Roanokers Corey and Jason Waters have a vested interest in the events going on in Haiti. The couple has adopted five Haitian children, including three siblings over the past few years. They also have one biological daughter of their own. The Waters, who came here from Pennsylvania last year, stayed in a Port-Au-Prince guesthouse for a month after jetting down to the Caribbean nation regarding adoption issues. They’ve been looking for indications that some of the people they know, including the biological parents of their adopted children, survived the earthquake that may have killed 100,000 or more.
“We are actually sick about a lot of people [there],” said Corey Waters, who had just run the Disney Marathon as part of a team with Tara Livesay, who runs a mission in Haiti, when word of the earthquake became known. They were raising money for Heartline Ministries, which hoped to buy an ambulance for their work in Haiti.
Waters said those looking to adopt Haitian children can trust the services offered by Heartline (heartlineministries.org) – she won’t recommend any other agency at this point. With government offices destroyed, some Americans looking to adopt Haitian children fear that it may be months or even years before the process gets back on track. The services most take for granted here – public service agencies, utilities, postal service – are a rarity in Haiti. “We don’t understand what they don’t have — on a good day in Haiti, “said Waters. “Now none of that exists.”
The Waters planned to stop having children after their daughter was born, but then decided to adopt. “We pretty much looked at every country,” said Corey Waters, who home schools one of the children. “We liked Haiti because it was close. That meant we could afford to bring our child back to visit their native country. We felt that was pretty important.”
Christina (then 5) was the first adopted. “We had never seen poverty like we saw in Haiti. We were totally blown away. [We wondered] how can this exist only a 90 minute flight from Miami?” Nevertheless Waters said she and her husband “fell in love with the country,” especially the optimism and resiliency of its people. Those traits will be needed now after the ordeal of the past few weeks, and going forward in the near future.
Having a second black child in the family made sense; the couple also wanted to adopt a special needs child. “There really is no health care in Haiti,” said Waters. “All of the children have learning disabilities or other challenges to an extent. The severe early childhood malnutrition most Haitian children experience compounds the situation.” Several of their children have emotional and temper issues that may have come from living in an orphanage.
The Waters eventually “felt called” to also adopt the three sibling children. “My husband was like – you’ve got to be kidding. Nobody has six kids,” she chuckles. Erica, Virlande, Clifford and Emmanuel have joined Christina and the Waters’ biological daughter, now at Northside High School.
Haitian adoption “can be a lengthy [process],” Waters advises. That’s in part because documents are written in long hand cursive – or on typewriters. Single mistakes made means it is done all over again. “It’s very haphazard.” During their first two adoptions the Haitian government was overthrown twice. Despite all the obstacles the family has faced, there are five children in Roanoke who are very grateful that Corey and Jason Waters opened their home to them.
By Gene Marrano [email protected]
