3 days to go

Well folks, this is the first of hopefully many blog entries to share with you my first trip to Korea. As you may or may not know, I was born in Wonju, Korea and abandoned by my birth parent(s). I was super lucky to have someone looking for me though. My dad was in the Army and stationed in Korea at the time. My mom was patiently waiting for him to come home to Indiana. They had decided before dad went to Korea that they would try to find a child to adopt. I was that child.

Dad said he remembers he would visit the orphanages and there was one particular little girl who would always say "Daddy, Daddy," when he came into the room. He thought for sure this was his little girl...until one day he was there and another soldier came into the room and she also call him Daddy. He decided to keep looking. He was given a call by the folks at the orphanage sometime in September 1960 (yes, I'm nearly 50), and was told that they'd found another child. It was me. Yay!

So, while dad finished out his Army time in Korea, he was able to care for me on the weekends at a Presbyterian missionary's home. And, he took lots of pictures to send home to mom to document my progress. We didn't make our journey home until I was nine months old. But what a journey it has been since then.

I am so thankful for my parents (Johnny and Elaine), and I'm thankful too for my birth mother who chose for whatever reason to give me up. I can't even imagine how painful that must have been.

But now I'm going full circle...and I will return to the land of my birth. I depart SFO on 3/30. It's about a 12 hour flight and I will be landing on 3/31 at approximately 5:45 pm.