Celebrate Lunar New Year with Your Adoptive Family!

What is Lunar New Year?

While many western cultures celebrate the New Year on January 1st, many Asian countries celebrate the New Year based on the lunar calendar. Because the lunar calendar is a calendar of the moon's cycles and phases, the date of Lunar New Year changes each year and will always fall on a new moon between January 21st and February 20th. This year the New Year is on February 1, 2022. It marks the transition of the Year of the Ox (2021) to the Year of the Tiger (2022)! Many countries, including China, Korea, Vietnam, and Tibet, have their own Lunar New year celebration and traditions. While some aspects of the holiday may be similar, specific customs and length of the holiday can vary depending on culture and region.

¡Feliz Navidad!

The Christmas season is looked forward to and celebrated across many countries and cultures. It is one of the most important holidays and truly a month-long celebration in Colombia! While there is no official religion of Colombia, it is estimated that approximately 80-90% of Colombians practice Christianity, the vast majority practicing Catholicism. Below are some of the important days and traditions observed in Colombian culture throughout December you can enjoy with your family as you honor your child's heritage. 

“Go Forward,” Says Adult Adoptee Marvin Lynch, Reunited with His Birth Family After Decades

It was summer 2015, and for the first time 64-year-old, Marvin Lynch of Gaithersburg was about to meet his birth mother, who lived in Alabama. He didn’t have high hopes she’d recognize him: she was 86 and suffering from dementia. Though she was still a wonderful, positive person, “she might not remember you,” he’d been told. Then came the moment he walked into the room. His birth mother took his hands. “I knew this day would finally come,” she said. “I love you, and Samuel [his late birth father] loved you too.”

Celebrating NATIONAL ADOPTION MONTH and Thanksgiving, with a reflection: 

Happy Diwali!

What is Diwali?

Diwali (also spelled as Divali) literally translates to "row of lights", and is a five-day religious festival in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. It is commonly known as a Festival of Lights and gets its name from the row of clay lamps that families light both inside and outside their homes during this holiday. Occurring in either October or November, its third and main day falls on the fifteenth day of Kartik, on the day of the new moon. This year, the holiday begins on November 2, 2021, and ends on November 6, 2021. The third and main day of the festival is November 4.

In mid-August of 2018, I walked into an adoption agency to speak at one of their Cultural Trainings for the first time. This was only the second time I would be telling my story in front of an audience, the first being an event I hosted about adoption a month prior. As I was being introduced, sweat started to run down my back and I was panicking, wondering why in the world I thought it would be a good idea to start sharing my adoption story. But as I started to speak, I remember noticing the class’s attention focus on my words, hearing gasps at certain parts of my story, and seeing smiles at others. For the first time, I was sharing hard moments: The rejection I felt from my family and community when I started talking about racism in America in 2016.