Australian mother helps adopted Vietnamese daughter find her family.

Australian mother helps adopted Vietnamese daughter find her family.

April 2000 

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Our journey with our adopted Vietnamese daughter Kiersten would never had started if it was not for our other adopted Taiwanese daughter Kartya.   She kicked and screamed and told the whole world for years that she wanted to find her mother. From the age of about 7 or 8 she always wanted to know her mother.

Out of sheer desperation in June 1998 we took her to Taiwan to save her life from years of drug abuse. We found her birthmother through an article in a newspaper. Her birthmother recognized her instantly from a photo of Kartya as a baby, even though her mother had no photo's of her, only her memory of the three month old baby taken away from her 18 years before. I had always told both our girls that a birthmother NEVER forgets her birthchild. Kartya was re-united with her birthmother and biological sister. It was a beautiful ending to Kartya's story and gave her a new beginning. She now has her life back and has a wonderful and happy future. 

Kiersten for most of her life hadn't been all that interested in searching her 'roots'. I guess because we always told her (because we were told) that it would be impossible to find her family as we had no idea who they were. When we found Kartya's mother, without knowing who she was, we thought that maybe it would be possible to do the same for Kiersten.  In April 200 we decided to go to Vietnam for the 25th anniversary. While we were there, we did a story for the Youth Newspaper, featuring a small photo of Kiersten as a baby. 

Three months after we returned to Australia we received a letter from Kiersten's Vietnamese grandfather. He had been to the market to buy some bread, it was wrapped in newspaper. When he got home and unwrapped the bread, the page it was wrapped in had Kiersten's story. He instantly recognized the baby as his lost first grandchild. He showed his wife, who promptly fainted and had to go to hospital. For 26 years, the whole

family had prayed every day to know what happened to their much loved grandchild. Grandfather carried a photo in his purse for 25 years, he sent us that photo. It was

our daughter. 

He told us his story. In 1972, his eldest child, Thanh Houng met and fell deeply in love with an American businessman called Karl William. Together they operated an import/export business. They very much wanted to have a child and the grandparents wanted a grandchild. In February 1973, Karl and Thanh Houng married. In November 1974 they had a daughter they named Karina William. Grandfather gave her the Vietnamese name Vu Kim Hang. The whole family adored the baby born with the white of one eye blue. 

In February 1975, when Karl and Thanh Houng went into Saigon shopping, leaving the baby with a nurse employed to help care for the baby, the nurse stole their money, jewelery and took the baby. The family searched frantically for their baby, but could not find her. Meanwhile, three weeks later Othmar, my husband was adopting Kiersten from a half-way-house in Gia Dinh, the next suburb away from Go Vap. In April 1975 Vietcong soldiers broke into the home of Karl and Thanh Houng, aressted them and took them away, they have not been seen since. 

Kiersten's family is the most beautiful, faith-filled precious family. Her nine aunts and uncles adored her. It was a very emotional occasion. Kiersten has photo's of her mother and father and of herself as a baby before we adopted her. She said that looking at the photo of her father was like looking at herself.  She

of him. Our search will continue into America to see if we can find out what happened to Karl and Thanh Houng and to find his relatives. Tears come to my eyes when I think of the pain of this family not knowing what happened to their loved ones. Grandfather and Grandmother told us that they will die in peace knowing that their much loved grandaughter survived. Finding them was a modern-day miracle. Love to you from adoptive mother, Nola Wunderle.