Faith in a foster family
By Christie Wilson
Neighbor Island Editor
WAILUKU, Maui — After adopting three sisters whose short lives had been tainted by severe abuse and neglect, Mika and Charlene Villaren of Wailuku knew that difficulties lay ahead.
Christie Wilson • The Honolulu Advertiser
What they didn't know was how quickly the girls would become rooted in their hearts.
Mika and Charlene Villaren are being honored for their devotion to the children they adopted: from left, Hope, 9, Justice, 5, and Jandy, 8, all of whom were in foster care. Saturdays are reserved for family outings, in which the Villarens take their three daughters hiking, camping or to the beach. On a recent Saturday, they enjoyed a visit to the Kahului Community Center.
"I didn't expect that I would love them so much, and the joy," Charlene Villaren said. "They're a part of me."
Unquestioning love, faith in God and the power of prayer sustained the Villarens as they stumbled naively through one segment of state bureaucracy after another in a fight to get their daughters the therapy they needed to overcome the trauma of their early years. It is a fight that continues to this day, and likely for the long run.
The Villarens and daughters Hope, 9, Jandy, 8, and Justice, 5, have been named Child and Family Service's 2001 'Ohana of the Year for overcoming "seemingly insurmountable odds to keep their family together through their own resiliency." They will be honored at a ceremony from noon to 1:30 p.m. Friday at Ala Moana Centerstage.
"We don't feel like we deserve it. This is what God has called us to do," said Charlene Villaren.
Along with devotion to their own family, the Villarens are being recognized for helping other parents facing similar challenges, according to Alda St. James, family development specialist on Maui for Child and Family Service, a long-established, statewide human services agency whose primary purpose is strengthening families and fostering the healthy development of children.
"They are totally remarkable. They have a tremendous faith and spiritual base in which they believe (that) if they are helping other people in their search for answers and for support and for love and help, they are more than willing to come forward and give everything they got," St. James said.
"They feel that way about their children: They leave no stone unturned."
Their story begins when Mika and Charlene Villaren, both 40, were traveling across the country on a four-month Youth With A Mission crusade in 1997, and one of the mission leaders asked them if they would consider adopting a child.
The Villarens, married 10 years, had given up trying to have children of their own after Charlene suffered a series of miscarriages. She said they had thought about adopting before, but had decided they weren't ready.
While on the crusade, they received information from the Crown Child Placement International adoption agency about adopting a child from China or Bulgaria. But that didn't appeal to the couple, so they put thoughts of adoption aside.
Then, about three weeks after returning to Maui, they got a letter from Crown about adopting a local child. This time, the Villarens were interested, and a Crown representative came to Maui in October 1997 with a four-inch-thick binder containing the photos of Hawai'i children in need of adoption.
Leafing through the binder was a "heart-breaking" exercise, Charlene Villaren said. "There were many different children, many different stories, many different tragic situations," she said.
The Villarens first had their eye on a baby boy, but then came upon photos of the three sisters who were in foster care on O'ahu.
"I totally knew right away the first time I saw their photos," Mika Villaren said. "I just wanted to take them all one time."
Child welfare officials had been trying to find the girls a permanent home together for two years, but were running out of time. The Villarens were told that if Hope, Jandy and Justice weren't adopted by December, they would be split up and offered for adoption individually.
The Villarens couldn't stand the thought of the girls being separated, but they also realized what a huge responsibility the three children would be and the special care they needed. Hope and Jandy had been in and out of foster care most of their lives, and little Justice was placed in foster care at birth.
Charlene had doubts. "My husband knew it was God's will for us to adopt these children, but I wasn't so sure," she said. "After three days of being spiritually sick and being separated from God and feeling empty, I got down on my hands and knees and prayed, and was flooded with joy and peace. Once I surrendered by own will, I knew it was God's will to take them in."
The girls came to live with the Villarens in January 1998, and the adoption became official Sept. 11 that same year.
The Villarens were unprepared for what came next, as they joined the ranks of frustrated Maui families who are unable to get adequate mental health treatment for their children.
The girls came with no instructions, no therapy plan in place — only a list of six mental health professionals on Maui who serve children. Charlene said she called all six, but they were either not taking new clients or were no longer in practice.
The Villarens said they also did not have complete information on the extent of the abuse they had suffered. Although parents who adopt children in foster care usually are provided with some background from child welfare officials, not all the details are released because of confidentiality concerns, said a Department of Human Services spokeswoman.
When they were advised by the girls' former therapist on O'ahu to try to get help through the public schools' special education system, that, too, proved difficult. Despite their fragile psychological and emotional state, the girls were doing well academically at Waihe'e Elementary School and didn't fit the usual profile of a student in need of special education services.
Most troubling for the Villarens was the unavailability of specialized treatment for Hope, the oldest of the sisters and the most affected by their tragic childhood. Charlene said it took two visits to court to get a judge to order state agencies to work together to address this deficiency, but there is still a long road ahead.
"Unless you have dealt with the system, you have no idea what it's like," she said.
Still, the girls have come a long way since finding a new, loving home with the Villarens.
Justice, 2 years old at the time she was adopted, did not talk and had been receiving speech therapy. "But as soon as she knew she had a family that loved her, she started speaking in complete sentences, just like that," Charlene said.
Jandy cried all the time, suffered night terrors and was destructive around the house. Her behavior was so troubling the Villarens at first suspected she was retarded. But her mother said the problems subsided once Jandy had time to settle into a stable environment with her new family.
Hope, on the other hand, was "the perfect child" for the first month before she began exhibiting the deep-rooted effects of the abuse she had experienced, her mother said. Unable to get appropriate treatment for the three years she has been with the Villarens, her emotional and behavioral problems have persisted.
Her parents are encouraged by a new Kapi'olani Medical Center program being offered through Child and Family Service on Maui that will provide the kind of individual and family counseling they have been seeking.
The Villarens are involved in other Child and Family Service programs, including a Post-Permanency Support Group for adoptive parents and legal guardians, where they quickly became a touchstone for other parents struggling with the same frustrations.
"Charlene's really not involved just for herself and her family, but also is supporting other parents going through similar issues," St. James said.
The couple also enrolled in Child and Family Service's Home Reach, which brings services to their home, and PRIDE (Parents Resource for Information, Development and Education), which provided 27 hours of training so the Villarens could become licensed foster parents.
Charlene said they felt the training would give the couple valuable skills for helping their daughters and put them in contact with others who were dealing "system kids" — children who had been in foster care.
"We would do anything to help these kids," she said.
"With all the problems we've had with the system, the joy of being a family outweighs everything else. It's a lot of work, but having them has been a blessing more than anything else," Charlene said. "No way we could have done it without God in our lives. The joy of the Lord is our strength."
The Villarens run their own business, Niu Creations, demonstrating coconut-frond weaving and selling baskets to tourists on cruise ships and at hotels. The nature of their business allows Mika and Charlene flexibility and the opportunity to take their daughters with them when they work.
Charlene has cut back the number of hours she works to spend more time with her daughters and to advocate for their well-being.
She leads the children in daily morning devotionals that include prayer, Bible readings and songs. After school and homework, Charlene tries to spend one-on-one time with the girls. In the evening after dinner, there is time for foosball, card games or just horsing around before bedtime reading.
The Villarens don't have cable TV and limit viewing to public television programs and videos.
Saturdays are for family outings, when the Villarens take their daughters hiking, camping, to the beach or to community events. Like most children, the girls are playful and love to laugh, sing, and enjoy sports such as aikido, swimming and outrigger canoe paddling.
Their father said each has a spiritual gift: Justice, a little sprite with big dimples, loves to sing, and Jandy "is our prayer warrior; she's always praying," Mika Villaren said. "Hope is bold; she tells everyone about Jesus."
The couple offered advice for other parents adopting children who have been in the foster-care system: Seek the support of other foster parents, get all the records, hire a lawyer and, finally, "trust in the Lord with all your heart. He can get you through anything."
Even with the challenges they have overcome and the ones ahead, the Villarens said at some point they would like to adopt or provide foster care to one or two more children.
"We have enough room in our house and in our hearts," Charlene Villaren said.
Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.
