A childless couple from the US finally met the four-year-old Taiwanese boy they were adopting last week, with the adoptive mother, Margaret Weddle, hailing the boy “the greatest gift sent by God” on the eve of Mother’s Day.”
Weddle, 49, told a news conference on Thursday that she and her husband Lonnie, a real estate broker, had grown to love Asian culture and after 26 years of marriage without children, they decided in 2006 to adopt a child from Asia.
Taiwan was their top choice because they had more confidence in its work on adoption.
When the couple saw the pictures of the boy nicknamed Hsiao Hsun (小勳), they decided “he’s the one,” Weddle said at the Chung Yi Social Welfare Foundation.
The couple said they did not mind when the foundation told them that the boy is “extraordinarily active” — he has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD — and comes from a broken family where only the mother is known.
Foundation executive director Kao Min-tsu (高敏足) said the group had provided the Weddles with everything it knows about Hsiao Hsun’s life and background since the couple first contacted the group in August.
Lonnie Weddle, also 49, said that he had prepared a room at the couple’s Virginia home exclusively for Hsiao Hsun and would teach the boy to fish, swim and play to enable him to lead a happy childhood like any American child.
Kao said the foundation would keep track of Hsiao Hsun’s life for five years through a cooperative adoption agency in the US.
Over the past three years, the foundation has helped nearly 100 Taiwanese orphans or children from poor, broken families find families, with 90 percent of them being adopted by families abroad, Kao said.
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