UK Adventure

29 May, Saturday:

In 1974...Betty, a friend from church, decided to go to Vietnam and relocate the children from An Lac orphanage. For many years, she and her husband (a pediatrician) volunteered there every summer. Saigon was falling to the Communists and the founder of the orphanage (Mme. Ngai) was targeted to be "hit." Most of the children were Amer-Asian and were listed as undesirables. By early 1975, Betty did some major work and ultimately got a HUGE military aircraft from the US government and made arrangements to fly over there. We were all living in Georgia at the time. Betty also made arrangements to convert a vacant school into a makeshift orphanage. This school happened to be across the street from my house. I was a stay at home mom with a 2 year old son, Rob. Rob is Samoan and we adopted him when we lived in Hawaii. Anyway, I volunteered to assist at the orphanage.

Betty REALLY worked hard to get the kids out of Vietnam. (Details of her endeavor can be found in the first Chicken Soup for The Soul, the chapter titled "She Saved 219 Lives.") Most of the children had no birth certificates, but she was told that they couldn't leave the country without them. So she "found" some. She had to bribe many people, and finally was told that she could take all the able-bodied children 12 and under. There were around 200.

She also managed to leave with a few kids over 12 who were severely disabled or injured. Anyway, I was there when the kids arrived. (Lots of stories there, too.) The baby I took off of the airplane was the most beautiful little girl I'd ever seen. There was this immediate physical bonding that happened. Her name was Vu Thi Ngoc Hong. And her birth certificate said she was 11 months old (May 29, 1974). She was so tiny, looked about 5 or 6 months old, but healthy.

In order to get all the kids into the states, Betty not only had to have birth certificates for them, she had to tell the powers that be that they were all "spoken for." After falling in love with this beautiful child of God, I went to Betty and said, "I know that all of these kids are spoken for, but could I have one?" Sounds simple. Sounds stupid. But my heart was in every word. I told her that my (then) husband and I were already approved for trans-racial adoption, and the state of Georgia had all of our records transferred from Hawaii) because we had been interested in pursuing adoption in Georgia. Betty laughed and said that actually only a few of the kids were spoken for...and that I could go and choose almost any child I wanted. (This is EVERY adoptive parent's dream....)

I said that I didn't need to look, I wanted to adopt Room 7 Bed 23, Vu Thi Ngoc Hong.

She looked at her records and said that this girl was one of the few who was spoken for. My face conveyed my feelings. Then Betty said, “Wait...these people have never seen her. I'll just assign them to another healthy infant girl.”

The next day, I picked up this precious bundle in my arms. As I was getting ready to leave, a cablegram arrived from then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, saying that since these kids were refugees, there would be no private adoptions. I had to put her back in her crib.

There followed a week of absolute despondency. It's too late to make this bedtime story short....but the upshot was, we were able to work out the red tape bureaucratic mess. Vu Thi Ngoc Hong came home with us.

Her name is now Jill Hong Dufresne Potrykus and she's 30 years old today (give or take a few months). Hong means Rose or rose-colored. She is indeed my precious rose. Hope you enjoyed Jill's favorite bedtime story. Before anyone says that I should write a story about this....someone already did. It was made into an ABC Movie of the Week in the 80's called Children of An Lac. Starred Shirley Jones and Ina Balin.

Jill and her husband, Todd Potrykus, have two adorable kids, Kayla and Hunter. And Kayla’s middle name is Hong.

Happy birthday, Jill. May your life continue to be full with as much joy as you’ve given me. Love, Mom

posted by Jerilyn Dufresne, author @ 11:47