Daniel Atwell, Diego Atwell, Jorge Atwell, and Carolyn Atwell (left to right) pose for a photo in Bogota to commemorate their new family.
By: Chris Ha
Adoption can be a tedious and difficult process, but it can also be one of the most rewarding decisions people make in their lifetime. Thomas Russell Middle School Teacher Daniel Atwell, who previously taught at MHS, is familiar with this feeling, having adopted two children from Colombia.
The process started in 2017 when he traveled with his wife Carolyn to Ethiopia to sponsor a child, Atwell said. There, he met an American woman who had adopted an Ethiopian child herself, Atwell continued.
“After we returned home, we became Facebook friends, and she posted stories about children who were waiting to be adopted from the agency she had used,” Atwell said. “We saw a feature of two brothers that would be separated if they didn’t get adopted this year, and we called to see if we qualified.”
Fortunately, he and his wife got a response saying they were qualified to adopt and began the adoption process in September of 2017, he added. The adoption process was really long and tough, he continued.
“There is a lot of legal paperwork in the US and Colombia, the cost in the thousands of dollars, and the training to help understand adoption and the consequences of it was long,” he said. “We had some real lows such as a four month delay phase and some real highs such as meeting the boys for eight days in December of 2017 through the process,” he added.
Atwell and his wife originally wanted to adopt two brothers: Jorge, aged 15, and Diego, aged 14. However they found out that Jorge and Diego have two sisters aged 17 and 19, he said. They might be able to adopt the 17-year-old, but not the 19-year-old because she is an adult, he explained.
“I would really like to have four siblings in our family,” he said. “We got to spend about five hours together with all of them when we were there. It was awesomeness!”
Jorge and Diego are doing great and need to learn English, he said. They are fluent in Spanish and he hopes to have them in the MUSD district because there are a lot of Spanish-speaking students and teachers, he added.
Having no biological children of their own, he and his wife hope to help these boys have a stable, loving home environment, and provide them with a quality education so that they can grow up to be whatever they want to be.
“We want to help their dreams become reality, and that is what all parents desire. Adoption is not easy, but whoever said life is easy?” he said. “We felt God leading us in this direction, and as long as He opens the doors in front of us on our journey, we will go through them. We only wish we could help more kids, but maybe re-uniting this one family is enough,” he concluded.