I couldn’t take care of every child in the orphanage
by Kathryn Spurgeon
Our plane was beginning its descent into Seoul, and I couldn’t believe it was finally happening. Forty years since I landed as a young wife in South Korea, I was returning with my three adult daughters by my side.
Throughout the flight, I’d thought about that first trip in 1972, when I’d accompanied my husband to his assignment at the Kunsan Air Base, located about 110 miles south of Seoul. It was an unaccompanied tour, which meant there were no accommodations for spouses. I stayed outside the U.S. Air Force base with a handful of other American wives who were in the same situation.
One of them had adopted the most adorable baby from the Ilmagwon Babies Home nearby, and I was immediately smitten. My husband and I longed to start a family, but so far we’d had no success. We talked it over and visited the orphanage as soon as we could.
The orphanage was run by a wonderful couple, Mr. Kim and Mrs. Park. They introduced us to newborns and crawlers, toddlers and the oldest children, who were only five. My husband and I spent most of the afternoon entertaining a group of months-old babies, all lying on the floor on blankets. One little girl in particular stood out.
I folded up my airplane blanket and looked over at my daughter Treasure. She had been #134 in the log at the orphanage, her number in the thick album where Mrs. Park kept a record of each child who came into her care. At five months old, Treasure seemed to choose my husband and me. She stole our hearts. Mr. Kim allowed us to start the adoption right away.
Still, I continued to visit the orphanage, drawn to the other children who needed love and attention too. Their caretakers were overwhelmed. Even the five-year-olds pitched in, bottle-feeding babies or doing their best with a fresh diaper.
One morning, Mr. Kim brought in a shy two-year-old girl who’d been found wandering the streets alone with no one to claim her. She was #141 in Mrs. Park’s album and eventually came to be our daughter Gina. We couldn’t take care of every abandoned child at Ilmagwon, but we wanted to take care of this one too.
We waited impatiently for the adoptions to be finalized. So that I could be closer to my girls, Mr. Kim offered me a bed at the orphanage in an upstairs room used as a library. Of course I didn’t ignore the other children or the chores that needed doing. Sometimes I just walked the floors, holding one child, then another, singing to them, praying for them, telling them they were loved.
No matter how much I did, it never seemed to be enough. Especially when an epidemic of measles swept through Ilmagwon. The newborns were at terrible risk. I said a prayer of thanks when one of the infants’ adoptions went through faster than usual. At least one of them had a chance of surviving. Or so I thought. The baby died before her new mother arrived. When the heartbroken couple chose another child to keep safe and love, I found some reassurance that God was watching over all his children, no matter what.
Finally, Treasure’s and Gina’s adoptions were official. Better yet, we were able to live together as a family for our last year in Korea. We returned to the U.S. in 1974 and settled in Oklahoma. As excited I was, I realized that a piece of my heart would always remain in Korea with the children of Ilmagwon. Even after I gave birth to a third daughter, Mistie, I didn’t stop praying for the children I left behind.
At home, my daughters’ bedtime stories were all about Ilmagwon. Mistie, who had never been to Korea, loved to hear how our family came to be. Many nights, we sat around the dinner table with our favorite meal of kimchi and bulgogi and talked about those days.
So much had changed in the intervening years. My daughters had grown up and made me a grandmother; their father and I had divorced; I was remarried and retired. Yet here we were, Treasure, Gina, Mistie and me, stepping off the plane in Korea.
We toured pagodas in Seoul and saw the Deoksu Palace, bought women’s hanboks and ate the best kimbaps of our lives. But the real high point was our visit to Ilmagwon. My daughters’ bedtime stories came to life.
Mr. Kim’s son now ran the orphanage. Mrs. Park was retired, like me. Still, she met us for tea and cookies. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” she said. Together, we looked through the old album. With every turn of a page, the little faces brought back memories of lullabies and prayers. So many prayers.
Treasure and Gina pored over their own pages marked for children #134 and #141. Mistie pointed out all the ways her grown sisters were recognizable in their baby selves.
We went through the album slowly. I closed my eyes and took a long breath. Where are all these babies now, Lord? Part of me had never stopped asking, even though the answer was only for God and his guardian angels to know.
I couldn’t wait to tell others about our wonderful trip and got online to share our family’s story even before we left. “The memories will last a lifetime!” I wrote. The post received several shares and comments. One name was unfamiliar, Angela Hendricks from California.
“I lived at Ilmagwon the same time as your daughters,” she wrote. “I’m #140.”
Angela was one of the babies I’d rocked and held! She acted fast when I told her we had a layover in San Francisco on our way home. She drove to the airport to meet us! We ran into one another’s arms like long-lost family. Angela and my daughters told of their lives growing up in the U.S. “I never tired of hearing how my sisters were meant to be,” Mistie said.
“My mother often talked about finding me too,” Angela said. “In fact, she’d been promised a different baby. Sadly, that baby died in a measles epidemic before she got there. That’s how she came to choose me.”
I caught my breath. Angela was the very baby whose adoption gave me a glimmer of hope for all the rest. Now here she was, happy and healthy. God’s answer to a question I’d been asking for so long. And she wasn’t the only one.
Other Korean adoptees chimed in on my post about the trip. One by one, former Ilmagwon babies checked in. They wrote from Oklahoma, California, Alabama, Kansas, Texas, New Jersey, Arkansas. We keep in touch to this day. They remind me to trust that is God answering even big, sweeping prayers, but in his own time, in his own way.
Guideposts published in Angels on Earth Mar/Apr 2025
Reprinted by permission