. We had lunch with them and did a little bit of cleaning.
A disclaimer: this trip really is not a mission trip. I've been on several mission trips overseas and this is nothing like those. Really it should be called a relationship or bridge building trip. I prefer hard work, fast-paced, traipsing through the jungle and drop in to bed from complete physical exhaustion to this type. I'm praying that God will use our contact with the Korean adoption community to change the very difficult laws that were recently implemented and have slowed adoptions here dramatically. Experiencing Abby, Dillon, and Hudson's birthland with my daughter and mother is very special.
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