Children from Shalom Children’s Home, El Salvador, 2004 (where I was a volunteer)

At La Casa de Mi Padre Children’s Home, El Salvador, 2010 (we visited on our honeymoon)

How do you get from thinking about adoption to bringing home a child? There are many things to think over and decisions to make. First of all, how in the world do you choose an agency among so many? Also, there are many questions for the couple: How long must you be married? What are the country’s income requirements? Plus, there are lots of questions about the children and the adoption process: What ages of children are available? What age of a child are you open to adopting? Would you take a sibling group? Would you take a special needs child? How long must you stay in the country when you a child is referred to you? Are there safety concerns in the country you will be traveling to?

This week I have learned that adopting from Latin America is not easy ! Some countries, like Guatemala, have closed their programs completely even though the orphanages are teeming with children. I spoke with the director of a Delaware-based agency that deals with adoptions from El Salvador (my birth country), and the situation there is extremely bleak, frustrating, and depressing. She shared with me that the Salvadoran government is making it extremely difficult for foreigners to adopt children. Things are so slow that we cannot even consider El Salvador. (At least agencies are being honest and not leading people on.) On top of long waits and little hope, it seems that in several countries a couple must be open to an older child (over five) or a special needs child in the “Waiting Angels” programs.

What would adoption look like for us? Our situation is pretty complicated – a U.S. citizen born in Latin America married to a German planning to live in Japan long-term. What agency would even take us on? Assuming we find an agency step one would be to have a home study with a social worker. I assumed that this might be one of the trickiest parts. However, I talked to the director of an agency called Adopt Abroad, an agency which has social workers based in Japan, who serves military families who are interesting in adopting while living abroad. She said that once we are settled in Japan, we should get in touch and get the ball rolling. They facilitate adoptions in many countries, and Carol (the director) mentioned their newest programs are Cambodia and Colombia.

Colombia! The other day, I learned that out of all the countries in Latin America, Colombia is one country that is very open to adoption with an established reputation. The orphans who can be adopted range from three months and up. That definitely peaked my interest! Yesterday, I spent a while reading blogs about Americans who had adopted from Colombia. The kids were so incredibly cute that I was practically melting in my seat. If you are interested, here are a few of the coolest blogs:

http://www.thefoxesblog.com/(Adopted a little girl THIS WEEK)
http://mysistersjar.wordpress.com/ (Adopted a little girl, their adorable “princess”)
http://roadtocolombia.blogspot.com/  (Adopted three kids)
http://www.backtobogota.com (Adopted two kids)
http://adoption.ourlittlemcfamily.com/ (Adopted five kids at once)

I have no clue if we will adopt internationally one day or not, but I really hope that we do. Adoption is one of the most beautiful and tangible displays of God’s love that I can possibly imagine. Sometimes when I think of joy of being an adopted child, I wish that we could afford to adopt an orphan from every continent in the world. We could be the “Brangelina” of Japan! By the way, I should mention that adoption is almost unheard of in Japan. It’s been interesting explaining to people my life story in a country where people almost never want to break the family blood lines.

Here are some quotes about Americans and adoption to close this blog entry:

“About four in ten Americans have considered adopting a child at one time in their lives. This equates to about 81.5 million adults. Considering there are 134,000 children in foster care awaiting families, these children would all have a home today if just 0.2% (1 in 500) of these adults actually pursued and completed the adoption process.” (National Adoption Attitudes Survey, June 2002).

78% of Americans think the country should be doing more to encourage adoption. (National Adoption Attitudes Survey, June 2002).

Americans have a very positive opinion about adoptive parents. They are seen as lucky by 94% of Americans. (National Adoption Attitudes Survey, June 2002)

If you would like more information about adoption by country, click here:
http://adoption.state.gov/country_information.php
Here is a website all about adoption:
http://www.rainbowkids.com/

with Estela, one of my favorite kids at Shalom Home, El Salvador, 2004

With Matthias on our honeymoon in Central America, May 2010

The first one is called “Arigato (Thank You) from Japan Earthquake Victims.” I do not consider myself to be a weepy person but it was impossible to hold back a flood of tears as the people of Japan thank the world for their support (in different languages) and for sending help in the grim days after the 3-11-11 disaster.

The second video is entitled “Then and Now.” Description: “During a trip to Ishinomaki in November, 2011, we interviewed a number of survivors and let them tell us about how the recovery is going.”

Matthias and I were captivated by the beautiful camera work but especially by the thoughtful interviews with several individuals, mostly men, who survived the tsunami. My favorite interviewee was the funny ramen (noodle soup) guy, Takahiro Chiba, who does a funky little dance at 9:12. I really want to go to his ramen shop when we are back in Japan this summer. I also liked the middle-aged guy with the sunglasses who expresses his frustration with the Japanese government: “In a sense, to the government, we survivors are like baggage.” A third interviewee, Gota Matsumura, opened a bar to provide people with a safe place to dialogue and share dreams and hopes for the future. Maybe we’ll drop by his bar and meet him as well. I am really curious to see what the new Ishinomaki will look like in a few years, and my hope is that God will bring beauty from the ashes of their suffering.

Friends back in NJ often asked us, “So, what do you guys do in Germany?” Good question. The short answer is that we are preparing to go back to Japan this summer. The fuller answer is that we are living at the headquarters of our mission agency, the Alliance Mission, and we are raising financial support among churches in this area to be able to go back to Japan this summer. The mission agency is kind enough to provide us with a furnished apartment, a car, a small stipend, and they pay for our travel expenses. We spend our weekdays at the mission office (which is one minute from our apartment) from 8-5 and they try to provide us with various projects to keep us busy.

Needless to say, we are extremely excited to think that sometime this year (hopefully by the summer) we will finally be living our dream of being back in Japan. It’s something we’ve been hoping and planning for since we got engaged. We plan to live in Sendai (which was the epicenter of the enormous earthquake last March 11th). Sendai is the capital of Miyagi prefecture and a fabulous city! It has a wonderful balance of nature and city life and although winters are very cold, the summers are not as sweltering and humid as many parts of Japan such as Nagoya and Tokyo.

Here is an image of where the 3/11 earthquake was felt across Japan.

Sendai is located over 350 kilometers (over 200 miles) north of Tokyo and yet the earthquake was felt very powerfully in Tokyo. (That is like the distance between New York City and Boston.)

Needless to say, there are a lot of traumatized people in the Tohoku region. The feelings of Japanese in those days and weeks after the big earthquake and tsunami were very similar to how Americans felt in the weeks and months after 9/11: deep fear, uncertainty, anger, many answered questions, and unrelenting grief. Do we really think that we going to be able to help in the midst of such emotional and psychological trauma? No, we do not claim to be capable of healing hearts. However, we know that God can heal and bind up their wounds, and we are more than willing to do as much as God allows us to do for these hurting people, including meeting physical needs and simply offering a listening ear, crying with people, serving hot food and drinks, and giving lots of hugs (even though Japanese don’t really hug…rarely. However, once the concept of hugs is introduced, they can definitely grow to like it.)

We hope to partner with missionaries from the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) and our dream is to develop friendships with the survivors of the tsunami from Minami Sanriku. We worked among the children who survived the tsunami from that area last May and June 2011 we want to continue growing the relationships that we made with the people we met in Tome-shi. No, we are not fearful of radiation, although I really ought to take the time to write an entire post explaining the nuclear situation in Japan and why we are not scared to go to Sendai.

Aside from our future plans for ourselves, I’m still busy trying to do what I can from abroad to help my parents to get my father into an assisted living facility. As I maneuver my way through Medicaid and unfamiliar laws, I am thankful for kind people on the phone who have patiently answered my many questions. I feel as though I am finally starting to get a grasp of what’s going on and how the Medicaid system works. I am learning all sorts of new terms such as “spend down,” “Medicaid Only,” “Straight Medicaid,” “Community Spouse,” “exempt assets,” etc. If anyone reading my blog has any questions about this process, feel free to ask me anytime.

However, it was very painful to leave my parents on Monday. I sobbed my way out the front door which I have never done in all these years of traveling. For my mother’s sake, I usually hold any pent-up tears until the plane is taking off but I was a weepy mess for several hours before, during, and after our departure from NJ. I am okay now, but I think this time was especially hard since I’d gotten used to seeing my parents every day and would miss them so terribly.

I look back with extreme joy at our time in NJ these past few weeks. We enjoyed so many precious moments with my parents, ones that I will always cherish for the rest of my life. Among my favorite moments was giving mom and dad a final concert on my childhood piano that we sold for $25. We desperately needed more space in the living room and while it was sad to see it go, it’s definitely a lot better without the piano. Dad was singing along as I played lots of golden oldies, which made me smile through my tears.

The weather was unseasonably warm during our last week in NJ, sometimes around 60 degrees. It felt like the beginning of spring and I enjoyed getting out and about, getting lots of good exercise. I even had the air conditioner turned on in the car one morning because it was so warm!

In case I haven’t mentioned this on my blog, Matthias and I are hoping to be back in Japan this summer, although my parents’ frail health may change our plans. We really have no idea how things are going to work out, but I trust that God is going to help us to figure out what to do in the future. It would be so nice to be back to Japan, where we plan to be for a season of our lives, but perhaps God has other plans, namely caring for my parents. I’ll keep you posted on how things turn out.

I’ll also try to post some photos in the next few days. I just need some time to rest and recuperate after a very busy past few weeks.

My parents and I had “the big talk” last week. For the first time, my parents said that they are willing to enter an assisted living facility. Up until this point, they have been 100% opposed to the idea and wouldn’t even discuss it with us. They had a “let’s cross that bridge when we get there” kind of attitude about this very important matter. However, after a visit to the neurologist at Jefferson and hearing that they need to seriously consider entering an assisted living facility, they were more open to the idea. We spent two hours talking things out and I was amazed at how lucid my dad still is and able to talk quite a bit (although quite slowly). Since “the big talk,” we have made what feel like days of conversations with many helpful people to navigate our way through the very murky water of affording the seemingly unaffordable – welcome to “Assisted Living 101″ in the USA!

Before I talked to people who explained things to us, I thought assisted living was totally unaffordable for my parents. In a way, it is! My 93-year old grandmother pays $7,400 per month from her hard-earned savings to live in a moderately nice, often understaffed assisted living facility 30 minutes from my parents’ house. I couldn’t imagine how my parents would be able to afford such a high cost. However, we have determined that for my parents there are two main options:

1) pay for assisted living out of pocket – in our case, that’s around $4000/month for one parent, $7000/month for two parents (not possible)

2) Apply for Medicaid and upon approval they will pay for assisted living if ALL of my parents’ assets total less than $2,000.00. Yes, that really is $2,000, not $20,000. I have been told that my parents will have to pay for one year of assisted living out of pocket and once they “spend down” (which means run out of money) they can apply for Medicaid. This basically means they have to go broke before Medicaid will pay for assisted living.

Incidentally, I would strongly urge anyone reading my blog with parents who are around 60-65 to strongly consider meeting with the Eldercare attorney as soon as possible. You ought to discuss all possible options to protect their assets if your parents are forced to enter an assisted living facility. These places are not cheap, there are waiting lists, there are tons of rules and regulations to consider, and your parents could potentially lose all of their assets to pay for assisted living. For example, if my parents had signed over their house in my name five years ago, they would not have to use their home as an asset to pay for assisted living. Sadly, they didn’t find out this info until it was too late to protect their home for being seized for payment of assisted living.

To be honest, it’s very late at night and I am writing to get all of this off my chest so pardon any horrible grammatical mistakes and lack of clarity. It has been a very intense week but also very good. Today we had a tour of the most likely place where my parents could live. It was a really lovely, wonderful place full of happy elderly people in Voorhees, NJ. I could easily imagine my parents living there and enjoying the many perks of assisted living – doctors and nurses on-site, three meals a day, social activities, friendships, and a safe, caring environment. I’ll keep you posted on how things work out – our hope is that they will be in an assisted living facility within 6-12 months.

Going through all this is really tough, but I also am filled with so much joy to be with my family during the holidays and knowing that we are doing everything we possibly can to help my parents. I am learning that helping my parents when they are frail and elderly is one of the most joyful and painful experiences of my life. I am often moved to tears to think that I can serve my parents who have spent my entire life serving and sacrificing for me. It’s finally time to give back to them and love them as they have loved and given freely to me for my entire 34 years of life.

Anyway, besides all of the crazy family stuff, it’s been a fun week! Matthias turned 29 and we went to the Big Apple for a day trip. Here are a few photos:

Christmas Eve

with my parents and niece

My mom opening her gifts!

Christmas dinner – just the four of us

In NYC’s Central Park in the exact spot where Matthias proposed

Birthday dinner at a vegetarian Indian restaurant in NYC

A New Year’s Eve visit to friends with the cutest baby ever!

We enjoyed a quiet New Year’s Eve with dear friends until 11:30, and then we headed home just in time to ring in the new year with mom and dad. I watched with joy at midnight to see my frail dad walk over to my mom and plant a big kiss on her lips. He said to her, “Happy New Year! I love you!” and I was about the happiest girl in the world. Life is good!

Philadelphia Orchestra performs Handel’s Messiah

The performance was so spectacular that I burst into tears at least twice. What a standing ovation they received!

With friends at a Christmas party

The white elephant gift exchange was really fun, but I noticed again that Japanese are very hesitant to steal others’ gifts. If they do, they apologize profusely and feel bad about doing it.

One of my favorite meals so far – fish and chips baked to perfection

With dear friends at a German Christmas market in Philadelphia (we even met a friendly German vendor)

We are constantly amused by the outrageous Christmas displays around my neighborhood. This house is the most infamously decorated in our town.

Another highlight was having a Krispy Kreme donut – I noticed that the flavors here are different than the ones in the Krispy Kreme shops in Japan. I was in food heaven…delicious!

We have so much to look forward to during our time in New Jersey: a performance of Handel’s Messiah, a big Christmas party for Japanese people, happy reunions with friends, eating lots of Asian food (we don’t have many Asian restaurants nearby in Germany), and celebrating Christmas with my family.

This past weekend, we enjoyed a few days with Matthias’ family and then had a long flight back to Philadelphia via Frankfurt airport.

Dinner with my parents-in-law, two brothers-in-law, and sister-in-law

Visit with Opa and Oma Krammel

Oma Krammel’s ham, salad, and delicious potato salad

My Oma and Opa Krammel speak German very slowly and clearly, making it fairly easy for me to understand. They love to talk and share stories! I was very glad that I made it through eight hours of hearing and speaking German without getting a slight headache (which used to be the case during the first few months I moved to Germany). I was utterly fascinated to hear stories about their childhood as well as life during and after World War II.

I learned that Matthias’ great-grandfather died in a Siberian work camp. Oma Krammel showed us copies of several of the last postcards he ever sent. As I examined them, I gasped loudly to see a stamp with Adolf Hitler’s profile.

I was touched to see how much in love they are – holding hands, kissing, being affectionate and laughing together.

Opa Krammel when he was 21

I also enjoyed seeing my Opa Walter who is 84 years old. I was excited that I understand him much better than I did the last time we met. I had a lot of fun try to talk with him and watching super cheesy TV shows together, laughing at the silly romantic scenarios in the soap-opera style dramas. At the end of a show, he always says, “Alles quatsch!” which roughly translates to “What a load of nonsense.” I wish that my German were far better than it is, but I am so thankful for the fair progress I’ve made and that I can communicate on a basic level. I truly look forward to many more years of learning this very challenging language.

I never, ever imagined that I would one day live in Europe. I also never imagined that I’d live in Japan for almost four years either. It’s funny where God takes you! He’s literally taken me all over the world.

Here is a small photo collection of my personal highlights of life in Germany.

My in-laws (at a Christmas market) – We always thank God for their sacrificial love, endless kindness, and support of our desire to go to Japan.

Everyone in the photo looks calm and reflective…except me. I don’t know why I am making a dorky face, but I think I wasn’t ready for the photo.

My grandparents (and aunt Petra) – it’s really lovely to have such genki (in good shape) grandparents. Three out of my four grandparents passed away many years ago and my grandmother has severe dementia and can barely speak.

It’s very sweet when she laughs like this. She is quite an amazing cook! Seriously, she could open her own restaurant.

Opa Walter – He always helps me to learn German and explains things for me when I don’t understand. He is very dear to me.

We attended M’s brother Timon’s wedding last summer. I must say, German weddings are so different from American weddings. First of all, they are far less extravagant and simple, and I’ve been told they often go on ’til 4 or 5am. There was also a talent-show style of reception that was very interesting and charming.

International friends – During our year in Germany, we’ve made friends from all over the world including the U.S., Taiwan, Japan, France, Colombia, Iran, and Peru (and German friends, of course).

Brandenburg Gate

Mauer Park in springtime

Ampelmensch

Berlin – we were so blessed to live there for half a year. We really enjoyed our time there and would love to live there again if we have the opportunity. I can’t recommend Berlin enough!

Christmas in Germany – It is magical, truly beautiful. I love the beautiful, tasteful decorations which are less tacky than some American decorations, in my opinion.

Heidelberg – This city was just incredible. It was the most beautiful city in Germany that I have seen thus far. Glorious!

My mother-in-law’s incredible homemade cheesecake! Not many things make my husband happier than eating her cake.

Brot – There is nothing like glorious, hearty German bread.

Schokolade – I honestly did not have much of a sweet tooth before I came to Germany (you can ask my Matthias or my mother). The quality of German (and Swiss) chocolate amazes me. It’s hard to pass by an entire aisle of chocolate without wanting to buy something.

Cooking German food for my husband! This is Matthias’ favorite meal – creamed spinach, yummy German potatoes, and scrambled eggs. My mother-in-law taught me how to cook many of her best recipes which was a great help to me.

Another yummy meal with white asparagus.

Last but not least…

This was the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life. I hope there will be hot chocolate in heaven.

Enjoy the holidays! メリークリスマス！(Merry Christmas in Japanese)

The last few weeks have been rather quiet but very good, especially since Matthias has given several presentations at various churches about our future work in Japan. Today we received the wonderful news that we already have four prospective partner churches that will support us financially.

This past Sunday we traveled to a church near Frankfurt and had a wonderful time giving a presentation about Japan. The people were so friendly and kind to us. At first I was so nervous about traveling to speak at so many German churches but it’s turning out to be lots of fun and I especially love meeting so many warm, loving, and encouraging Christians of all ages in the churches.

In the afternoon (on Sunday) we stopped by a Latin American church in Frankfurt to see our new friends. They are from Columbia and we met “randomly” at the Wittenberg church where Luther is said to have nailed the 95 Theses. After the church service, we had a great time together. We walked to the Christmas market in downtown Frankfurt, enjoyed a delicious Thai dinner, and we spoke 90% German all evening! It felt a little odd to speak German with Colombians, but it was good practice for us all. Frankfurt was a neat city with a real skyline with lots of fancy, modern lights and holiday displays. ‘Twas a nice day.

With our sweet Colombian friends in Frankfurt

with ladies at the Latin American church (the lady in the middle is from El Salvador!)

Matthias and I are getting really excited about the prospect of going to Japan in 2012. We are hopeful that we will return by next spring, but we leave that in God’s hands. We are greatly looking forward to a wonderful holiday season and what 2012 will bring!

Happy Holidays!

With Matthias in Basel, Switzerland (2009)

Merely providing facts and figures probably do little to move us to action. However, I will offer just a few statistics and facts:

-700,000 to 4 million women and children are trafficked around the world for purposes of forced prostitution, labor and other forms of exploitation every year. Trafficking is estimated to be a $7 billion dollar annual business.

– Victims of trafficking are subject to gross human rights violations including, rape, torture, forced abortions, starvation, and threats of torturing or murdering family members.

– Nearly every country is involved in the web of trafficking activities, either as a country of origin, destination or transit. Countries of destination include Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, France, India, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

– Traffickers recruit women and children through deceptive means including falsified employment advertisements for domestic workers, waitresses and other low-skilled work. Traffickers include those involved in highly sophisticated networks of organized crime and may be as close to home as a relative to the victim.

Taken from http://humanrightsteam.org/educational-information/human-trafficking-facts-figures/

If that didn’t hit you hard, I promise that this video will:

Horrible. Another video that deeply moved me was a video featuring the incredible work of Somaly Mam (not as disturbing as the other video but incredibly sad):

I was deeply moved as she shared about what this does to those girls. “They are psychologically completely destroyed…After the first rape, they’re finished. They’re just a body…[the sex traffickers] kill their life.”

What can you do to help? Pray, educate yourself, give financially, and tell your friends to do the same. For those of us who believe in the power of prayer, we need to pray relentlessly for a end to this. I found a site with several prayer guides here: http://www.aheartforjustice.com/resources/prayer-guides

I also recently decided to educate myself on this topic and found two books that seem to be a good place to start to get a basic overview and deeper understanding of this wretched topic.

Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery by Siddharth Kara

I know there are many excellent organizations fighting sex trafficking worldwide. (I highly recommend International Justice Mission.) Thankfully, with only a few clicks, one can easily donate money to groups fighting for justice by seeking to bring an end to modern slavery.