Everett, Wash. Published: Tuesday, August 14, 2007
By adopting, Whidbey couple reunite three sisters from Haiti
By Krista J. Kapralos, Herald Writer
FREELAND - The Hansen sisters twist one another's hair into tight knots and recite movie lines while watching Disney's "Mulan."
In their yellow bedroom, Altanie, 6, and Lydia, 2, sit on the edge of the bottom bunk, a double mattress they share.
The top, single bunk belongs to Addie, 7.
When Altanie and Lydia lift their hands in glee as Mulan trots off into the sunset on a shiny black stallion, Addie's smile is cautious.
She is new to this: the television in their bedroom, the plethora of hair accessories, the single bed that is all her own.
She is new to it all.
When Addie stepped off an airplane at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport last month, she couldn't communicate with her sisters. They'd been separated for so long that they no longer spoke the same language.
"It seems strange to us that they would be split up," said Kerry Hansen, 43, but added that he and his wife, Rebecca, 40, never would have set out to adopt three sisters.
It was only because the sisters were apart that the Hansens now have all three. If the girls had all been available for adoption at the same time, Kerry Hansen said, he and his wife would have kept looking. Now, they believe the girls were meant for them.
The Hansens are one of a growing number of Whidbey Island families who have adopted Haitian children through Reach out to Haiti, an organization that runs Ruuska Village, a community near Port-au-Prince for orphaned or abandoned children.
Barbara Walker, founder of Ruuska Village, said in an e-mail that she has coordinated more than 600 adoptions in the past 15 years - more than a dozen for families on Whidbey Island. That number continues to grow as word of the island's adoptions spreads.
"She has a real heart for these children, and she's very ethical," said Onica Nichols, who, with her husband Bryan, both 34, was the first on Whidbey Island to adopt through Reach Out to Haiti. "In every way, you know the money is all going toward the adoption or the care of the children."
Nichols found Reach Out to Haiti through the Internet. When she had a good experience with the organization, other families were interested.
"It's contagious," Nichols said. "When people see the reality of it and you get to know people who have done it, you start to realize that this really works."
Janelle Parrick, 33, and her husband, Sean, 40, already had three of their own children in 2004 when they followed Nichols' example and adopted Shynda, now 5 years old. Last month, they adopted Stevenson, 12, and his sister, Ruby, 4. Alex, the brother of Stevenson and Ruby, was adopted by another family on Whidbey Island.
Now, there are 16 Haitian children among nine families who live near one another on the island, Rebecca Hansen said. Other families are adopting from countries throughout the world, creating a growing community of international children.
Nichols has four adopted children: one was adopted domestically, and the others come from Haiti, Cambodia and Liberia.
Phil Stevenson, 43, pastor of Whidbey Evangelical Free Church, and his wife, Lisa, 45, adopted three children from Ethiopia last year. They already had five biological children.
There are nearly 20 children adopted from around the world in his church, Stevenson said.
The church never encouraged the families to adopt. Stevenson believes it's a natural outgrowth of their love of God.
The Hansens had two biological sons, Gabriel, now 12, and Oliver, now 8, when the Nicholses adopted their Haitian child three years ago. Another family adopted from Haiti, then another.
"Haiti just kept coming up," Rebecca Hansen said. "Initially, maybe there was selfishness because I wanted a daughter, but we have a roof over our head, and food on our table. There was no reason why we shouldn't adopt."
They applied to adopt one girl through Reach Out to Haiti in 2004. While they were waiting to finalize their adoption of Altanie, Altanie's mother gave birth to Lydia, whom she also put up for adoption. The Hansens couldn't bear the idea of taking one sister and leaving the other in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's impoverished capital.
Altanie was 4 years old and Lydia was 6 months old when they were escorted by adoption agents from Haiti to Seattle.
Addie wasn't available for adoption when the Hansens first contacted Reach Out to Haiti, and at the time the couple wouldn't have considered more than one child. But six months after Altanie and Lydia arrived, Addie was suddenly up for adoption.
"I thought, if my boys were separated, wouldn't I do whatever I could for them?" Kerry Hansen said.
Addie's adoption took more than a year and a half. In July, Kerry and Rebecca Hansen traveled, for the first time, to Haiti to pick her up.
A home video taken by Kerry Hansen shows Addie, wearing a thin, flowered dress, standing in the dusty courtyard of Ruuska village as the Hansens arrived. Rebecca Hansen wrapped Addie in her arms, and led her away to join her sisters on Whidbey Island.
"I know they were meant to be together," she said. "And they are today."
