From the Back Cover: While she was still a child, Rio Hogarty thought nothing of bringing home a schoolmate who was at risk. It was the start of nearly seventy years of opening her home and her heart to children in need.

A Heart So Big is the astonishing story of Rio’s life and how she has tried to make a difference. Since the 1960s she has fostered over 140 children and in 2010, in an award created especially for her, she was named Mother of the Year at the annual People of the Year Awards.

Rio’s is a story of suffering—she has rescued children from the direst of circumstances and has known heartbreak along the way. But it is also a story full of humour, searing honesty and an inspiring dose of good old-fashioned fighting spirit.

A Heart So Big is a moving and uplifting account of an amazing life lived to the full.

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About the Author: Rio Hogarty has been fostering children—informally and formally—for most of her life. At the 2010 People of the Year Awards she won an award created especially for her; Mother of the Year. She lives with her family in Clondalkin, Dublin.

Megan Day has been a scientific writer for twenty years. After moving from North Carolina to Ireland, she was befriended by the indomitable Rio Hogarty and found, first, a great friend and, second, an amazing story that just had to be written. She lives in County Kildare with a dog and—at the last count—four cats.

From the Back Cover: Life, for Lynda Freeman, is essentially positive. She believes in people’s innate goodness. Her faith in the beauty of love has led to an exploration and gathering of 50 true stories into a book called Heartbeats: True Stories of Love. These tales tell of romantic love, love of family and love of friends. There are also chronicles about love of animals. We see how love can change us. Her collection is beautiful, touching and truly inspiring and she wishes to share what has uplifted and motivated her life.

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About the Author: Lynda Freeman is a retired teacher living in Toronto, Canada. She attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and graduated from York University in Toronto. She is a writer and artist who teaches painting to adults. She shares her home with her son, three marmalade cats and a Dachshund named Wilbur.

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Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, “A Tidal Wave of Love,” “Adopting Nicole,” “Adoption, a Love Story,” “Leading with Loving Kindness,” “Mother and Daughter Reunion,” “The Secret,” and “How to Say Respect in Chinese.”

Little story about a bachelor whose sister invites him to spend his vacation “relaxing” while he watches her two children. Two little monsters make his vacation one to remember. Basis for a film of the same name in 1924, directed by William A. Seiter, and starring Baby Pegy and Clara Bow.

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About the Author: John Habberton was born in Brooklyn, but “brought up” in the West. For some years he contributed Bret Harte-like fictional sketches and observations about Western scenes and characters to Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. Habberton was extremely well known for his first book, Helen’s Babies (which “enjoyed a popularity out of all proportion to its literary merit”—O. F. Adams). Though he wrote many other books, and spent almost twenty years (1873-1892) as the literary and drama critic for the New York Herald—it is his tales of California that will probably preserve his reputation, rather than the numerous copies of Helen’s Babies that can still be found in the antiquarian marketplace.

International adoption is not for the faint of heart. As the author and his wife discover, it takes an adventuresome spirit and an unwavering commitment to follow this trail of heart-stirring joys equaled by gnawing obstacles. The book chronicles the couple’s 25-day trip to Kazakhstan, through Moscow, with flashbacks touching upon poignant passage points earlier in the adoption process. Remembering their agency’s advice to expect the unexpected, they find their way through an eight-hour delay in landing in fog-covered Moscow and not finding their escort at the airport, a host family who’s seldom home, a bizarre Thanksgiving dinner, and their fears about early warning signs of cerebral palsy with their referred baby boy. But from his first smile, Aibek assures them that they have just begun the adventure of a lifetime! Author is donating a portion of proceeds to Little Miracles International’s Orphanage Projects! About the Author: Kevin Quirk is an author, editor, ghostwriter, and counselor. His first book, Not Now, Honey, I’m Watching the Game (Fireside), was featured by ABC’s 20/20, National Public Radio, Redbook, Men’s Health, and The Washington Post. He helps ordinary people share their personal stories through Memoirs for Life (www.memoirsforlife.com), and he guides authors with books in psychology, spirituality, politics, and business through A Writer’s Eye (www.awriterseye.com). A member of the Association of Personal Historians and the Washington Independent Writers, Kevin lives in Charlottesville, VA, with his wife Krista and son Aibek.

From the Back Cover: There’s noting like adoption to make a grown man cry. Repeatedly.

“They called Svetlana tonight and told her we have to go to America and wait sixty days for you. Sixty days! I punched the wall. I paced the room like an animal. I looked at your diapers and your book and I cried angry tears. I can’t leave you like this. I miss you already.”

Two ingredients are necessary for international adoption—domestic logistics (read: mundane) and foreign logistics (read: insane). The two adoptions we’ve completed featured extra doses of both.

The domestic details are fairly predictable: endless forms, cash, home studies, cash, bureaucratic red tape, cash... you get the picture. Though tedious, the details manage to be nerve-wracking—will we make the “definitely parent material” list?

Overseas, things in our country of choice (Ukraine) happen at extreme speeds—extremely slow (We have to wait thirty days for a court date?!) or extremely fast (We’re being picked up in three minutes?!). We begin to wonder if we’re capable of surviving this foreign land, much less bringing home a local to raise as our own.

Throw in sleepless nights, dark orphanage halls, infertility, and the prayers of the saints—and you have international adoption in the real world. Tristan Volodymyr and Maxim Dmitri are our pride and joy. Hello, I Love You is the story of how they came to be ours....

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About the Author: Ted Kluck is coauthor of Why We’re Not Emergent and author of Facing Tyson, 15 Stories, Paper Tiger, and The Reason for Sports. His award winning writing has also appeared in ESPN the Magazine, Sports Spectrum Magazine and on ESPN.com’s Page 2. An avid sports fan, he has played professional indoor football, coached high school football, trained as a professional wrestler, served as a missionary, and taught writing courses at the college level. He currently lives in Michigan with his wife and children.

From the Publisher: This series of three, interactive, self-instructional workbooks can be used individually or in collaboration with a social worker. Ideas and information are presented, and then the foster parent or adoptive parent can respond by answering questions or completing worksheets relating the presented information to specific children in their care.

HOMEWORKS #2: Helping Children and Youths Develop Positive Attachments offers general background on how children form attachments and ways to help children develop and maintain positive attachments to their foster or adoptive parents.

From the Publisher: This series of three, interactive, self-instructional workbooks can be used individually or in collaboration with a social worker. Ideas and information are presented, and then the foster parent or adoptive parent can respond by answering questions or completing worksheets relating the presented information to specific children in their care.

HOMEWORKS #1: Helping Children and Youths Manage Separation and Loss provides basic information about separation, loss, and the grieving process to help the foster parent or adoptive parent understand the loss history of the child in their care, its effect on growth and development, and ways to help the child cope with angry or sad feelings and behaviors.

From the Publisher: This series of three, interactive, self-instructional workbooks can be used individually or in collaboration with a social worker. Ideas and information are presented, and then the foster parent or adoptive parent can respond by answering questions or completing worksheets relating the presented information to specific children in their care.

HOMEWORKS #3: Helping Children and Youths Manage the Impact of Placement shows how foster parents and adoptive parents can integrate a new child into their family and minimize the risk of placement disruption.

From the Dust Jacket: Perhaps you know a child who has suffered the terrifying experience of losing a parent to death. Perhaps you are in the middle of a divorce, caught up in your own worries and pain yet concerned about the effect it is having on your children. Perhaps you have just moved to a new city and have noticed alarming changes in your children’s behavior. Or perhaps you are coping with a long separation from your children because of hospitalization or military service.

In any of these situations, the children involved need your help. With few resources to turn to when a loved one is lost, they fear for their own survival. They feel sadness, anger, guilt, shame, despair—yet they may lack the words to describe their feelings. They restrain feelings they fear are improper; and when these emotions do escape, adults may misinterpret their behavior as destructive naughtiness. Confused about the past and unwilling to face the future, such children may founder. Losses that follow, however trivial, will compound their troubles. If their feelings are not resolved, their emotional distress will manifest itself in adolescence and adulthood—as depression, anxiety, alcoholism, or suicidal tendencies.

How can concerned adults help? From years of work with hundreds of bereaved children, child and family therapist Claudia Jewett has developed the simple techniques described in Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss—techniques that any adult can use to help children through their grief. From the agonizing moment when an adult must tell a child what has happened, through the shock and denial, then anger and depression, that follow, Jewett describes the stages of mourning and the behavior that can be expected of grieving children at each stage. Using case histories and sample dialogues between helper and child, she explains how to help children to come to a timely resolution of their grief.

Nearly half of all children born today will spend a significant portion of their lives in single-parent families. Whether you are caretaker or teacher, counselor or friend, your understanding and support will be needed as they try to cope with the experience of separation. The adult who helps a grieving child performs a difficult task, but one that is crucial to the child’s well-being. Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss makes that task clearer and easier.

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By the Same Author: Adopting the Older Child (1978).

From the Back Cover: Long before you decided to adopt, long before your child was born, God planned to put your adopted child into your home. Your child is an amazing gift from God, but nurturing an adopted child also brings unique challenges.

Understanding your adopted child from God’s perspective will allow you to address those challenges by faith and with hope. Learn from counselor and adoptive father Paul David Tripp how to help adopted children understand their identity and place in God’s world.

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About the Author: Paul David Tripp, M.Div., D.Min., is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, on the pastoral staff of Tenth Presbyterian Church, adjunct faculty at CCEF, and has counseled for over 25 years. He is the author of many articles, booklets, and books, including Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens; Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands; and A Quest for More, and the coauthor of How People Change and Relationships: A Mess Worth Making.

From the Dust Jacket: As soon as Tayo was brought to Cathy’s home for placement, she was puzzled. The social worker had no records for Tayo: no school files, family history or medical records. It was as if Tayo didn’t exist.

Tayo maintained strict silence when Cathy asked about his past. Only when she glimpsed a scar on his arm did Tayo’s story gradually begin to unfold. Cathy learned of his abduction by his drink- and drug-dependent mother, and a sinister van with blackened windows that picked him up every morning at daybreak and ferried him across London.

In her twenty-three years as a foster carer, Cathy had never seen a case as horrific as Tayo’s nor had she met a boy with such loyalty, inner resolve and strength.

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About the Author: Cathy Glass, who writes under a pseudonym, has been a foster carer for more than twenty years: She has three children. She is the author of the bestseller Damaged.

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By the Same Author: Damaged: The Heartbreaking True Story of a Forgotten Child (2006); Cut: The True Story of an Abandoned, Abused Little Girl Who Was Desperate to be Part of a Family (2008); I Miss Mummy: The True Story of a Frightened Young Girl Who is Desperate to Go Home (2009); Saddest Girl in the World: The True Story of a Neglected and Isolated Little Girl Who Just Wanted to Be Loved (2009); The Night the Angels Came (2011); A Baby’s Cry (2012); Another Forgotten Child (2012); Please Don’t Take My Baby (2013); Will You Love Me?: The Story of My Adopted Daughter Lucy (2013); Daddy’s Little Princess (2014); and Saving Danny (2015), among many others.

In her book Hidden for Glory, Destined for Adoption, SuDawn Peters shares testimonies of God’s faithfulness and love, even in hurtful situations and valleys of uncertainty. Facing head on such excuses as unemployment, age, race, size of their family, and health issues, they have found that nothing could stop God’s plan as they obediently followed Him. From their first adoption over 28 years ago to their latest addition hidden to reveal a surprising double blessing, the journey has been unique. This book is one that no Christian should miss reading. As everyday challenges and seemingly insignificant events mesh into stories of inspiration and great spiritual significance, you will realize anew, that conception is purposed and each life is incredibly special in God’s eyes. Whether you are considering adopting a child, a veteran looking for encouragement, a birth mother struggling with your part in the big picture of life, an adoptee searching for identity, or someone who simply enjoys reading about God’s awesome orchestration of lives, it is this family’s prayer that you will find hope, and renewed vision within these pages. In giving of themselves, they have found the true purpose of life. God does have a plan.

From the Dust Jacket: In January 2009, the world witnessed one of the most remarkable emergency landings in history when Captain Sullenberger brought a crippled US Airways flight onto the Hudson River, saving the lives of all of the passengers and crew aboard. The successful outcome was the result of effective teamwork, Sully’s dedication to airline safety, his belief that a pilot’s judgment must go hand-in-hand with—and can never be replaced by—technology, and forty years of careful practice and training.

From his earliest memories of learning to fly as a teenager in a crop duster’s single-engine plane in the skies above rural Texas to his years in the United States Air Force at the controls of a powerful F-4 Phantom, Sully describes the experiences that have helped make him a better leader, particularly the importance of taking responsibility for everyone in his care. And he talks about what he believes is at the heart of America’s “can do” spirit: the very human drive to prepare for the unexpected and to meet it with optimism and courage.

His wife, Lorrie, has been a pillar of support through all the highs and lows that life has offered, from the challenges of commercial flying to the birth of their two daughters, from financial struggles to the event of January 15, 2009. Though the world may remember Sully as the hero of Flight 1549, the legacy he desires even more is that of a loving husband and father.

Highest Duty is the intimate story of a man who has grown up to embrace what we think of as quintessential American values—leadership, responsibility, commitment to hard work, and service to others. And it is a narrative that reminds us that cultivating seemingly ordinary virtues can prepare us to perform extraordinary acts.

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About the Author: Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III is an airline pilot and safety expert, and has served as an instructor and an Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) safety chairman and accident investigator. He was named the Outstanding Cadet in Airmanship in his graduating class at the United States Air Force Academy, and he holds two master’s degrees. A native of Denison, Texas, he lives in Danville, California, with his wife and family.

Jeffrey Zaslow is a Wall Street Journal columnist and, with Randy Pausch, coauthor of the number one international bestseller The Last Lecture, which has now been translated into 46 languages. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women and a Forty-Year Friendship. Zaslow lives in suburban Detroit with his wife, Sherry, and daughters Jordan, Alex, and Eden.

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Compiler’s Note: The story of the Sullenbergers’ adoption of their two daughters is related in Chapter 5: “The Gift of Girls.”

Author’s follow-up to her previous book, Hope Shining Brightly: My Experience with Legal Risk Adoption

From the Dust Jacket: Whining. Temper tantrums. Sibling rivalry. Sound familiar? With the myriad responsibilities you face today as a parent, raising a child can often become a nerve-jangling, emotionally draining experience. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Holding Time presents a break-through parenting strategy that will revolutionize the way you relate to your child—and the way your child relates to you. Based on Dr. Martha Welch’s ground-breaking work with parents and children, holding time is a simple but amazingly effective technique that will make your child happier, more cooperative, more self-confident and less demanding—and put a stop to problem behavior once and for all.

Holding Time is based on the nurturing bond that forms when you physically hold your child. Drawing from research on primate and infant bonding, Dr. Welch shows how holding allows two biochemical systems in your child’s brain to reach a balance, creating an optimal level for learning and emotional development. Dr. Welch’s brilliant clinical research proved that holding can not only help cure profound autism, but that it achieves amazing results with normal children, too—children, like yours, who have occasional behavior problems.

A mother herself, Dr. Welch has developed a systematic program based on holding time techniques that will bring you and your child closer together. Whether your child is a demanding infant or a rambunctious preteen, all it will take is regular holding time sessions to achieve almost miraculous results.

And Dr. Welch has included chapters that focus on the special problems faced by today’s two-career and single parent households, showing how holding time can help keep these families close.

With holding time, you’ll see your children become more loving and less demanding. You’ll feel your own self-esteem grow as you’re better able to anticipate and cope with your child’s problems. And best of all, you and your child will feel closer than ever before. With inspiring examples of other parents’ experiences with holding time, a troubleshooting chapter that answers all of the most common questions about holding time techniques, and checklists that will help you monitor your progress, Dr. Welch’s book is a complete formula for happier, more harmonious families.

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About the Author: Martha G. Welch, M.D., a graduate of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, is a practicing psychiatrist specializing in child development and parent-child attachment. Internationally renowned for her work on autism and mothering, in 1977 she founded The Mothering Center, which teaches holding time techniques to parents from all over the world. Dr. Welch lives in New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut, with her family. Her eight-year-old son volunteered this testimony about holding time: “After holding you feel as though you have never been angry and you never will be.”

From the Dust Jacket: When all-American Aminta Arrington moves from suburban Georgia to a small town in China, she doesn’t go alone. Her Army husband and three young children, including an adopted Chinese daughter, uproot themselves too.

Arrington hopes they will all grow to understand the country with its long civilization, ancient philosophy, and complex language. In Tai’an, a small city where pigs’ hooves are available at the local supermarket, donkeys share the road with cars, and the warm-hearted locals welcome this strange-looking foreign family, the family is bewildered by the seemingly endless cultural differences they face. But, with the help of new friends, they find their way.

Home is a Roof Over a Pig is full of humor and unexpectedly moving moments. It will rivet anyone who is thinking of adopting, or of raising children abroad, or of being immersed in a foreign culture—or anyone who is already familiar with these experiences. An everywoman with courage and acute cultural perspective, Aminta Arrington recounts this transformative quest with a freshness that will delight.

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About the Author: Aminta Arrington has an M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and studied at Waseda University in Tokyo. She has written about China for The Seattle Times, and she edited the anthology Saving Grandmother’s Face: And Other Tales from Christian Teachers in China. Aminta continues to live and work in China with her family.

From the Back Cover: This beautiful and striking book examines one of the most enduring subjects in the history of picture-making: the image of the mother. Focusing on the work of twelve international photographic artists, the publication challenges the stereotypical or sentimental views of motherhood handed down by traditional depictions, exploring instead how photography can be used to address changing conditions of power, gender, domesticity, the maternal body and female identity.

The work featured here is highly personal, often documentary in approach, and with the individual at its centre, reflecting photography itself in the twenty-first century. The artists offer very different views of contemporary motherhood, from the devoted to the dysfunctional, representing the myriad ways that becoming—or even trying to become—a mother can radically alter a woman’s sense of self and how others perceive her. Each one deals with the many truths of motherhood—its joys and sorrows, its harrowing chaos, its immense expectations—illuminating this fundamentally human theme in honest, compelling and provocative fashion.

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From the Foreword, “Motherlode: Photography, Motherhood and Representation” by Susan Bright: The effects of loss are particularly apparent in the work of Ann Fessler (American, b. 1950). In the autobiographical Along the Pale Blue River (2001/2013) Fessler combines her own video footage with vintage film to create collaged images of farms and rivers in the rural Midwest of America.

The narrative that unfolds is of a young woman who, when finding out she is pregnant, flees her rural community for anonymity in a city where she can give up her baby for adoption. Forty years later, the adopted daughter searches for her birth mother, having identified her picture in a school yearbook. Seeking the family farm, she realizes that the river that flowed by her childhood home had its source in this rural place. Via this metaphorical umbilical cord with the past, Fessler—an adopted child raised by a woman who was herself adopted—traces the tales of tragedy and loss that run through every single case of adoption, but also establishes a poetic connection of strange coincidence and chance with her own biological mother in an effort to reconstruct her life story.

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About a Featured Contributor: Ann Fessler is a film-maker, video/sound installation artist and author. Her work has focused on the stories of women and the impact the myths, stereotypes and mass-media images have on their lives and intimate relationships. Fessler turned to the subject of adoption in 1989. Since then, she has produced three films (Cliff & Hazel [1999], A Girl Like Her [2011], e.g.) and written a non-fiction book on adoption, The Girls Who Went Away. In 2003-4, she was awarded a prestigious Radcliffe Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, to continue her research, conduct interviews and produce new work. The Girls Who Went Away was chosen as one of the top five non-fiction books of 2006 by the National Book Critics Circle, won the Ballard Book Prize, and was chosen by the readers of Ms. magazine as one of the top 100 feminist books of all time.

Adoptive applicants are required to pass a homestudy before being approved to adopt. Up until now applicants have faced the homestudy process with feelings of vulnerability, intimidation and uncertainty. Not anymore! Revealing “Insider Secrets” never before disclosed—the country’s top adoption professionals discuss how to reduce anxiety, boost your confidence and pass your homestudy effortlessly. Prepared for any homestudy situation that comes your way—you’ll know exactly what to expect, what not to say, and the best way to respond to questions. Homestudy Boot Camp promises to be an invaluable tool to assist you in preparing for your homestudy. Utilizing straight forward discussions, practical advice and a little candid humor, expect our Boot Camp to whip you into shape quickly for the experience of a lifetime! About the Author: Monica P. A. Whittsette is the Founder and Executive Director of Brightside Adoption Connection, a private adoption agency located in Twinsburg, OH. Monica, a remarkable serial entrepreneur, obtained her Master’s Degree from The University of Akron. Over the last decade she has worked as a counselor in the field of foster care and adoption, while completing adoptive homestudies and working with birthparents, adoptive parents and countless adoption professionals.

From the Dust Jacket: What happens when a romantic dates a pragmatist? When you, for instance, like to wow your lover with an original song while he thinks a bar of soap is a thoughtful gift? The answer is: You fall in love, of course.

In his charming, often hilarious account of his decade-long relationship with his boyfriend (now husband), journalist David Valdes Greenwood sets the record straight on gay marriage—and reminds us what really matters in the institution. Sure, you may be bound to your true love by a wedding band, but the defining moments of every good relationship begin long before the proposal—and continue long after the rice has been thrown.

Here are the high points (and some low points) that chart a relationship destined for greatness, including: the first blush of romance and that first “nondate”; forgetting your pants at your own wedding; learning to share duties (and mince words) in the kitchen; understanding what it means to “flirt but not touch”; figuring out that “life as a couple is all about discovering just how many things you can approach differently without actually killing each other”; and sharing a great love, a baby.

Poignant and smart, these notes from a same-sex marriage will strike a chord with anyone who knows just how outrageous and maddeningly wonderful the ties of love can be, no matter what configuration your family. Valdes Greenwood radiantly confirms that HOMO DOMESTICUS is where the heart is, after all.

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About the Author: Journalist and playwright David Valdes Greenwood is a regular contributor to the Boston Globe Magazine. He teaches at Tufts University and lives in Massachusetts with his husband and baby daughter.

The journey to Samantha was the most unique adventure I’ve ever been associated with. The people we met and the places we saw were inimitable. I stood on the steps of the Great Wall of China and was able to see the wall curve and wind through the mountains and valleys. It was humbling! I stood on the banks of the Pearl River and watched as the city of Guangzhou lighted up the sky at night. It was beautiful! I witnessed the street traffic, congested and busy with automobiles, motorcycles, scooters, pushcarts, bicycles hauling ox carts, and pedestrians scurrying past and around each other. Vehicles and pedestrians alike were all jockeying for position, all in the name of commerce—the product of a country with 1.8 billion people. I shall never forget these things! We were in China to get our daughter and take her home. This book chronicles our story through an ordinary and simple man’s view. I wanted to enlighten everyone not so much with China’s history, but with the journey of our adoption process. About the Author: Carlos Pineda was born and raised in San Antonio, TX, and currently resides in Dallas, GA, with his wife, Lorraine, and recently adopted daughter, Samantha. Carlos and Lorraine have two daughters, Amanda and Stephanie, from a previous marriage and have been blessed with six grandchildren. Carlos is a Staffing Program Manager and is welcoming his first work in print. Lorraine is a legal secretary for a law firm in Atlanta, GA, and was very involved and supportive during Carlos’s writing of this book. Carlos and Lorraine now celebrate their life with Samantha Jun born in the city of Nanchang in the Province of Jiangxi, China.

From the Publisher: Millions of women go through life hiding or denying the feelings that result from the loss of a pregnancy through miscarriage or abortion, the inability to conceive, giving up a child for adoption or the choice not to have children. Roughly 75% of women in the U.S. fall into one or more of these categories of missed motherhood, although many have a child at some point. Rather than being able to explore and express their feelings and receive the support they need to integrate their losses and create joyful lives, these women often suffer in silence, and so does our entire society. The authors two sisters use their own experiences, along with those of 12 other women, as a starting point for a much larger story. Their healing journeys are followed by specific steps that readers can take to create a culture of understanding and support so countless women can move out of the closet, grieve their losses, experience their wholeness and move into joy.

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About the Author: Kani Comstock was training as a research scientist when she first experienced missed motherhood. Her life then took a different course. She has lived and worked in Japan, traveled widely especially in the Pacific region, designed cultural and educational exchange programs, developed and directed four organizations including the Hoffman Institute, and wrote a prior book, Journey into Love. For the last few decades, Kani has been a Hoffman Process Teacher and Coach. Throughout life, she has been fascinated with exploring the unknown, striving to understand why we do what we do, and creating programs that enable us to grow into wholeness. She lives in Ashland, OR.

Barbara Comstock studied East Asian cultures, then earned an MS and an MFA in textile art and sculpture. Making art in Nepal, she also assisted on a feature-length documentary filmed at a Buddhist monastery. After years of designing and producing custom clothing and making and showing her art, she had a life-changing experience and joined the Hoffman Institute. Barbara has delighted in designing and directing programs, teaching in, training teachers for and coaching graduates of the Hoffman Process. It has never been her priority to have children. She lives with her husband, who has been her partner for 25 years, in Ashland, OR.

From the Back Cover: In the aftermath of the Great Armenian Earthquake, little Maria was born into a world where hope was only a distant memory. But hope is what her mother had to give, as she left her precious baby in the hands of the orphanage doctor in the small Russian town of Armavir.

Halfway around the world, Tony and Marsha Woods, still grieving from the loss of their first-born son but clinging to their long-held hope for another child whom they could love and cherish, were led by a series of miraculous events to Armavir and to the amazing Dr. Vegislav. Together and against all odds, they accomplished the impossible.

This true story of an orphan girl’s journey from desolate beginnings to the life of an American “missionary kid,” finding her home in such places as Japan, Hong Kong, Ethiopia, and Australia. But most important of all was her discovery that the words of God through the prophet Jeremiah were hers to claim as well: “For I know the plans I have for you ... plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

We use the word adoption very casually today. We speak of adopting pets, books, and highways. Yet the word has a far nobler significance. Adoption is the permanent placement of a child in a family with all its rights and privileges. God has forever placed us in his family. He has forever made us his children. He has forever changed our legal status. He has forever granted us an inheritance. He has forever lavished his love upon us. A Hope Deferred probes the depths of this wonderful reality by unfolding the six blessings of adoption as found in Romans 8. It intertwines these blessings with an account of one family’s journey to international adoption a journey encompassing twenty years, four continents, and countless joys and sorrows. The result is a valuable glimpse into the essential relationship between adoption, affliction, and the fatherhood of God over his people.

From the Dust Jacket: The truly remarkable story of a town built on dreams and second chances...

With its tree-shaded streets, Hope Meadows looks like any suburban neighborhood where children of all colors ride bicycles, and where an equally diverse mix of adults sit sentry in lawn chairs. Not visible are the tormented histories haunting the children at play, or what brought them to this little village of big miracles—an opportunity to finally understand the joys of a normal childhood.

Built on an abandoned Illinois Air Force base, Hope Meadows is the brainchild of sociologist Brenda Eheart, who envisioned the community as a solution to the problem of revolving-door foster care, a system that shuffled discarded, deeply troubled, and increasingly desperate boys and girls from home to home with no clear goal. Here are children given up by impoverished mothers; children as young as eight years old who are already dangerously streetwise; children of drug addicts, prisoners, and prostitutes; children who have never been taught the importance of responsibility, school, or the basics of human interaction. Here “unadoptable” children are given the chance to thrive in permanent homes.

At Hope Meadows, seniors find a renewed sense of purpose as foster grandparents. Their spirits are lifted and their lives enriched as they give and receive unconditional love from the children they nurture each day. At Hope Meadows, the meaning of community is rediscovered and redefined as a network of caring relationships built upon a shared mission: piecing shattered childhoods back together again.

In a world that often seems selfish and abusive, Hope Meadows provides sanctuary for the most wounded of our young. It is a place where their adult guardians provide them with the gift of hope and vice versa. And in the process, the greater needs of society are met.

With stirring photographs and inspirational stories of emotional and spiritual rebirth, this unique book is a tribute to a town built from the heart up.

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About the Author: Wes Smith has been a journalist for three decades, most recently as a national correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, where he worked for thirteen years. He has written or collaborated on sixteen books, and now contributes to magazines including Business Week, Biography, and U.S. News & World Report. He lives with his wife, Sarah, and children, Andrew and Jessica, in Bloomington, Illinois.

Hope Shining Brightly is a compelling and heartwarming story about one family’s determination to save two small children from the grips of the State programs which held them captive. This true story will help educate the reader about issues involved with legal risk adoption.

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By the Same Author: Holding the Hope: My Daughter’s Journey Through Reactive Attachment Disorder.

From the Back Cover: It’s cliché to say it, but you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Clichés are cliché because they’re true. When a potential birth parent is browsing through profiles, being able to create an ideal first impression is essential for hopeful adoptive parents.

An ideal profile can help catch the eye of potential birth parents by more effectively showing how their homes work, look, and feel. Because few (if any) adoption agencies use the “first come, first served” method anymore, some couples are chosen very quickly—but others, who might not have the right tools, wait for years.

If you’re hoping to adopt, there are things you can do to greatly increase the odds that you will be one of the couples whose wait is a short one.

Not all adoption agencies are the same. Different agencies will have different methods for creating your profile. Some use scrapbooks, others do everything online. Still, others will use a combination of various resources. Some agencies want one profile letter, some want two (one from each of the hopeful adoptive parents). Some ask for the letter to be written in first person, while others prefer third person, and some prefer a combination of the two. Confusing? Yes. Here’s the point: the basic principles will be the same, no matter the style.

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About the Author: Russell Elkins has always been a family man at heart, looking forward to the day when he could be a husband and a father. It took him a little while, but eventually his eyes locked onto a beautiful blonde, and he has never looked away. Russell and Jammie were married in 2004. They had the same goals for their home and didn’t want to wait too long before starting their family. However, filling their home quickly with children wasn’t in the cards, and they found themselves weighing their options to overcome problems with infertility. Their lives changed dramatically the day they decided to adopt. Russell and Jammie have adopted two beautiful children, Ira and Hazel, and have embraced their role as parents through open adoption. Both are actively engaged in the adoption community by communicating through social media, taking part in discussion panels, and writing songs about adoption.

Russell was born on Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1977. Along with his five siblings, he and his military family moved around a lot, living in eight different houses by the time he left for college at age 17. Although his family moved away from Fallon, Nevada, just a few months after he moved out, he still considers that little oasis in the desert to be his childhood hometown. Even after leaving home, Russell always stayed close to his family. He shared an apartment with each of his three brothers at different times during his college career. They formed a band together back in the 1990s and still perform on a regular basis under the name of the Invisible Swordsmen. After nearly a decade of college and changing his major a few times, Russell received his bachelor’s degree in sociology from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He later graduated from Ameritech College where he learned the trade of being a dental lab technician. Russell now owns and operates Elkins Dental Lab located in Meridian, ID.

In The House on Sylvia Street, the author weaves humor and hard facts to tell about invisible and overlooked foster children. It’s a true story with fake names that will tug at your heart strings while educating you about the challenges these children face. Readers follow “Beth” and her current family through a spring of medical appointments, a summer week at the beach, Thanksgiving, and a winter week of pain and promise. Savor the humorous and touching stories of these young lives and the woman who not only cares for them but sends each one out into the world with a handmade sock monkey.

This is a personal story about one couple’s journey through the foster care system as they become foster then adoptive parents. The raw emotions of this book are featured in individual journal entries showcasing the emotional side of fostering and adoption.

P. Mark Taylor spent seventeen years of teaching mathematics at the junior high, high school, community college, and university levels. He spent another 12 years studying mathematics education, including seven years as a professor of teacher education at the University of Tennessee. His most important experiences, however, have been in personal life. Two birth-children and two adoptions later there are a total of six children providing rich fodder for telling the stories in this book.

Eunice Anderson adopted her children in the times of closed adoptions, and years later, and for medical reasons, she sleuthed her way to the birth parents in this memoir.