A couple from the US adopted a Taiwanese girl in Chiayi yesterday, making her their ninth child.
William Adams, an emergency room surgeon at a hospital in Pennsylvania, and his wife Betty adopted 11-year-old Fan Ya-hui (樊雅惠) at a ceremony held at a Catholic church under the witness of Liao Su-hui (廖素惠), the wife of the Chiayi County commissioner, officials from the Chiayi County Government in charge of social affairs and church workers.
At the ceremony, Adams said he and his wife have four children of their own and four adopted children, including two boys and one girl from China and a boy from South Korea.
Adams said there are no cultural problems at his home with so many kids with different ethnic backgrounds around.
He said he and his wife brought their own children to China when they went there to adopt the three Chinese youngsters. The trip allowed the children to get into contact with different cultures and it helped instill harmony at home, he said.
Betty Adams expressed her appreciation for the Catholic church for its help in the adoption of Ya-hui, describing her as a "beautiful child."
Ya-hui was born in 1996 to a mentally disturbed woman who was raped by an unknown assailant. Ya-hui's grandmother was also mentally disturbed and unable to raise her, so her grandfather sent her to an orphanage in 1998.
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