Every Marra’s Star purchase helps fund Gift of Identity grants for international adoptees visiting their birth country. The Ties Program, which facilitates these trips, is the longest standing adoptee focused homeland journey organization in the world. They’ve helped more than 4,000 people experience their country of birth, in over 20 countries, for over 30 years. Our family traveled to Guatemala with Ties in 2012 and we have maintained a strong relationship with the organization and many of the adoptive families we traveled with.

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Here’s an essay I wrote about our trip to Guatemala with The Ties Program, published in the March 2013 issue of Adoption Today. Read more about The Gift of Identity Fund at gift-of-identity.org.  

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I have friends and family members who love me and love my child. But they don’t truly understand the adoption journey – there’s just no way they can – because they’ve never taken it themselves.

 

That’s what’s so great about making a homeland journey with people who “get” the adoption journey. They get where you’ve been, and where you are now. Before you even meet, you share a unique and important bond. One that transcends demographics and geography. One that is powerful, poignant – and yes, even life changing.

 

When my husband, Randy, my daughter, Marra, and I were contemplating the Ties trip, we were all skeptical. We are private people. We don’t like getting thrown into groups of folks we don’t know. None of us are the kind who strike up casual conversations at parties. I mean, come on, two weeks with total strangers? Eating with them? Touring with them? What if all the kids are bratty and annoying? What if the parents are those braggy, tiresome types that send out braggy, tiresome Christmas letters about their awesome, superior children? Will the tour leaders make us all hold hands and sing Kumbaya? 

 

We always knew we wanted to go back to Guatemala. We had promised Marra, 18 and about to leave for college, that we would journey back – and let her experience, firsthand, her birth country. We wanted it to be the trip of a lifetime – and we knew we couldn’t plan such a trip ourselves. Some good friends recommended Ties; they had traveled to Peru several years ago, and had the kind of milestone experience we hoped for. And they weren’t Kumbaya types. So, maybe, we thought, it would be OK.

 

It was so much more than OK. Why? The connections we made – with the country, the native guides, the Ties staff and, most importantly, our fellow travelers. Without the connection with our travel group, our trip would not have had the incredible impact that it had on Marra.

 

She wept when we parted with our group, saying, “I feel like I’m leaving my family.” In a sense, she was – because, on this trip, we became family.

 

Amazing, really – we did not correspond before the trip. But during the two weeks we spent together, we formed bonds that I know will last a lifetime. Marra was the oldest of the children; though it would have been great for her to have teenagers to hang out with, she loved being with her younger friends. She saw her former self in them and found comfort and peace exploring her birth country with others who had walked a similar path.

 

As parents, we shared stories – laughing and crying together, in the way only those can who have something deep and vitally important in common. From the quirky and casual – one mom told me her son likes his food room temperature – just like Marra – to the exploration of diversity issues – one mom wondered ‘will parents in our affluent community want their daughters to date my son?’ (Absolutely, I assured her.) This same son, by the way, favors cinnamon/orange/chocolate scones – just like Marra – was that a Guatemalan thing, we wondered?

 

We started the trip as strangers and left as family. Marra, an art major, has plans to draw her young friend, Erica. And we plan to visit Erica’s family in Boston, and hope they’ll visit us in Atlanta. Ditto the Boardmans in Philadelphia. We fell in love with this family. Marra, Nathan and Susannah share a love of sports and she would like to teach these personable, adorable youngsters to water ski. Andrea and I share everything from bad knees to love of beaded jewelry to adoring our beautiful children. 

 

When Marra left for college in Minnesota, many emails from our Ties family came – wondering how we were dealing with our empty nest. Cynthia from Canada wanted to know if I’d considered hiding under Marra’s dorm bed (I had); Sandy and Sydney from Boston wanted us to come experience New England in the fall to forget how much we missed our girl; Gail and Scott from Wisconsin sent us info on an international festival in Minnesota to pass along to Marra.

 

We feel connected – tied – to people all over North America who are raising beautiful, interesting, intelligent Guatemalan children. And, most importantly, Marra feels she belongs – to a group of beautiful, interesting, intelligent children – just like her.