Learning To Love A Stranger on the Bookhabit Show
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Adopting a child from a foreign country is for the big hearted, not for the fainthearted. Cathy Bonnstetter and her family adopted four and a half year old Alex from Romania after a long process dealing with agencies and bureaucracy. More than once they thought about giving up on the idea Cathy had had since she was in her teens. That the family did not give up is in some part due to the welcoming and generous nature of her 3 biological children, who convinced her that they had to keep on fighting to bring Alex to the United States and become a part of their loving family.
Cathy, a journalist and also a teacher with special education training, wrote this five part book based on the stories of her family and four other families who adopted children from foreign countries. The book focuses on the journey of bringing the children to the United States, and then their first year with their new families. It tells of the joys and the struggles, the wins and the tantrums, and also for one family, the acknowledgment that no amount of love could make the new home the right place for the child.
Cathy says “[W]ithout those people who completely understood why you would do something like this, I may have given up. That is why I wrote the book. I think their stories are wonderful and need to be told. I think it is a book for anybody who is contemplating an adoption or knows someone who is. It is also a book for anyone who wants to know what can happen when people step outside their comfort zones to do something a little unusual.”
Share the story of Cathy’s family and the stories of other four families who have adopted children from other countries here in the podcast interview.
Learning to Love a Stranger is available on www.bookhabit.com
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