Jonquil and Bryan Graham began with the idea of fostering a few New Zealand children; after all, they had an ideal home for them in a rambling old house in a kiwifruit orchard in Golden Bay. Shocked by the plight of thousands of abandoned children, she helped initiate I-CANZ (Inter-country Adoption New Zealand), challenging the government’s anti-adoption stance. When harrowing scenes of abandoned Romanian babies rocking in cots appeared on TV, she flew to Romania and adopted malnourished identical twin girls who weighed 4 kgs at 10 months. Leaving her husband to run the orchard and care for eight children she returned to Romania to adopt a baby boy no-one wanted. But the ordeal turned into a prolonged nightmare as she battled the court system, determined to fight on and denying terrible accusations made against her. Returning to New Zealand, a Russian doctor she rescued told her about orphanages in his country. Later, she flew to Arghangelsk and adopted eight-year old orphaned twins.
This candid account – funny, heart-warming and always readable, shows us the tragedy of children without families and the difference that true parenting makes…to parents as well as to children. Love fairly jumps off the pages of this book, along with the ups and downs of family life.
