My Son Daniel

My Son Daniel(Judy Jones) From the time I was a little girl, I knew that when I grew up I would adopt babies. I pictured myself with babies of different nationalities and lots of them. My husband and our two birth children, a son and a daughter, were living in Jerusalem, Israel. We were living and working at the Anglican School. We had only been in the country for a few months, when we decided to approach a caseworker at the West Jerusalem Welfare office to enquire about the possibility of adopting a baby.

The caseworker told us that we would have to be citizens of Israel in order to adopt, but then she said, I will speak with the judge and give you an answer in one month. Religious lines are never crossed in adoption. They recognize Muslims, Jews, and Christians, and they go according to the mothers religion. Since there are many Christian Arabs in Israel, we assumed that if they accepted our application, we would probably adopt an Arab baby.

We were told to return in one month and she would give us an answer. It was a long month, but in my heart I felt great excitement! The answer was “yes”, we’re going to accept your application”. I was beside myself with joy! She told us that we could have a very long wait, possibly even years. When we left her office, I was beside myself and told my husband that we need to get ready because I felt a baby would arrive soon!

We told few people what we were doing, but there was one couple who had become close friends. Don was a college professor from Houston, and we told he and Shirley what we were up to. Don was making a two week trip back to Houston, and asked us to make a list of everything we might need for the baby. Great timing! He returned to Israel with two boxes filled with beautiful clothes, blankets, diapers, etc.. He had doubled the list, and when we tried to pay him, he refused to take our money. We were so touched and very grateful.

We went to the Galilee area for a weekend staff conference, and while we were there, I began to feel very on edge and emotional. I had a sense that our baby was coming. I began pacing the halls at the conference center, and was feeling very teary. It felt like I was in labor. I was begging my husband to leave, as we had about a three hour trip back home. He was wondering what had gotten into me, because we hadn’t received any word of a baby , and it had only been three months since we applied.

When we arrived back home, as I was unlocking the front door, I could hear our phone ringing. I raced up two flights of stairs to get to the phone. It was the caseworker and she said that she had been trying to call us all weekend. I knew it!! She told me that there was a two week old baby boy in Tel Aviv who needed a family. She said she would meet us at her office the next morning and would answer all our questions. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a wink that night.

The next morning we arrived at her office and she told us that there was a very sweet and attractive South American girl who had given birth to a baby boy. She cautioned us that this would be a very confidential adoption with very little background information. They were clearly protecting his birth mother’s confidentiality. Since he was born in Tel Aviv, we believed he might have been born to a diplomatic family, as the South American Embassy’s were there. We accepted that and asked few questions. We just knew that he was to be our son.

It’s difficult to express what I felt the first time I held him in my arms. I felt like I was holding a regal child, and felt such awe of this wonderful miracle! He had thick black hair and was dark skinned. His eyes looked Asian. I could hardly believe he was ours! We named him Daniel Eric. We dressed him in everything new, and headed back to Jerusalem with our son. Our son and daughter were so excited about their new baby brother. They couldn’t wait to show him to their friends.

We were eager to show him off and our friends couldn’t believe he was really ours. Adoption in Israel was very rare. He quickly became a chubby baby and he was so cuddly and sweet, and very mellow. We felt so blessed to have him.

Daniel wasn’t a citizen of Israel nor was he yet an American citizen. We went through quite an ordeal arranging papers to take him to America. I spent many hours at the Government office in Jerusalem and many more at the American Embassy. The American Consul had never worked with an adoption between Israel and the U.S. I spent so much time working through the process, the consul and I became friends.

The Israeli office kept telling me to come back, but each time I accomplished nothing. The travel document had to come from their office. After many tries, I was sitting in the office waiting and feeling quite disheartened, I said a quick prayer. “Lord, I need you to intervene here. Please touch someone’s heart to help me.”

It just so happened that that particular day there was a man who was a very high official present and was told about my dilemma. He stepped out of his office and greeted me. He invited me to have a seat. He appeared to be a bit upset.

He began apologizing to me , as he had been told that I had been back and forth many times trying to solve the situation. He became quite emotional and said, “ we Jews of all people, know what it is to be a people without a country.” “We must not do this to this child.” He picked up a stamp and began to stamp all of the papers. As he was stamping, he was saying, “this child will always be welcome to Israel” “These papers will be in a file.” “ Few people will see it, but it will always be here and when he wants to enter, this file will permit him in.” Just like that, it was done! We had our travel documents! Another miracle!

We went back to the U.S. for the summer and then returned to Israel. We were there for four years. It was one of the greatest adventures of our life, We returned to America and adopted four more babies. Each of our seven children are a wonderful gift. Daniel is grown up and is now a husband and father. I’m very proud to be his mom.

My childhood dream was to have a multiracial family and that’s exactly what we have. Each one of my kids are very precious to me. Each one of them are wonderful productive people and they have given me thirteen grandchildren, and probably many more to come!