Rest for a Day - Korea - March 2017

The trip to Seoul was technically Taylor's "Daddy trip" for her 14th birthday. But, like her 5 year old "Daddy trip," Mom was preferred (couldn't think of a kinder word - sorry Jeff).

Every three years, each child gets a Daddy Trip. We try to land the trips on birthday years, 5, 8, 11, 14, etc.

But, for Taylor's 14th birthday, she planned a very special trip to visit the Baby's Reception home and her foster mother in Seoul. When Taylor was an infant Mrs. Lee cared for Taylor for almost eight months. To plan this trip Taylor had to contact the social welfare service in Seoul and ask for help in this matter. We both filled out paper work; there was information only I could supply, and there was information SWS needed specifically from Taylor in her own handwriting.

We put a date on the calendar and Mrs. Lee was asked to meet us at the SWS office in Seoul.
March 3, 2017

We have friends in Seoul who offered a place for us to stay, so we arrived in Seoul late on March 2nd. I decided we didn't need loads of time in Seoul for Taylor to get nervous, so we booked a short two-night stay, so we could be back in our home for her to process this experience.  It's only a 3.5 hour flight from Hong Kong, so it's a relatively easy trip.

On the morning of March 3rd, we were up at 8 am and out the door by 9:30. When we arrived at SWS Mrs Lee was already there. From the moment I saw her, I recognized Mrs Lee from Taylor's baby pictures. She didn't speak English, but she was smiling from ear-to-ear when we entered the room. She was calling Taylor, YouMee, which was her Korean name, and the name Mrs. Lee would have used while she was caring for Taylor in her home almost 14 years ago.  For the next 45 minutes she spoke through a translator about Taylor, and Taylor through the translator asked questions about that time in her life. 

Surprisingly, Taylor wasn't nervous at all. I think, deep in her soul, she she knew was finding pieces of herself that had been missing to her.

The only piece that Taylor could not find was something she wanted of her birth mother. Taylor didn't want to physically meet her birthmother, although we did find out that she is now married and living in Seoul, but she was hopeful there would be a photo of her in her file at SWS. She asked the post-adoption social worker if she could contact her birthmother and ask for a photo, but the social worker told Taylor she felt it would be best to wait for that request. I'm not sure I agreed and I promised Taylor we would revisit that request in a few months. 

Before leaving SWS we were given a tour of the Baby's Reception home where the newborns are living before they go into foster care or into a children's home. The Korean government has vastly changed the rules around international adoption in hopes that domestic adoption would take its place. Sadly, this isn't the case. 

As we were leaving SWS Taylor told me she wanted to learn Korean and someday return and work in the Baby's reception home. In a profound way, this trip gave Taylor peace.

About a year ago, our church showed a powerful video called, The DNA Journey. It's a five minute video and all the kids saw it and decided they wanted to have the test. Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw7FhU-G1_Q

As the kids were talking about this, I realized how this very affordable test from 23andMe might help Taylor and Claire find some pieces to their puzzles. We ordered DNA tests for Taylor and Claire (of course, Forrest, Jeff and Ellis all have kits on the way) and sent off for the basic ancestry test. It takes about two months to receive the results.

Taylor found she is 54%Korean, 38%Japanese, and the remainder Chinese. Claire found she is 68%Korean, 17%Japanese, and the remainder Chinese.

23andMe is a privately held personal genomics and biotechnology company based in Mountain View, California. The company is named for the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a normal human cell.^[1] Its saliva-based direct-to-consumer personal genome test was named Invention of the Year by Time magazine in 2008.^[2]

Friends from Afar - Feb 2017

We really love visitors, but we don't get a lot of visitors who are actually in our home to see us. We do have lots of people who need a place to stay in HK and find out about us through a friend or through our church; and these people become friends before leaving our home. But, they don't come to HK specifically to see us (especially considering they don't know us before arriving).

But, on the rare occasion, we get old friends or family who cross the globe to spend time with us. And, this is always a treat.

The Kapiloff family entered our lives before any of our children were born. Lenny and Jeff worked together at Home Depot in Atlanta. Lenny was twenty years Jeff's senior and as good as gold. As soon as Forrest and Ellis were old enough to eat ice cream, Lenny was treating them to desserts.  He said it was to listen to their cute southern accents. When Taylor arrived, Wendy was in our home within a day with treats and love. Sadly, we had moved away from Atlanta when Claire arrived, so she missed out on the spoiling.

They are a family you want to have by your side for life, and we feel like we have this in the Kapiloffs. But, sadly, Lenny died two years ago, in his early 60s.

Last month, his wife and youngest daughter, Ellen, made it to HK for a week. While we would have loved to have had Lenny here, we all brought his memory to life during this week.

The China Club

Bird Market - still a bit disturbing

Dragon's Back hiking trail - still against Claire's will.

And, a foot massage to end the week - perfect:-)

CNY 2016 AND 2017

Since moving to Hong Kong in 2013, Chinese New Year has been a time of year for service in Cambodia (for our family) or the Philippines (when the kids started joining the youth group).

This year (2017, the year of the rooster), Taylor joined the middle school - for the second year - in Cebu, Philippines. This team partners with a school in Cebu that was started by a couple from our church.

In 2017 - over CNY - the high school youth didn't have a CNY trip and Forrest was in the states and Jeff needed to be in Korea working???

Over Chinese New Year 2016, we were divided between three mission trips. The boys were in one area of the Philippines, Taylor was in another, and Jeff and I, along with Claire, were back in Cambodia.

This is why everyone likes to go to the Philippines: Krispy Kreme in the airport. High school team.

Taylor's middle school group in Cebu 2016


And, last, our group of four families in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.



Tarantula eating is always on the menu in Phnom Penh. Personally, I'm never hungry enough for this item.




These are always difficult trips because we are wicked hot and extremely filthy (both in Cambodia and the Philippines), but the help given to our partners on the ground is worth every moment of discomfort.

1,2,3, Birthdays

It's just easier to combine the November, December, January birthdays.

Taylor - 14th b-day

Claire - 11th b-day

Bowling party at the Pacific Club

Ellis 16th b-day

with his best friend, Wils

Pre-Christmas at Willy's

While traveling in Asia can be very affordable, it's not so affordable when you multiply the travel times six. You might get affordable flights but not affordable hotels, so it takes a bit of fancy planning.

New Zealand was the preferred destination for this Christmas break. Everyone agreed. Forrest would be home from Laos and it was going to be great. BUT, New Zealand at Christmas is NOT off-season. It is very much high-season and crazy expensive. Not in the Holcombe budget.

Instead, we found Willy's Beach Hotel in Boracay, Philippines. Definitely in the Holcombe budget. We were all hopeful 😬

And, yes, Boracay is beautiful. I loved having everyone together. Ellis and Forrest were back together attached at the hip, literally.

Caving somewhere near Boracay

These seats were shaped like hands. This just makes me smile.

Forrest - 27ft jump into the sea

It looks easy until you stand on the edge of that piece of board

Ellis' jump - 21ft into the sea

Triple jump

Mom's jump - 21ft

Taylor's jump - 15 ft

Claire's jump - 9 ft

We would see these beautiful sand sculptures each day and watch the artists sit by and wait for someone to pay for a picture to be taken (the artist takes your money and then uses your phone to take the photo).

So, Forrest and Ellis, being the little boys they are, decided to build their own. It was much harder than they expected.

 

Sailing on rough seas while sitting on fishing line and holding on to each other was an adventure. 

It's not a holiday until somebody ends up in the local clinic. After our high dives, Taylor got a nasty ear infection. We tried to remedy the ear from what we brought along, but she was in loads of pain (not evident in the photo) so we made the visit. When we saw the doctor he asked about the pain. I told him I tried a few remedies at the hotel by being Dr Google (trying to make a joke) and he said, "Oh, you're a doctor." YES.

Yes, I brought the Christmas sunglasses.  We would be back in Hong Kong before Christmas, but I was in the spirit (Claire was not).

This is not funny to anyone else, but for us, it was priceless. Forrest is so Type A and never forgets anything. Actually, we look to him to keep everyone in check. But, this time, we got off the bus at the airport and he didn't have his backpack. To his credit, he was helping us with all the luggage AND he noticed really quickly that he didn't have his bag, AND he was mortified that HE had forgotten. So, he ran after the bus while we went on ahead. I think Ellis got the most joy out of this moment.

Forrest has plans to get a tattoo someday, but it has true meaning, as usual for him. He wants to have the heartbeat line of the first person he saves with CPR. 

While on the beach, Forrest had a henna tattoo of a basic heartbeat line, as a test. Jeff and I thought we would be funny and get the henna tattoo across our wrists (starting on one wrist and ending on the other) as if we had one heartbeat. This really embarrasses our children.