Dear Korea,

You’ve given me a deeper appreciation for my parents while living in here. I’ve always been grateful for their relentless support in everything I do. The freedom they have always given me exemplifies just how much they really love me. Never once did they make my decision to move to Korea about them or make me feel guilty in any way. I was worried how they would feel but I also knew they would understand; they always have.

Today is Father’s Day in America. So I wanted to take some time to reflect on how important having my dad in my life has been; and not just while I’ve been living in Korea. When I left Nashville for California in 2012 with my whole life packed in my car, my dad drove with me the entire way. We spent four days talking about everything from music to religion and saw some of America’s most beautiful places as we crossed the country together. It is one of the greatest memories that will live with me forever. He was the first person I told when I decided that I wanted to move to Korea. His response was “you just love finding new ways to make your old man worry.” One of the best things about my dad is his sense of humor. His ability to make light of any situation.

Many years ago he told me the story about how he and my mom adopted me from Korea. It actually took them over two years. Two years of persistence and patience. I remember when he first told me the story, it seemed so special. This story of synchronized events that he shared with such love behind his words. My dad has always been a good storyteller.

But he’s a terrible writer. And even worse at grammar and spelling. So I edited some of my story he sent me below that I want to share with you. He’s a true Southerner, so if you can imagine what his voice may sound like, it will add some life to the story as you read it. Enjoy.

Happy Father’s Day, dad. And to all the dads out there.

Jennifer’s Timeline to America

In August 1982, I was watching a television show called “The 700 Club” with Pat Robertson. That day’s program was about “AmerAsia Adoptions”. It was about Korean children with Korean Mothers who were fathered by Americans Soldiers who were deployed in Korea. After their tour of duty was over, they left Korea and went back home to America leaving their sons and daughters with only their Korean mothers to take care of them. Some of those Korean mothers gave them up for adoption. The 700 Club was trying to help these children find homes in America.

In the program, they talked about how hard it was on these children in Korea and how badly they were treated. They were not given the same rights as full-blooded Korean children. Now you got to remember this was back in 1982, and we in America, did not treat some of our own citizens with respect and/or rights that they deserved. In the program, they featured a 14-year old girl who was brought to California for an operation of some kind that apparently could not be done in Korea. But after the operation was over, I remember they were filming her. As they told her she could not stay in America, that girl broke down and started crying. I mean crying hard. It broke my heart!

You see, when Kathy and I got married, we agreed to have only two children. I wanted that because I grew up with four other brothers and sisters. Money was always tight in our family. I wanted to be able to give my children more than I had by having fewer children to divide the money up with. But with that same thought, we always believed we would have one boy and one girl. That did not happen. We had two boys. Now don’t get me wrong, we love our sons with all our hearts but we both wanted a little girl. Now after the program was over, I went and said to Kathy: “What do you think about us adopting a little girl. Much to my surprise, she said “No.” So I let it go.

Two months went by and Kathy came to me and said “Do you think we could really get a little girl?” I said “Yes I DO!” I paused for a second and then asked ” why are you asking me this now? And why did you say no?” She said “I just didn’t want to get my hopes up and not be able to get a girl.” So I said “Let’s Try!” And she said “Ok!” The first thing the next day, I called the 700 Club and told them “I would like some information about the Korean adoption y’all were talking about.” (Yes – I’m from the South!) The lady told me she needed to know the exact day I saw the program. I told her, I didn’t know the exact day, it was sometime around the first of August. She said “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you unless I know the exact day.” Next, I tried to find out something from the United States government. I could not find anyone who even might know someone who might know someone to talk to. But I have to admit, I did not put much hope into that anyway!

Next, someone told me that the State of Louisiana controlled adoption there. So I thought I would give them a try. It took a little bit, but I finally found someone to talk to. A lady said “yes, we handle adoptions in Louisiana.” I said “great!” Then I told her about what we were trying to do. She said they didn’t handle foreign adoptions; they only handled adoptions within the state of Louisiana. She wasn’t going to be able to help me. Then she said “besides, you can’t adopt a child from us because you already have two children.” At that point, I was not sure what I was going to do next.
Two and half months later, we took our whole family and went to Alabama for Christmas. While we were there, we told the whole Harbin crew about the 700 Club program. That we wanted to try and adopt a little girl but was having problems with finding out what to do. My brother’s wife said she knew someone who had adopted a child from Korea. She told us she would call her friend and find out what we needed to know. A little time passed and then she called us. She told us that all adoptions out of Korea were handled by one organization called “Holt International” out of Portland, Oregon. And we would need to call them. Then she gave us their phone number. We were back on “Cloud 9.”

The next day, I called Holt International. I talked with a nice lady and told her that we wanted to adopt an AmerAsia girl. She told me they did not handle AmerAsia adoptions. My heart dropped, but then she said we handle adoption of full-blooded Koreans. Do you want to adopt one?” I said “you bet we do!” Then she said “Where do you live?” I said “in Bossier City, Louisiana.” Then she said “I’m so sorry, but we don’t have a Home Study Group in Louisiana.” My heart hit the floor again! I was back at square one again and didn’t know what to do.

About three or four months later, I had to go survey a hospital that was being renovated and they needed their fire sprinkler system upgraded. About lunch time, I walked down a block or two to a Burger King. While I was sitting there, a lady walked in with two children. One child I thought was African and the other was Asian. I sat there trying not to let the lady see me staring at them. After she caught me staring at them several times, I thought I better get up and tell her what I was doing. She told me she was starting to get worried about me! I told her that my wife and I wanted to adopt a little girl from Korea. I then asked her “where did you adopt those kids? She told me she adopted them from Catholic Charities and then gave me their phone number.

Later I called Catholic Charities and talked to a lady named Sue. I told her about meeting the lady with the two adopted children and that we wanted to adopt a girl from Korea. She said those two kids with that lady were not foreign adoptions. The boy was half black and half white and the little girl was Vietnamese who was born in that hospital I was surveying. I felt my heart falling and then she said “but we are now negotiating with Holt International to be their Home Study Group, but no one knows about that yet!” She said she would let me know when something happen. Well after a month went by, I couldn’t take it any longer so I called. She said “we haven’t heard anything yet, but I will surely let you know when we do.” Another four months went by and I was about to explode, so I called her again. She said “things were not looking so good. And I will let you know what happens.” One day she did call and said the negotiations had broken down and it looked like they were NOT going to be the Home Study Group. That afternoon was hard having to tell my wife that I didn’t think we were going to get our girl. Kathy was pretty upset.

Now another six months went by, it was around January 1984. I had to go to Fort Worth, Texas to see a general contractor about a project at the University of Texas. When I got there, the receptionist told me, the guy I was to see already had someone in his office. So I sat down in a chair and started reading a magazine with an article about salesmanship. At the end of the article it said “The difference in a good salesman and a great salesman is that one extra phone call”. All the way back home, all I could think of was that “one extra phone call”.

The next day, I couldn’t wait to call Sue. When she answered, I said has anything changed? She said “yes!” She then said “I wrote you a letter about us becoming the Home Study Group, but I never heard from you, so I thought you gave up on it.” I put Sue on hold, then got on one of the other phone lines and called Kathy. I said “Did you get anything from Catholic Charities?” She said “no.” I said “are you sure? Maybe you thought it was something about a donation.” She said “no, we haven’t received anything.” So then I got back on line with Sue and she said “while you had me on hold, I got your file out and saw my handwritten letter. But it was never typed and sent out! Come on in!” I thought, “it’s going to happen!”

That was when the paperwork started. We were being interviewed once every two weeks for question and answer sessions. Plus we were sent home with homework each time. We had to fill out forms on our health, personal life, our likes and dislikes, our family histories, and our jobs. Answer questions like “did we smoke or drink”. And then had to do a self-evaluation of ourselves. After that, they wanted to inspect our house. Kathy had that place looking Brand NEW! They wanted to make sure we had a room JUST for the baby (the boys got bunk beds) and we had a fenced in backyard. We had all that. All this went on for about seven months.

After that, we were told our case had been sent to New Orleans and we were having to go down there for more interviews and paperwork. But it just so happened, that the World Fair was in New Orleans at that time, so Kathy and I, with the two boys, went to see it. That was a plus. When we got there, we had to see a woman named Karen Caldwell. I think she was a nun. After answering more questions and filling out more paperwork, she told us that she wanted to come to Bossier City to see where we lived for herself. We said “sure.” The house got another GOOD cleaning! When she got there and walked all around for a while and saw everything she wanted to see, she sat down on our couch and said “We have one problem with you.” I said “what’s that?” She said we can’t find any problems with you two.” I said “I’ll start smoking or drinking if you want me to!” She said “that would not be necessary.” When she left, she told us, she had one more baby girl left to be adopted that year. And we were going to get her!” We were overjoyed! This was around September 1984.

Around Thanksgiving, I called Karen and asked her about when we were going to get that little girl she said was going to be ours. She said “did I tell you that?” I said “yes ma’am!” She said, “I’m sorry but that little girl went to a Catholic family and they won’t be giving any more children until after January 1st 1985.” She said, “they were given an allotment of children in January each year.” So we were going to have to wait a little longer. On March 22, 1985, we got a surprise! A small letter! It told us that our baby girl was born on February 22, 1985. After I read the letter, I looked back in the envelope and found a picture. Kathy snatched that picture out of my hand, like a starving wolf would go after a baby rabbit! I dared NOT reach for it! I looked back in the envelope and found three more pictures. I was blessed with two! Also in the letter, it said that our daughter had to be six months old before they would send her to us. Praise GOD! Only five more months! Almost two months later, on May 21, 1985, I had to go to my office in College Station, Texas for a pre-construction meeting. It was raining pretty badly that day and in order to get to a meeting on time, I had to get up pretty early. To get to College Station back then, you had to take a lot of two-lane country back roads that went up and down small hills. While traveling through east Texas, if I looked hard enough, I could see the car tail lights in front of me. The rain keep getting harder and harder.

When I got close to Nacogdoches Texas, the weather got real nasty. Then, all a sudden everything got dark black and my little S-10 pickup was being pushed around. All at once, a tree limb started coming through the windshield on the passenger side. I started screaming like a little 12-year old girl, but I finally got the truck pulled over to the road side. I had some duct tape in the glove box, so I started to push the broken windshield back up into place and taped it up. After I stopped most of the rain from coming in, I turned on the radio. The disc jockey said, “a tornado came through the northwest side of Nacogdoches. That’s when I said “I’m on the northwest side of Nacogdoches!” That’s when I got out to look at the front of my truck. A limb was stuck in my radiator. As I was getting back in my truck, I looked back down the road and saw a huge tree had fallen completely across the road. When I got back in my truck, I remembered there was a Chevrolet place not far from me, so I drove there to have my radiator fixed. After a few hours, I decided it was too late to make the meeting. So I just decided to go back to my home office in Bossier City. When I got to where the tree had fallen down, road crews had only half of the road open. As I went by that tree laying across the road, the top edge of the tree was even with my eyes. That was one very big tree. If I had been a second or two later, it would have killed me.

When I got back to the office, and before I could tell anyone what had happened to me, my receptionist said “you have a call on line 1 from Holt International.” When I answered the phone, the lady asked me if I was Mr. Harbin. I said “yes”. She said “a baby got sick in Korea” I freaked out and started yelled at her “WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY BABY?” She said “no, no no! There’s nothing wrong with your baby. Another baby got sick, so we put your baby in that baby’s place and your baby will be there tomorrow.” I couldn’t hold it back. I had to drive home to tell Kathy!

The first day she was with us, she was exactly three months old, to the day! Kathy was having a baby shower the day after Jennifer arrived so she took Jenny to the shower without letting anyone know she was there. Needless to say, Jennifer was a hit! She was a chunky little thing and at first she would always have a blank stare. You could try to look at her in the face but she would always look away. But that did not last long. After a little while, she knew all she had to do was to put those arms up in the air and someone would pick her up. In no time at all, she realized that she was the PRINCESS!

And to tell you the truth, to her mother and I, she still is and will always be!
We Love You, baby girl!
That was JUST the Beginning of her story!
There is a LOT more to tell. But she’s the one to tell It!