After adoption, sisters repaying kindnesses they received

ST. JOSEPH – All Loren remembers about the shoe box full of Christmas presents is the picture of the family it came from.

She was a 10-year-old, living in an orphanage in Peru with her two younger sisters.

"There were three children in the picture – one boy and two girls," she said. "It made me feel like someone cared about me."

Adopted into a St. Joseph family in 2006, the girls and their three younger brothers now are on the packing end of the Operation Christmas Child program that distributes the gifts to poor children scattered around the world.

One of the first things Loren puts in each box is a picture of herself with her two sisters.

Now 14, she likes to include a Barbie doll, school supplies, socks and candy.

"It's kind of weird," said Loren's 11-year-old sister, Donna. "People gave to us, and now we're sending to them."

The sisters – Loren, Veronica and Donna – lived at Hogar de Esperanza, "Home of Hope," when they were on the receiving end of the shoe-box gifts. The nondenominational Christian home in Trujillo, Peru, housed not just orphaned children, but also others who had been abandoned or abused.

The three had parents with problems and not enough income to raise them.

They would be left alone for up to a week at a time with Loren as the stand-in caregiver.

At the orphanage for two years, Donna thought interacting with some 40 other kids was sort of fun, but Loren always longed for an adoptive family.

"It was kind of boring on Saturday," Loren said. "Other kids' parents and relatives came to visit, but ours came only twice."

Tim Brooks, the girls' adoptive father, tells how he and his wife, Andrea, came to adopt the three sisters:

"There was a young couple ... who started attending our church (Grace Community, Champaign) for a couple of weekends. They were gone for a month helping out at an orphanage in Peru. When they came back, they showed a PowerPoint presentation and at the end showed some of the kids in need of homes. When the picture of the girls came up, I made a connection immediately. I have a nephew from Peru, who is now 17, that my sister had adopted in the Peace Corps.

"After three boys, my wife and I had discussed that we were done with having children because she had had difficult pregnancies and that we might adopt a girl here.

"I went to the tech people who were doing the PowerPoint and said, 'Can you e-mail me that picture?' My wife wasn't there that night because she was home with a sick child.

"At home I said, 'What do you think about doubling the size of our family?' I pulled up the e-mail, she saw the picture and said, 'Well, why don't you look into it?' We showed the picture to our oldest son (Joshua), and he said 'I think it would be a good idea.'"

Andrea Brooks remembers, "He thought I'd think he was crazy, but I was struck by the picture, too."

On Thanksgiving weekend in 2005, Tim Brooks e-mailed the Kansas City, Mo., man who had started the orphanage. Next, they talked to other families who had adopted children from Peru and got a list of U.S. adoption agencies licensed to handle adoptions in Peru.

It was early March 2006 when the couple flew south to meet the girls.

At the end of a 10-day visit, "We asked, 'Do you want us to be your parents?'" Andrea Brooks said, "and they were all pretty unanimous."

The Brookses returned home and booked return flights for themselves and their three sons – Joshua, T.J. and Andrew – who then ranged in age from 3 to 8.

"The boys have actually been very positive," Andrea Brooks said. "We explained to them that we wouldn't be able to do the same things we did before when our family got bigger. It would cost $60 to $70 to go to a movie. We rent them now and look for free things to do in the community."

The second stay in Peru was a family bonding experience with lots of side trips to learn about the culture of Peru. It lasted five weeks to accommodate about 2 1/2 weeks of legalities required by each country.

"Tim works for NCSA (the National Center for Supercomputing Applications), so he could take his laptop and do some work there," Andrea Brooks said.

There were no adoption fees charged by the orphanage, but the Brookses had to hire the adoption agency, lawyers and translators. They had to pay for paper work, their trips to Peru, the girls' passports and the girls' plane trips to the U.S.

"I think it all came to about $30,000," Tim Brooks said.

The scariest thing about joining a new family and moving to a foreign country was the airplane ride, Loren said.

Donna said she was afraid of starting school, "but on the first day, a lot of girls came over to talk to me."

Now, Loren is involved with track and swimming; Donna with track and playing the flute; and Veronica with volleyball – all at St. Joseph Middle School.

The family of eight joined Windsor Road Christian Church especially for its extensive youth program.

The sisters share a brightly colored bedroom filled with woven Peruvian pictures, U.S. school memorabilia and framed cross-stitchery that tells the biblical meanings of their names.

Loren Margareth and Donna Virginia already had middle names when they were adopted. Veronica, the middle sister, did not, so the family told her she could pick her own. It is Andrea, the same as the first name of her new mother.

How to help

Samaritan's Purse, a non-denominational Christian charity, started in Boone, N.C., in 1970. Its Operation Christmas Child program, which sends shoe boxes full of gifts to children in more than 100 countries, started in 1993.

According to its IRS tax forms filed in 2006, the most recent year available, the charity got $260.2 million in public support and $9 million in government contributions. It spent 5.5 percent of the amount it took in for operations.

Nearly $1 million, $951,900, was paid to officers and key employes. Five vice presidents earned annual salaries of $157,000 to $180,000 each.

Its largest individual cash grants – $2.8 million – went to children's evangelism training programs run by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, a related organization.

Each shoe box gift – 7.6 million were collected from 11 countries in 2006 – gets a brochure about Christianity, written in the recipient's language.

For those who want to assemble boxes:

— Use a sturdy cardboard or plastic shoe box.

— Decide if the contents are going to a boy or girl in one of the following age categories: 2-4, 5-9 or 10-14.

— Suggested items include pens, pencils, crayons, stamps and ink pads, paper, solar calculators, coloring books, small toy cars, dolls, stuffed animals, small instruments like harmonicas, yo-yos, jump ropes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap in plastic bags, combs, washcloths, hard candy, mints and gum in double plastic bags, T-shirts, socks, ball caps, sunglasses, toy jewelry, flashlights, envelopes with notes, photos, and the sender's return address.

— Do not include used or damaged items; war-related toys such as guns, knives or military figures; chocolate; liquids or lotions; medications or vitamins; breakables such as glass containers; aerosol cans.

— Do not seal the box, but put a heavy duty rubber band around its width. Label the box by gender and age.

— Mail boxes to: Samaritan's Purse/Operation Christmas Child, 801 Bamboo Road, Boone, NC 28607.

— Send at least $7 a box to cover shipping, in a combined check for all boxes, to: Samaritan's Purse, 801 Bamboo Road, P.O. Box 3000, Boone, NC 28607. Or, donate by credit card online at www.samaritanspurse.org.

Call 800-353-5949 or visit www.samaritanspurse.org for information.

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