Stories

“Unimos nuestros lazos familiares…”

My experience with Colombia Tu Pais was so positive that I decided to write a letter recounting my experience with Gyna Hernandez and her husband, Diego, so that families who are considering Colombia Tu Pais to reconnect with birth families could hear about my experience.

I am the adoptive father of two teenage girls, ages 15 and 16, both from Colombia. We adopted our youngest daughter (I will call her Pilar) two years ago when she was 13, and our oldest daughter (I will call her Rosa) when she was an infant.

When we traveled to Colombia two years ago to adopt Pilar, Rosa started to become curious about her birth family and she expressed a strong interest in knowing who her birth parents are and whether she has siblings. We told her that we would do everything we could to help her locate her birth family. I called a friend in Colombia and asked if he knew of anyone who could help us locate Rosa’s birth family. He recommended Colombia Tu Pais. I found the website online. I called Gyna and we began our search. We gave Gyna all the information we had about Rosa’s birth mother and within a few weeks Gyna was able to locate her birth mother, her sister and an aunt.

Rosa’s first contact with them was over the Internet and through Skype. Rosa spoke with her birth mother, her brother and sister and her aunt via Skype and we all met each other with tears of joy and incredulity. It was wonderful. This joyful meeting prompted our other daughter, Pilar, to ask us if we could help her locate her brother. She had not seen him in five years and was very worried about his fate. We agreed to help her and called Gyna once again.

This search was much more difficult because we had little information to give Gyna. It took Gyna many months before we heard from her. But eventually she contacted us with good news. She had found Pilar’s paternal grandparents, her birth father, an aunt and eventually even her brother. We contacted her grandmother and aunt via email and we decided to travel to Colombia to meet their birth families. Gyna’s hard work had changed all of our lives. Gyna was able to provide us with the names, addresses and phone numbers of both birth families, and both families were open to the idea of meeting in person.

We spent half a week visiting with Rosa’s birth family and half a week visiting with Pilar’s birth family. It was an extraordinary time with many tears of joy and sadness. Our daughters both understand that they have two families now, and that they can maintain relationships with both as they wish. The work that Gyna Hernandez does is so very important. She is honest and trustworthy. She has helped my daughters reconnect with their birth families and helped us widen our family connections.

I will be forever grateful to Gyna and Colombia Tu Pais for the wonderful work they do.

ramico@sbu.edu

“I was in a big happy shock…”

For the second i knew and understood that i was adopted as a child i always had that feeling of wanted to know my history in Colombia and who my biological mother is.

For all my life in various situations I always have been remembered about not knowing my roots and who I’m suppose to look like.

So in my late teen years I made some small research but never really made a honest attempt for searching, perhaps I wasn’t ready for it.

So it was with huge determination I last year finally made the decision to search for my mother and sister. After a while I finally find Colombia Tu Pais and I didn’t hesitate to mail them and asking for help.

Gyna answered me very quickly and was very kind, which made me feel very comfortable about the situation. And after not more than a month she told me that she had found my Mother and sister and they were doing fine. I was in a big happy shock . I didn’t know what to do really, but after a few days I contacted them and from that day I speak with them every day.

I am so happy that I contacted Gyna and Colombia Tu Pais. I would really recommend everyone to take help from them. You will not regret it.

johansson.andre@hotmail.com

“The image that everyone would like to have from their mother…”

In January 2005 we traveled to Cali for the adoption of our son Andres. He already had three years and a half when he came to our lives. A little boy who would not open easily and who, after a time, constantly was wondering about his biological mother.

At 8 years, sincerely we felt she was too young to start a search. But over time we noticed that there was no peace for him and so we decided to begin the search for his biological mother. He already had nine years, however we did not want to tell him about our decision. Imagine where everything would lead to a disappointment? Our fear was: what if his mother has a very difficult life and dies soon? Then we would regret to have waited so long to find her.

So, in 2010 we sent to Gyna all the information digitally and after her response we began the search. It was a few months where we did not receive news, inside us we thought: you see? We will not succeed! But in April 2011, a beautiful Friday, we got the call from Adry: we found the biological mother of Andres with his half-brother, sisters and the son of one of her sisters! What a wonderful time!

Tears fell, but Andres was not at home at that time, so we told him everything in the car when we picked him up from a friend’s house. He was astonished to see me so excited! He seemed not to understand!

We asked Gyna to travel to Cali to personally know the family situation and hear the whole story. One day before the day of the mother we received all the photos Gyna took for us. Now we really had a picture of the family. We already had a face! On the Mother’s Day in Holland Andres could finally show to all our family in Holland a photo of his Colombian family! Especially incredibly!

We made a beautiful book with all the pictures, that way he could see the photos every time he wanted and he could share it when he wanted. Now we have contact through Facebook, even we could see us through the webcam using a known from Medellin.

Seems to be little time to say something, but in reality we can see that Andres found peace. Even he slept very well when he first saw his half sister. The missing piece and the image that everyone would like to have from their mother, he now has it thanks to CTP.

We are very happy that we decided to do the search and even more than we did with Colombia Tu Pais. It will not be long to also start the search for our daughter.

From my heart, thanks to Adry and Gyna.

kwetters@ziggo.nl