I have had the opportunity twice now to translate for adoptive/biological family reunions. You may remember my first experience in which I translated for the biological mother, Maria (see Maria, Maria – A Story of Poverty in my April blogs). After that meeting, I strongly believed that the daughter Maria gave up for adoption would have died, if not for the American adoptive parents. I walked away from the experience so encouraged and excited about the way adoption can change and save lives.
On May 23, I translated for another reunion. This experience was so drastically different from the first. I walked away confused, saddened, and mystified. During this particular meeting I had to translate to the American adoptive parents that their son was essentially kidnapped. The biological mother never wanted to give her son up for adoption and shared the heart-wrenching story about how she was extorted, threatened with her life, and literally robbed of her three-year-old son. She also shared that she felt so depressed after her son left that she often thought of committing suicide. What a terrible, hellish thing for this mom to have experienced.
American adoption from Guatemala has officially and legally been closed for three years because of cases too much like this. Lots of rumors have circulated in this country about “buscadores” (people who essentially went and “searched out” families and convinced them to give their children up) and about people who sold children for profit. Unfortunately, these particular rumors were all too true. In this second case I translated for, the child wasn’t saved, he was stolen.
The sad reality is that stories similar to this second case exist worldwide. American adoptive parents who cross international boundaries are also crossing languages, cultures, and world-views. These are big things to cross. In many cases, the trip across this divide is so wonderful and so worth it. In other cases, the trip is too dangerous and too hurtful to those on the other side. It’s sticky and complicated and confusing, isn’t it?
One of my favorite things as a teenager at Baptist Temple was being a part of the Genesis group. It was a cool 90s-style ministry pretty similar to the Happy Hands group on the movie Napoleon Dynamite. An image that forever sticks in my mind from one of our performances: At the start of the song, my friend Linzi was “captured” by the black-clothed demons that then enacted dragging her into hell. Linzi went out kicking and screaming – loudly. It was a powerful scene for me as a 16 year old and it always choked me up.
As an adult, I’ve come to realize that there are billions of people kicking and screaming – loudly, to get out of their hellish life right here on earth and it’s this hell on earth that people really need salvation from. It’s easy to be confused by the layers of problems and corruption we humans have created here on earth. But it’s my job – it’s our job and our calling – to help rescue the screaming victims from hell.
