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Saturday, March 1, 2008
Monroe family to double in size through adoptions
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They had three kids already - two boys and a girl.
Jim and Mary Jane Dunn had no desire, or plans, to add to the brood. So they thought.
Late last year, though, the Monroe couple said they sensed God was speaking to them, nudging them to open their home to more kids.
When he’d read the Bible, Dunn said he’d be drawn to Scripture that dealt with caring for orphans and connecting with the poor. Then there was Oprah Winfrey’s show, two episodes in particular. One dealt with teens from Liberia; the other featured kids from Somalia. All needed homes. A seed was planted with the couple.
Mary Jane had been born in Brazil, where her family had done mission work. The couple contacted Limiria, a Texas-based adoption agency, that led them to a group of five siblings, most of whom have lived in an orphanage in Curituba, Brazil, since 2004.
In a videotape sent to the Dunns, the orphaned kids all said they wanted one thing: parents.
“It breaks your heart,” said Dunn, a 1981 graduate of Norcross High. “That shouldn’t be the first thing on a kid’s wish list.”
The Dunns are to leave for Brazil on Monday. They will meet the orphans for the first time on Wednesday, then co-habitate with them for about 40 days. If all goes as planned, Marlon, 10; Ana Carolina, 7; Diogo, 5; Gabriel, 3; and Robert, 2, will get their wish. They’ll have new last names and a home in Monroe.
International adoptions aren’t cheap. Potential parents have to pay for a home study, medical reports and passports. The Dunns also had to pay for airfare for their entire family, food, lodging, visas and other legal documents for the Brazilian kids. In all, it cost $40,000, money the Dunns didn’t have.
So they stepped out on faith - in themselves, their church, family, friends, corporate sponsors and the kindness of strangers. The family set up a Web page, www.dunnadoptions.org, to tell their story and raise the $40,000. They held fund-raisers such as yard sales and “Comedy Night” at Hope and Life Fellowship Church, where Jim is associate pastor.
“We made a deal with God,” Dunn, 42, wrote on the Web site. “If He would provide for this adoption, by means other than my paycheck, that we would do whatever He wanted and that we would also help others do the same.”
The couple fell about $1,450 shy of reaching the fund-raising goal. Dunn said they’ll scrape it out of their personal finances, somehow. They still have to renovate their three-bedroom, two-bath home to make room for the new additions, but most everything else has been taken care of.
“I don’t have enough time to tell you how things have come in, from cribs to clothes and people who don’t even know us sending money,” Dunn told me. “It’s like they are ours already. We will accept them and love them and let them know they are in a safe place.”
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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