A long journey home
Rosalie Newell-Wagner dresses her four-year-old daughter Whitney for her weekly dance lesson.
A hectic ordeal at the best of times, this Saturday morning is busier than ever with extra coats needing to be zipped up, boots pulled on, then the loading of everyone and everything into the car.
Upon arriving at the Vernon dance studio a few minutes late, Newell-Wagner admittedly looks a little worn out, but can’t help but smile as she introduces the two other little girls accompanying her.
Jessie, nine, and Sarah, four, are a little shy at first, but soon start to explore their surroundings. Hearing the music pulsating from the next room where Whitney’s dance lesson is taking place, Jessie smiles, grabs Sarah’s tiny hand, and shouts “danser, danser!”
It’s a far cry from the devastation the girls have just left behind in their home country.
Not related by blood, Sarah and Jessie officially became family with the Wagners, including son Mathew, nine, after a 7.0 earthquake left their nation of Haiti in ruin on Jan. 12.
“They are sisters now,” says Newell-Wagner who with her husband Curt Wagner, started the adoption process for the girls through Hope Adoption Services in Abbotsford two-to-three years ago.
Rescued from the newly built Mercy and Sharing orphanage, located in Williamson, 25 miles west of Port-au-Prince, the girls were among the first group of 24 Haitian orphans to arrive in Canada in the wee hours of the morning Jan. 24.
It was in October 2006, while living in Chilliwack, when the Wagners first filled out the paperwork to adopt Jessie, who has been at Mercy and Sharing since she was a toddler after her mother, a government worker, died from a car accident.
They had heard about her from Chilliwack residents Frank and Esther King, who run King’s Kids, a registered charity that helps disadvantaged and orphaned children around the world.
“We decided to adopt Jessie because she has medical needs,” said Newell-Wagner.
Born with a congenital amputation of her right leg, just below the knee, Jessie also has a bilateral club foot on her left.
With the help of Cure International, she underwent surgery in the Dominican Republic last year, which has allowed her to walk on a prosthetic leg.
“She walked on her knees before until she was seven,” said Newell-Wagner, adding Jessie’s prosthesis was left in Haiti when the orphans were evacuated.
Accompanied by two friends, Newell-Wagner visited Jessie at Mercy and Sharing’s former building in Port-au-Prince in 2007, and it’s there where she met Sarah.
Born premature at the government hospital in the Haitian capital, Sarah was in the abandoned baby unit before going to live at the orphanage.
“I fell in love with her,” said Newell-Wagner. “When I came home, I was afraid if she was not adopted that she would die of starvation.”
Sarah was added to the adoption paperwork in December 2007, a year before the Wagners decided to move to Vernon for a lifestyle change.
They were at the final adoption approval stage through Haiti’s Ministry of the Interior when the earthquake hit, burying Port-au-Prince and the surrounding area in a pile of rubble.
It could have taken a month to a year for the Canadian embassy to issue a visa before the girls would have been given the all clear to come to Canada, but the earthquake changed everything, said Newell-Wagner.
Upon hearing about the level of devastation, the Wagners quickly got in touch with the Kings in Chilliwack to see if they knew anything.
“I phoned Esther on the Tuesday night to ask her where the new orphanage was in relation to the earthquake. She said ‘you don’t want to know.’ The new building was right in the epicentre,” said Newell-Wagner.
Meanwhile, Frank King was able to fly to the Dominican Republic, where he met with some U.S. reporters who had chartered a plane to Port-au -Prince. From there he was able to send news home via Facebook.
He was also able to contact the former orphanage director who got on a motorcycle and checked on the girls.
Miraculously, the U.S.-built, one-storey building and all the children survived. However, many of the staff disappeared.
“Before, there were two nannies for about 20 babies, now there were hardly any. The kids were left to fend for themselves, and at least two-thirds of them are disabled,” said Newell-Wagner.
After three days without food and water, the president of Mercy and Sharing managed to bring in supplies.
“There were ongoing concerns because now it’s dangerous,” said Newell-Wagner.
“There’s an orphanage with food, water and supplies. There are guys with machetes and guns who would be looking for this.”
Back in Vernon, the Wagners contacted Okanagan-Shuswap MP Colin Mayes’ office about fast forwarding the process to get the girls out of Haiti.
And soon after, the Canadian government announced all Haitian adoptions would be fast-tracked, and the president of Haiti approved the evacuation.
The Wagners received the call at 4:45 a.m. from the director general of case processing with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).
“She basically phoned to confirm information on the girls and to get details of where they were and where we were. She said she would call in a few days to let us know where we were in the process,” said Newell-Wagner.
Another call came at noon that same day from Mayes’ office.
“The girls were on a priority list,” said Newell-Wagner, who in turn contacted Esther King with the news.
After some miscommunication due to faulty phone lines, Frank King, who by then had Jessie and Sarah at his compound, was told to bring the girls to the Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince with whatever paperwork he had.
“I finally got a call from CIC at 6:30 p.m. on the Saturday to confirm the girls were on a flight from Port-au-Prince that night,” said Newell-Wagner.
“It was like giving birth. I stayed up all night, but luckily I was not in physical pain, there was just no sleep.”
Newell-Wagner, accompanied by son Mathew, boarded a plane in Kelowna at 4:30 a.m. the next morning. Jessie was asleep and Sarah was just getting up when they arrived in the Ottawa airport’s presidential boardroom that afternoon.
“(Sarah) was very scared. Mathew sat down and we put Sarah on his lap, and she calmed down right away,” said Newell-Wagner, who then went to make accommodation arrangements. “When I came back, Jessie was awake. She greeted me with a big smile. She remembered me.
“The Salvation Army had donated snowsuits to all the orphans and a CIC worker had taken Jessie outside so she could see snow for the first time. She was rolling around in it, and eating it, she was very excited.”
The girls have remained fascinated with their new home since arriving in Vernon Jan. 26.
“Everything has been good since we got back,” reports Newell-Wagner, adding that despite some diarrhea that Sarah suffered when she first arrived, both girls have received a clean bill of health and have been eating at least five meals a day.
The French/Creole-speaking Jessie, who was fitted for a new prosthetic this week, has already picked up some English.
“Jessie calls me if Sarah needs anything. She really looks after her. She’s a fast learner and at the dinner table has learned to say ‘May I please be excused, I’m done,” said Newell-Wagner, who plans to home school Jessie, while Sarah will attend the Montessori preschool with her sister Whitney.
The family also intends to get the girls some new clothes, and says anyone wishing to help the family is asked to support King’s Kids (www.kings-kids.ca) or the Mercy and Sharing Foundation (www.haitichildren.com.)
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