You Can't Save Them All

Cousin Greg, Michael & Jennifer
In 1984 Ventura County lost its state funding to operate the Intercountry Adoption program. By now, we knew dozens of couples who had adopted and many of them wanted to adopt another child. In addition, there were many couples, just like us, who had reviewed their options to begin a family and were looking at international adoption because of the lower risk.

There was an obvious need for international adoptions to continue. I don’t recall the exact origin of the conversation but I remember the first gathering of several couples to explore starting our own adoption agency. We determined we had a core group of couples who would commit to making the idea come alive. One of our couples provided legal expertise, another helped with the finances, another had political connections that helped with the state bureaucracy, and others had small business experience.

Many meetings later, Adoption Services International (ASI), was licensed to provide adoptions in Ventura County. Legally it was California Adoption Services but we did business as ASI to avoid confusion with being a state agency. We hired our social worker away from the county to be our agency director. She knew the technical and legal necessities of adoption and she had contacts in South Korea where children were waiting for families.

Me, I was a volunteer ready to lend a hand wherever needed and I had good business and organization skills. I was also a salesperson and therefore had the “mouth”. At one of those early meetings my talented “mouth” got the better of me and I found myself voted the Board of Directors’ President. This was no lofty title—it meant I was the “Head Volunteer” and spokesperson for the group.

Michael & Jennifer

By now you can see how the “plan” was beginning to emerge? Imagine the difference in our lives if we had been able to have our own children? There would have been no Jennifer or Michael and the adoption agency, if it happened, would have been without the “mouth”. The “plan” continued to take shape and our own family was about to take a gigantic leap of faith.

In the summer of 1986 the Board of Directors decided we needed a face-to-face meeting with our South Korean partners. So far, all arrangements for working together had been done via phone, fax, and letters. During the preliminary negotiations we determined our license to deliver adoption services in Ventura County needed expansion to the entire state. We were being led to believe we could receive up to two hundred referrals per year and we were anxious to share with South Korea our readiness to accept responsibility for these children.

In late June, 1986, we departed Los Angeles International Airport for Seoul, South Korea. Our delegation included me, Lora, our agency director, one of her adopted Korean daughters, and our director’s stepmother. Later, the joke was that I was along for the trip because the ladies needed someone to carry the heavy shopping bags. They nicknamed me “sherp”, short for the Sherpa mountain guides who carry unbelievable loads to the summit of Mount Everest.

Danny in Seoul, South Korea
South Korea, in 1986, was still two years from the Seoul Summer Olympics. Most of the street and store signs were written only in Korean and therefore a challenge for us. When I was in the Navy I visited many foreign countries in Europe but this was my first visit to the Far East. The sounds, smells, and food were different from anything I had experienced so far. Our hosts had good English language skills but my ear was not accustomed to understanding English with a Korean accent.

Therefore, when we went to meet with the head of our partner agency, my presentation to him was going to be difficult and stressful. He was a surgeon trained in the United States with good English language skills but this turned out to be a blessing and a curse. Bluntly, he informed us that our information regarding two hundred referrals was incorrect and our state-wide California license was of no interest to him. It was then I became a believer in telepathic messaging; our director and I exchanged looks of bewilderment and somehow managed to communicate without the benefit of words. What I said next to our host is lost now in the confusion but we somehow conveyed we would be happy to work with his agency on whatever terms he was dictating. This appeared to satisfy his ego and we were left to figure out how we were going to downsize our statewide strategy when we returned home.

Family Reunion 1986

The next days were filled with more meetings along with sightseeing, shopping, and the reunion of our director’s daughter with her Korean sisters. Pictured here you see her in the red dress along with her sisters and a young niece. The lady on the right was our director.

We also took a tour of the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea and experienced the very real tensions under the watchful eyes of North Korean border guards. In the building where the armistice was signed we walked to the North Korean side of the negotiating table, and for the moment, we were in North Korea.

This seems like a good place to end this part of our South Korean trip. Up to this point we were occupied with the business of the agency and making attempts to establish a working relationship with our South Korean partners. Overall, the trip was a huge success and our arrangement with them lasted fifteen years and hundreds of children. The last journey on our visit included a visit to the countryside, south of Seoul, to visit the orphanage site named, “Pyongtaek”, shown here at left. Join us for the ride as we come face-to-face with our own “A Leap of Faith”.