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Inspired by Mother's Day, Childless Couple Chart a New Direction
By JENNIFER ERICKSON
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| Les and Cynthia McKinzie will leave Laguna Beach after 30 years to start an orphanage in the Philippines. |
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Cynthia McKinzie emigrated from the Philippines to the United States when she was 15. She never looked back and had no desire to live there again. To any soul with the audacity to suggest it, particularly her husband or brother, she would recite her mantra: "I'm never going back. Don't ask me again." After all, her whole family had fledtheir homeland's poverty.
McKinzie and her husband, Les, 19-year Laguna Beach residents, had planned to retire in their adopted hometown, take up volunteerism and take it easy. But all that changed after Mother's Day in 2006.
And by May 11, Mother's Day of this year, 51-yearold McKinzie will abandon the life she's led for 35 years to move back to her native land and embrace her version of motherhood: running an orphanage. Les, a sales engineer for a telecom company, will stay behind, continuing to work and tying up loose ends. He hopes to rejoin his wife by year's end, along with their black Lab.
The McKinzies have poured their savings into building an orphanage for 20 children, infants to four-year-olds, their effort to stem a heartbreaking explosion of unwanted Filipino children.
Construction began in December 2007 on seven acres of land they purchased located on the Island of Luzon, about two hours southeast of the capital, Manila. They hope to fence the property and complete the main building by this December. In the meantime, they will set up temporarily in McKinzie's vacant family home, a two-story, four-bedroom house that should be able to accommodate up to 12 small charges.
McKinzie's turnabout came in an overnight epiphany, literally. "It was a calling," she said. "Whatever it was that hit me was so powerful!"
Previously a self-described "C and E" (Christmas and Easter) Catholic, McKinzie had felt something missing in her life and began to seek more spiritual fulfillment about four years ago. She found what she was looking for at the Kingsfield Church in Irvine, previously Laguna Calvary. For awhile, becoming active in the church, volunteering at the church's Second Chance thrift store in Laguna Beach, and supporting children in the Philippines satisfied her needs.
One of her brothers and her husband kept urging her they should go to the Philippines to "do more" for the children. "But my heart wasn't in it," she said.
The turning point was Mother's Day in 2006. After the sermon at church that day, the pastor asked mothers in the congregation to stand for recognition. McKinzie, who has no children of her own but has always felt a special connection to them, was deeply moved.
That night at 4 a.m. she awoke with unexpected clarity of purpose. "I think I know what to do with my life. We're going to the Philippines," she announced. While her husband was privy to the early hours revelation, she had the courtesy to wait until 6 a.m. to call her brother, Ed Cena.
"I was really shocked," recalled Cena, who admits at first he was skeptical of his sister's change of heart. But as he observed how her words became actions, he realized the transformation was real.
Organized and methodical, McKinzie immediately began the paperwork to establish a foundation, receiving nonprofit status for Beacon of Hope Orphanage Inc. from the Internal Revenue Service and the state of California by that November and from the Philippine government in less than a year. Such dispatch, and the determination of his sister who had hired an attorney to speed up the process, amazed Cena.
"Something happened to her," said Cena. When he accompanied McKinzie on an investigative trip back to their homeland that October he saw his usually reserved sister outgoing and purposeful. "The intensity of her desire to help was overwhelming," he said, adding, "I'm really impressed with my sister."
Before that trip, McKinzie, who will retire in May after working 30 years in information technology for AT&T, knew she "wanted to help children to have better lives," but she didn't know how.
The tour of an orphanage and a meeting with its director became a deciding factor in shaping the direction of the McKinzies' new endeavor. She had made up her mind.
In Naic, where McKinzie grew up and where construction of the orphanage is underway, economic distress is palpable. With a population that now overtaxes the local infrastructure, panhandling street urchins are legion, the visible expression of a town beset by unemployment, homelessness and a frightening increase in child abuse and abandonment.
The rates of fertility and maternal mortality among Filipino women are among the highest in Southeast Asia, according to the World Health Organization's web site.
To halt the worst consequences of such a trend, in January a Filipino lawmaker, Eduardo C. Zialcita, introduced the Safe Haven Act of 2007, that permits parents to entrust custody of infants younger than two months old to medical, social welfare or law enforcement offices.
In urging support for the measure, the lawmaker blamed the rising incidence of abortion and child abandonment on "eroding respect for the sanctity of marriage, and complications in family life and human sexuality brought by the globalization of our culture."
Whatever the cause, on a recent trip McKinzie faced the desperation of Filipino women first hand. On the street, a young pregnant woman near term offered to sell her unborn child for $40.
While the encounter served to underscore the dire circumstances, McKinzie is proceeding by the book, following regulations of the Philippine social welfare department that oversees domestic adoption and orphanage licensing. For foreign adoptions, the Philippine agency works with the Inter-Country Adoption Board, which in turn works with foreign adoption agencies.
Of the 20 most common countries where prospective American parents adopt children, the Philippines is tenth, with 271 adoptions, and China the most popular with 7,906, in 2005, the most recent figures available based on visas issued to orphans by the U.S. State Department.
Vicki Peterson, executive director of Wide Horizons for Children, a Waltham, Mass., adoption agency that specializes in overseas adoptions, says potential adopters choose one country typically because of a personal connection. Sometimes, they fail to meet a requirement in one country, or a child of the age they prefer is unavailable so they switch to another country, she said.
In addition to whatever fees prospective parents are required to pay the local agency assisting them, each country also has a program fee, ranging from the relatively low $9,000 in the Philippines to $15,000 in Ukraine.
"Most countries don't spend a lot of money on orphans and these fees are the way many countries are able to care for children who don't have parents," Peterson said.
Prospective parents also consider health and well-being when settling on a specific country. "Most of the children from the Philippines are actually in quite good shape," said Peterson, attributing this to generally well-run, often churchbased orphanages.
With any luck, Beacon of Hope Orphanage will soon join this group.
So far, the McKinzies are footing the initial $160,000 budget for the land and construction costs, though they have received some financial help from family, friends and church members.
Because she and her husband both work full time, McKinzie says they haven't had time for fundraising, nor do they have any expertise in cultivating prospective donors. "We are ordinary folks, but we are savers," she said. They intend to tap their pension and savings to start the orphanage, but envision self-sufficiency within two years, partially based on crops and animals raised on the surplus land. Even so, she recognizes that additional financial support will likely be necessary.
As is true of others who findthemselves passionate about a charitable endeavor, the McKinzies instinct is to help, not to ask for help.
Reluctance by those who start non-profitsto ask for help with operating costs is a common misstep, said Julie Holdaway, director of training and executive leadership at Volunteer Center Orange County, a resource center for nonprofits.
Before she takes in her first charge, McKinzie will undertake an internship at Aloha House in Palawan, the orphanage she first visited, and more training elsewhere. She will also have to hire a full-time social worker, who will coordinate with the local and regional social welfare authorities. In the interim, McKinzie will get a taste of motherhood, allowed to take in some children as a foster parent.
When she discusses her plans, the excitement in McKinzie's face is palpable. "We do not have reservations about the move to the Philippines," she said, "as we have found our purpose in life... to help the children."
What a difference a Mother's Day makes.
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