Yesterday I wrote about the first two articles in the four-part series titled “Finding Family-Stories of Adopted Suburban Immigrants” from the Chicago Daily Herald.

All four of the articles highlight a transracial and transcultural adoptive family and do a wonderful job exploring the challenges and blessing of adoption. Make sure you check out the adoption information given on the right hand side of each story, as well as the slide show for each story.

Today I am going to write about the third and fourth articles, and I hope you take the time to read them.

The third article is titled “Siblings to Strangers- How six people from different places grew into one Family.”

This story is a wonderful one about a family with four children who join their family via adoption…one domestically, one from Brazil and two from Eastern Europe, one of which is of Asian heritage.

I love stories about families like this, because our family is also comprised of members from all over who are now united as one family.

Again, the articles pays attention to both the blessings and the struggles of international adoption, without sugarcoating. This article discusses how one of the family’s sons rejected his new siblings and most everything else upon his arrival home, the difficulty of the wait, the differences in children’s attitudes and outlooks, unexpected learning difficulties and finding a way to help their son, building bonds through family activities and rituals, and how building a sense of family and familiarity takes lots of time and love.

Here is a bit from the end of the article…

Later, the bright blue sky fades to indigo. The temperature plummets. The Owens gather around the campfire once more.

Chris, Grant and Dulus blow on the orange and blue flames, sending tiny embers up to join the emerging stars.

All six tell stories of when they felt most scared.

Grant recites Rudyard Kipling tales.

Dulus, no longer the shy one, recites a guest list for his upcoming 13th birthday party.

Tara's jokes make the whole family laugh like they did on that camping trip six years ago.

Miles and years from that first campfire, the Owens keep returning to the flames that fuel their family bond.

They're older now.

They're different now.

They're closer now.

All the children feel this bond, but Tara's the one old enough to describe it.

"I think about how blessed I am to be in a family like this. …We have what a lot of families don't have.

"Even though we don't have the same blood," she says, wiping tears from her eyes, "I can't imagine our family without one of its members in it."

I love the message of this family and this story…that children can overcome obstacles...that strangers can become family…that love and bonding takes time...and that a transracial, transcultural family can be a strong, loving and united one.