Life Story from an Adoptive Mother

My name is Leslie. My family and I live in the United States. I would like to honor my beautiful South African son, Rory, and the most amazing organisations that saw the worth in him when others had not. I would like to tell you about Wandisa, this organisation changed our family’s lives forever. In 2019, my husband and I felt led to adopt from Africa again. We previously adopted our daughter from Ethiopia in 2017 when she was two years old and felt God’s hand leading us to South Africa this time. We read many children’s profiles, but when we read Rory’s profile Wandisa had put together we knew right away we were meant to be a family. Rory spent the first nine plus years of his life in South Africa before we adopted him. He was abandoned as an infant and tragically suffered significant abuse while in a care home. He was lost in the system and did not have anyone to advocate for him until a community member reported the abuse. Rory was then removed and placed in a safe home. He was then referred to Wandisa, whose staff began advocating for him, which included therapy for Rory. He experienced more trauma in his first nine years than most adults experience in a lifetime and therapy was an important tool for Rory. During therapy he presented with fear of sounds, lack of response when prompted to ask questions and showed very little attachment with his caregiver after he had been there for eight years. Rory was incredibly quiet and withdrawn and did not engage at all, showing immense fear and hesitation when interacting with the therapist. After a Wandisa social worker set him up with a therapist, this scared little boy started to open up. He slowly started to sing and dance and displayed confidence. He was no longer afraid to speak for fear of being reprimanded. The healing had begun. Wandisa advocated for Rory to get the services he deserved and needed. Few people in his life had ever done that for him until then. He made huge strides during this time with a therapist. Wandisa then placed him for intercountry adoption, which is when we saw his profile and proceeded to adopt him. Without the help, guidance, and support of both Wandisa and Wybrow-Oliver Attorneys the granting of Rory's adoption would not have been possible. I can vividly remember one evening in South Africa about two weeks after we formally adopted Rory. I was tucking him into bed that night and he looked at me and said,” Mommy, will you teach me how to be kind? I want to be kind”. My heart broke for him at that moment because I realised that he had very few examples of kindness in his life until Wandisa came along. During our time in South Africa, the pandemic rocked our world. When we arrived in-country, COVID was not yet worldwide. We formally adopted Rory and had to remain in South Africa for several months to obtain all the paperwork needed for him to leave the country. President Ramaphosa made an announcement stating that South Africa’s borders will be closed indefinitely in just three days due to COVID. Our family could have been stuck in South Africa if it were not for both Debbie and Brad the lawyers of Wybrow-Oliver Attorneys who advocated for our family. They fought very hard for our family. They raced against time and advocated in the High Courts for our family to get special documents to be able to travel home without Rory’s formal documents. Three days is not a lot of time, but they were able to win the High Court case, allowing us to bring Rory home to the United States. We took the last flight out of South Africa before the borders closed. I can testify that Rory is no longer that scared and traumatised little boy who endured so much trauma at the hands of caregivers. He is now 13 years old and a very confident and caring boy who still loves soccer and his family. He is the definition of resilience. He is loving, kind, and gentle despite his early childhood circumstances. He has chosen to not let those circumstances define him and is spreading his wings and soaring. And I have the privilege of calling him my son. How blessed am I? And it is because of the amazing work that Wandisa did for my son, Rory. *The names have been changed to safeguard family.