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It's Live in the Bream with the host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream. This week on Live in the Bream, we have a fascinating story to amazing women who are working together, sharing both of their stories in what is such a beautiful new book. I want to tell you about this. It is called Who's
And it's all about adoption and belonging and finding our place in the world. And what I love about this book, we will talk more in depth about this.
is that as you go through this very sweet book about a young girl's story and a family friend who shares a similar story, is that it's in both Spanish and English. So you're reading through this story in whatever your preferred language or both. Maybe you're bilingual. I'm working on that. I've got a long way to go. Much room for improvement, as my mom says. But today we have the authors with us, Jackie Darby and Aisha DeLopez.
And I'm so excited to have you both with us. Thank you for joining us on Live in the Bream. Thank you for having us. Thank you, Shannon. What a pleasure. Well, so you both do work and volunteer work with the Christian Alliance for Orphans in Latin America. Aisha, you also do work on the U.S. side of that. Your co-authors here, Jackie, you are a missionary as well. You all are both based in Guatemala, but working for the good of people all over the world to hear the good news and to hear the good news of this book as well.
So Jackie, let me start with you because your story is very personal. My mom is alive because of adoption.
And everybody has a different story in figuring out what that means in their life. But yours was a very difficult start. And I love how transparent you're being about it. Tell us a bit of your story. Well, thank you for this opportunity. Yes, my life started as an abandoned baby left to die in the garbage dump of Seoul, Korea. I was newborn and to the point that rats were eating on my naked little body. But
And God sent a missionary nurse, I like to call her my angel, who found me, rescued me and took me to the local orphanage. And from there, I became eligible for adoption.
On the other side of the world, I believe that the Lord was nudging the hearts of my parents to adopt. So they began the process and were assigned three different baby girls, but all three died before they ever made it to the United States.
And on the day President Kennedy, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, an hour after it went across the airwaves, my mom received another phone call from the director of the orphanage asking if they would reconsider a fourth baby girl. And at first, the answer was no, because they no longer felt like it was God's will to
But after a few weeks, they just changed their mind and decided they would try it one more time. I was the fourth baby. And on a cold winter day in February, I flew into Chicago O'Hare. And you joined this family that had prayed for another child to come to their family. Aisha, you're on the other side of that as well. Tell us about your journey with adoption.
Yes. Well, my husband and I were pastors of a very large church in Guatemala, and I'd say one of the largest in Latin America.
And we got married and had, you know, two uneventful pregnancies, a girl and a boy. And so in many circles, that's like hitting the jackpot. We were living the, you know, the perfect family life, if you will. But the Lord kept reminding me of when we were younger, we had a conversation. My husband went through cancer and.
And although he didn't receive radiotherapy, it's something that the Lord used to even consider talking about adoption when we were dating. And I said, if we ever have difficulty conceiving biologically, I wouldn't, my choice wouldn't be to spend too many years in treatment or whatever. I would go for adoption, you know, in a couple of years.
And he said, okay. And that was like the depth of the conversation. Of course, there's so much to be said as motivation. And the Lord was so patient with us. And even though we had a girl and a boy, the Lord reminded me of that and started, as Jackie uses the word very often, but that's very accurate. He nudged me.
into going to serve in a very private way. And I started praying about going into an orphanage to serve in a very regular pace, at a very regular pace. And so, you know, he opened a window in an orphanage near my home, and I started going on weekly visits. And even though adoption didn't happen in that time,
orphanage, he used those interactions with real little girls to open our family up
to the possibility because it's, it's a different game. It's a game changer when you see statistics and impersonal stories, then when you get up close and personal and listen to the stories and hear their names and their laughter and their prayers, and then everything changes. And so, you know, fast forward to 2014, we started our first adoption process and,
We became a family of five and then 2015 we adopted again both girls from Guatemala. And so we became a family of six in a matter of a couple of years.
And the girls were six and a half and nine and a half when we adopted them, which, as you can imagine, brought a level of difficulty that we hadn't anticipated in a way. But it's nothing like when you go through it day by day by day. And so that's where we where our stories collide, because then the Darby's were already missionaries in our church in America.
I had met them before and so my husband one day says, well,
Jackie has been very open with her story and maybe she would have the girls over and just, you know, provide a safe space for them to talk about the feelings. And, and that's how we became closer. And I would say became family just on both sides, being willing to, to connect in that very weak spot. Yeah.
Yeah. And Aisha, I understand you're the illustrator of this book as well, correct? Yes. Yes. I love it. And it's centered around this adult family friend who has herself been adopted and one of your girls going through baking cookies and having these conversations. I just think it's such a beautiful book. Again, the name is Whose Am I? The Truth About Your Worth and Identity in Christ.
for anyone because as you said, your girls were a little bit older when they were adopted. So clearly they knew life pre-adoption. Jackie, you had all kinds of questions about where your life started your adoption. And I know people can work through these questions of feeling, where do I belong? Why wasn't I with my original biological family or mother? And the book is such a beautiful conversation between an adult who has wrestled with these questions, a young person who's working through these questions,
while making delicious cookies. And I got to imagine, Jackie, it's meant to spark important conversations in households all over the world. Yes, for sure. The book is our heart's desires that the book would be a resource in the hands of any parent, adult,
Just anybody who wants to have good, honest conversations and might be struggling with the awkward way of bringing it up to the child or explaining about adoption or with the children who are adopted like myself or even being fostered. Those questions that we have.
And in my case, my parents already had five biological kids of their own.
And so I clearly knew from little on that I was not their biological child, that my story started from a different side of the world. And my parents always told the truth because back in the day, in the 60s, it was not as common. Adoption was not as common or well received like it is today in the United States.
And so I heard my story being told time and time again. So my parents were very proud of the story. They had a perspective, a godly perspective that this is a gift. It's a miracle of adoption. But I, on the other hand, did not have that same perspective.
I very much struggled with my identity. I struggled with my worth. I heard that I was left to die in the garbage dump. So that's the way I grew up. And when I met Darlie, when Aisha and her husband, Alex, reached out to me, I did wonder, like, how am I going to be able to connect with their girls because they're so much younger than me? But my husband and I really, really believe in relationships.
And it wasn't just about having them over and just start, you know, preaching to them or sharing them with them everything about my life. I just want to start spending time with them. And so my daughter, who is still living at home, we would have them over. We would paint our nails or just hang out, do crafts or even bake cookies together.
And through our relationship, Darlie, especially the youngest one, really connected with me. And she was very verbal and was able to express her questions and feelings at such a young age. And so through that,
Little by little over the years, I was able to speak into her life. And I do want to say that this book is a real, true life conversation that Darlie and I had just a few years ago regarding our identity. We'll have more Live in the Bream in a moment.
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And just to remind folks, it is in both Spanish and English all the way through. It's beautiful. It's beautifully done. And it does ask you to pause and think. There are questions, things like, is there someone special that you can talk to about how you feel? What are some of the ways that you feel loved? It's also got prayers throughout. You can do this in daily increments, really savor parts of the story and think about your own story as you're working through. It's a beautiful concept.
Yes, thank you. We actually have lived through this dynamic, both Jackie and I, in different sides. And we are really, we worked through this with our hearts in our hands. Like we were really sensitive to the idea of having the conversations that probably a lot of parents are very afraid to have.
And so we don't want to shove you into a very, you know, cold way of the approach. So we wanted it to be paced and warm and inviting. And that's why you see a puppy along the... Nacho! Nacho, he doesn't do anything. He just relieves a little bit of the tension and...
And that's why you will see, you know, some playfulness in the pages because we believe that it's a heavy story.
And we wanted to take the parents by the hand. So think and pause is also for the parent, for him or her to be able to talk about these points in their lives and then have a prayer together. Some of the kids we know, we want to push through and they read through it all the way through, you know, for several nights. But we really consider the part of this is hard.
But that's where, you know, healing happens when you share the truth. And so, you know, and we are modeling a way in which to do it. It's not one serious conversation. It's an ongoing dynamic where you're doing daily things like baking. And so we wanted it to be like a blueprint of what we want to see happen in many and more adoptive homes.
And listen, nachos after those cookies. I find myself to be nacho in this book. He's very interesting. Again, I want to give people the title, Whose Am I? The Truth About Your Worth and Identity in Christ. And Jackie, there's a part of the conversation that you have as the adult in this book that
And saying you do acknowledge, listen, it can hurt our tummies and our hearts and our minds when we feel like something is off. We have questions about our life and how we got to this place. But you said even if we had never lost our first family, we would still have an emptiness. And Darlie says she's sort of surprised and says, but you seem so happy.
Yes. What I wanted to, the point I wanted to get across to Darlie is that without Christ in our life, there is that void. And so nothing this world offers us will fill that space in our heart that only God, our Heavenly Father can fill. And so...
I wanted her to understand it goes deeper than earthly things that will fill that void. And it's a relationship with our Heavenly Father. And He's the one who will fill that and give us that joy and understanding of whose we belong to.
And the worth, our worth in Him. And it's not based on a family or a person or a thing or a position in this world, but truly in our relationship with our Heavenly Father.
So, Aisha, tell me a little bit more about where we can find this book, where we can learn more about the work that you two are doing with orphans in the U.S. and Latin America and all of the things that you're trying to make easier for families, conversations. Yes. Thank you. So we really aim at connecting people to community.
And so you don't have to do this alone. That's the bottom line. The Lord is providing everything for you to do what he set out for you to do. And you don't have to do it alone. So you can find the book at whosami.com.
Who's Am I? You Google Who's Am I? And it'll throw a lot of links. And if you want to connect to community, I would suggest in the U.S. go to CAFO.org. They have a bunch of resources and the CAFO Summit is coming up.
in Nashville in September. You can look it up as well. And how do you spell that? I'm sorry to interrupt. I just want to make sure we understand the spelling of that. C-A-F-O. Christian Alliance for Orphans.
And then you can find out everything about the summit, everything about the free resources and paid resources that you can have to find your people. And then in Spanish, you can find us as Alianza Cristiana para los Huérfanos.
Um, and you just, uh, we're on social media. We have a web site available. So we are praying that you will find your people. And Jackie, anything that you want to add about the work you're doing or where we can find out more about your story? Uh, well, I would just like to say that, um, I have been helping, uh, with, uh,
Christiana para los huérfanos. I help host an adult adoptee support group. And oftentimes we find this that
It is very awkward and uncomfortable for parents to tell their children that they're adopted from a young age. We're meeting adults that are in their late 20s, 30s that are finding out for the first time that they're adopted. And you can only imagine the identity crisis that these adults are facing.
And so we want to walk with them again, even though this book is for children, the message is for any age group. The message is for all of us to understand our worth and identity in Christ. And so Aisha,
I already said where you can connect as far as community. You can follow both of us on Instagram or Facebook to follow the progress or to communicate with us. We love to walk with, whether it's the parent. We have a support group for parents and we have a support group for adult adoptees through ACH.org.
the ministry organization in Guatemala or CAFO in the United States.
Well, Jackie Darby and Aisha De Lopez, the co-authors and Aisha also the illustrator of this beautiful story in English and in Spanish, Whose Am I? A beautiful book, but even more touching is the work that you are doing together. So we thank you both for that. God bless you and all of this. And thank you for joining us on Live in the Bream. Thank you, Shannon.
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