13-year-old has two fathers and an Olympics dream [-Way to go Jordan Pisey! Hope to see you wearing a gold medal in 2016!!!]

My dad holding me at the orphanage. The picture of him around my neck was brought by another family 3 months before my dad came. It was so I would know him when we met! (All Photos: http://www.jordanwindle.com)

My family picture! Dad, me, and Papi.

Diving synchro 3 meter springboard at the 2011 USA Diving Winter National Championships.

May. 31, 2012
Written by Neal Taflinger
IndyStar.com

Jordan Pisey Windle is used to being the center of attention.

He has been the focus of his father's life since the day in 2000 when Jerry Windle retrieved him from a Cambodian orphanage.

He has been turning heads for the past five years as a diving phenom, the youngest ever to qualify for the U.S. Olympic diving trials.

And all eyes will be on him June 9 when he serves as grand marshal for the Circle City IN Pride Parade, an annual celebration of Central Indiana's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

The young athlete's decision to accept the parade invitation -- and the fact that he has two fathers -- is sure to raise eyebrows. But what other people think isn't of concern to the 13-year-old. He views the world so unself-consciously that when asked if he ever gets tired of people questioning him about his origins and his family, he simply shrugged. "I've never actually thought about it."

US Soccer player Davy Armstrong is half-Cambodian

Davy Armstrong

15 MINUTES: A Pro not far from home

Davy Armstrong, a former striker for Rangeview High School, reflects on life with the Colorado Rapids

Thursday, June 2, 2011
By COURTNEY OAKES
The Aurora Sentinel (Colorado, USA)

Davy Armstrong, at 19, is Aurora’s youngest professional athlete, having signed a contract with the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer just a few weeks after graduating from Rangeview High School.

An All-American striker in four varsity seasons with the Raiders, Armstrong had a scholarship offer on the table to play at the University of Washington. Instead, he accepted the chance with the Rapids, who made him their first hometown signee after he worked his way through their developmental academy. Armstrong didn’t see any game action with Colorado last season, but he was with the team when it won the franchise’s first MLS Cup Championship last November.

Armstrong — who has a brother who also played at Rangeview and two sisters — has Cambodian roots as his father, Ri, came to the United States as a boy by way of adoption and made the U.S. ski team for the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y. Davy Armstrong grew up on the family’s 2 1/2-acre plot of farmland on the northeast edge of Aurora, working on his soccer skills and helping tend to animals.

Adopted from Cambodia, Clearwater teen now impresses on the piano

Chance Nye, 13, performs Thursday for the Just Teens program that will showcase his talents on Pinellas County School TV 14.

Saturday, January 1, 2011
By Andrew Ford
St Petersburg Times Correspondent (Florida, USA)

CLEARWATER — Chance Nye casually improvised on a grand piano.

The 13-year-old fluidly moved among popular melodies like Flight of the Bumblebee and ABC by the Jackson Five.

He has come a long way from Cambodia, where he was born, to play for a television segment called Fingers of Nye on the Just Teens program that will showcase his talents on Pinellas County School TV 14. Dates and times of the broadcast have not been set.

About 40 people showed up Thursday afternoon for the taping, which took place at La Grande Hall at Piano Distributors in Clearwater.

Chance was adopted when he was 4 months old in 1997 by Destiny Masters, 50.

"The minute I laid eyes on him, I knew it was meant to be," she said of her adopted son.

She is raising Chance with her husband, Steve Masters, whom she met in 2002. They live in Wesley Chapel.

At age 2, Chance started fooling around with an organ owned by Destiny Masters' godfather. By the time he was 5, he could play the Rugrats television theme song.

As he warmed up on stage Thursday, his mother said, "I get to listen to this all the time. It's great until dad wants to watch football."

Chance performed several pieces, including Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C sharp minor and a medley containing River Flows in You. As his friends urged him to play something they would recognize, he did the theme from the video game Modern Warfare 2.

Chance has some classical music on his iPod, but much of it is rap and hip-hop, featuring artists like Jay-Z and Lil Wayne. BedRock is one of Chance's favorite songs.

During the performance, the camera man moved around the pianist, shooting from many different angles. Afterward, Chance said it was "a little distracting, but not too much."

Teen Tyme Productions was responsible for putting on the event. The nonprofit organization works to create positive programming for teens and relies on viewer contributions.

Stacey Spencer, 42, founded the production company 13 years ago in Louisville, Ky. The company moved to Largo four years ago. She started Teen Tyme to spread a positive message.

"I believe that music, movement and the arts are all too often forgotten," she said.

Cambodian Odyssey: Salem girl, adopted as baby, to get her first glimpse of homeland

Jean Monahan, left, and her adopted daughter, Lilah, are leaving on Christmas Day for Lilah's first trip to her native country, Cambodia. (Photo: Ken Yuszkus)

December 21, 2010
By Amanda McGregor
STAFF WRITER
The Salem News ( Massachusetts, USA)

For the first time since her adoption, Lilah Monahan is returning to her native Cambodia.

She and her mother, Jean, will embark on Christmas Day for a two-week trip arranged through The Ties Program, which offers homeland tours specifically for children who have been adopted overseas.

Their itinerary includes a visit to the Angkor Wat temple and other famous cultural sites, as well as the orphanage where Salem resident Jean Monahan adopted her baby daughter 91/2 years ago.

They also plan to visit with the nanny who cared for her there.

Lilah, 10, and her mother are busy getting ready for their trip and bracing for a 14-hour journey from California to Taipei on Christmas Day. Then it's two hours to Phnom Penh, the capital and largest city in Cambodia.

"We've been thinking about it for a long time," Jean Monahan said of the trip. "It's good to do it at this age when she's still excited and curious about everything."

Lilah is thrilled about the trip.

"It means a lot to me because that's where I was born," said Lilah, who is in fifth grade at Bates School in Salem. "I feel special about that place. I would like to see where I was born and just see the culture."

That cultural connection will include a visit to the Floating Village at Tonle Sap Lake, a silk farm and a school. They'll spend some time on the coast.

And, of course, "we're going to be in the jungle where Angkor Wat is, which is basically one of the wonders of the world," Monahan said.

"I'm excited to see the Floating village and to ride an elephant," Lilah said.

A highlight of the trip will be their visit to the orphanage in Kampong Spoe where Lilah and Monahan were united.

Jean Monahan is a single mother, and she was 41 when she adopted Lilah. It was an eight-month process, and Jean and her mother traveled to Cambodia in May 2001 for the adoption.

Monahan said it has been important for her and her daughter to learn about Cambodian culture and traditions, and there are large Cambodian communities in Lynn and Lowell so they can take part in local activities.

"There are several families in this area we know who have adopted from Cambodia," she said. "We're lucky living here."

Every summer, they travel to Colorado for a heritage camp for Cambodian families in America.

"We do arts and crafts about Cambodia," Lilah said, "and we learn the culture and dances, and we eat Cambodian food and there's a big party at the end."

"It's a wonderful culture and there is this really strong social focus," said Monahan, 51, who works as a webmaster at North Shore Medical Center in Salem. "I had done a lot of travel and lived in China for a year, but I didn't know about Cambodian culture, so that was a whole plus to the huge adventure."

They will be among about 15 adoptive families on the trip, and they will also travel to a rural school for which the American families have raised donations.

"They (The Ties Program) do a nice job of providing a rich and thoughtful experience," Monahan said. "And the children know they'll see some pretty profound poverty and people injured by the war."

Lilah said her friends at school have taken an interest in her trip, and she plans to give a presentation when she returns.

"They think it's amazing that I'm going so far," Lilah said, "and they want me to bring back different stuff to show them."

Lilah loves learning about Cambodian culture. She also plays the piano, takes African dance and hip-hop dance classes at the Boys & Girls Club, and enjoys science — her favorite subject in school.

Sometimes people ask her if she is adopted, particularly younger kids, she said.

"Sometimes they say, 'I feel bad for you,'" Lilah said, "but it doesn't make anything else different. I still have a mom, and I still have people who take care of me, just like everyone else."

"We're fortunate to live in a world where it's so common," her mother said. "We have many, many friends who have adopted."

Staff writer Amanda McGregor can be reached at amcgregor@salemnews.com.

Sadi Thann first Cambodian Miss. Massachusetts contestant: Good Luck, Sadi! We are VERY proud of you!

Courtesy Sadi Thann

UMass senior Sadi Thann first Cambodian Miss. Massachusetts contestant

November 11, 2010
By Simone Shenney
DailyCollegian.com (U. Mass., USA)

As most college students do, Sadi Thann was struggling to find ways to pay for college. One day in early September, Thann was researching scholarships and found herself looking into the Miss Universe Pageant.

Before long, Thann was accepted. The 21-year-old University of Massachusetts senior will compete in the 2011 Miss Massachusetts Pageant on Nov. 26-28 at Lowell Memorial Auditorium as the first 100 percent Cambodian woman, and the first ever UMass student, to compete in the pageant.

“I was having a bad day, and I realized there were very few Cambodians in the pageant. It’s time for one of us to be in it,” said Thann.

The primary application was simple, requiring a headshot or photo. “There are a lot of myths of who can’t be in a pageant; for example, you have to be tall, ten out of ten in a bathing suit, or a certain age and weight. Pageants rate you on who you are as an overall woman,” Thann said.

Eva Longoria started her career in a pageant and is only 5’1’’, Thann noted.

Thann was born in Cambodia and was rescued from a refugee camp in Thailand when she was just an infant. She eventually found a home in Amherst, Mass. where her adoptive parents live.

The pageant will be held in Lowell, Mass., which happens to have the second largest Cambodian population in the country.

The first day of the competition is the interview. The judges learn about the success and talents of the delegates, and focus on the women’s poise and communication.

The second day is the swimsuit competition. The judges focus on self-confidence and the beauty of the women’s face, body and overall physical fitness.

The third and final day is the evening gown competition. The women choose a gown, and the judges focus on the ladies’ self-confidence and the beauty they bring forth. Overall, the judges will be looking for women who can be role models and learn from a year in a position of leadership.

In the time leading up to the pageant Thann has a lot of preparing to do. She hired a personal trainer to get in shape and has made appointments with pageant “gurus.”

Some of Thann’s interests are dancing, fishing, camping, hiking and knitting. Thann volunteered at the Survival Center in Amherst and the Series Community Center. She is also part of Project 2050 and has been since age 11. She was also a dancer on her high school dance team.

Currently, she is involved in the Cambodian Students Association and will be participating in community service activities leading up to the pageant. If she were to be crowned, there would be a lot more charity work to do. She would have to take a semester off and she would also move onto the Miss USA pageant.

Thann’s two sponsors for the pageant are bastardfishing.com and Hypnosis Works.

A legal studies major as well as BDIC for Class, Gender and Sexuality, Thann wants to become a professor – but if she is successful in the pageant, she said that she might pursue a career as a television hostess.

Thann, who has no prior background in pageants, plans to compete again if she does not make it this time.

Simone Shenny can be reached at sshenny@student.umass.edu.

8-year-old [adopted Cambodian child] cuts hair for Locks of Love

Little Maddie Anglim's story is an inspirational story about the selfless act of giving.

Thursday, April 01, 2010
By Krystal Whitman
NBC 25 (Mid Michigan, USA)

FENTON -- It took little Madeline (Maddie) Mettler-Anglim of Fenton almost 3 years to grow her hair, but only a few seconds to cut it off.

"It was getting longer and longer but I think it was the final push after Ellen passed away," said Maddie’s mother, Ann Anglim.

Maddie originally came to America after her parents Ann and Ellen adopted her from Cambodia.

“They wanted to adopt a Cambodian child because Ann’s dad was in Vietnam and was killed in Vietnam and he would work with the orphans there, so it was really kind of important for her," said Kathy Arnould.

Maddie witnessed her mother Ellen’s battle to cancer.

"I think because of her mom Ellen several times during her 8 or 9 years however long it was, she had lost all her hair and that's a traumatic thing, and she knows stories about kids taking chemo and this is something she wanted to do for a kid," Arnould

Donating her hair to the Locks of Love organization was Maddie's way of making her mother proud.

"It makes me feel really good because my mom would always say, if you work really hard you can make a difference," Maddie said.

It means the world to Maddie to know that she has given the gift of hair to some little girl.

The Holes in My Heart [-The story of a courageous Cambodian girl]

By Lea S., N. Merrick, NY
Teen Ink Magazine (USA)
Non-fiction story

As a child in Cambodia, life was difficult. It went from bad to worse when my mother got sick. As usual, my father left us and went someplace else. I hardly ever saw him. I loved my ­father and maybe I still do. He wasn’t a nice man, though. He used to hit us, especially my mom. I never knew what we did wrong. Maybe the alcohol took over his mind.

One time after he left, I overheard people talking about how he had fallen in love and gotten married all over again. I never saw him after that.

Meanwhile, my poor mother’s heart was slowly melting. She was paralyzed because my dad hit her so much. She couldn’t move half of her body. So, at the age of six, I took care of her and my two brothers and sister. We had no money and lived in a very rural area without electricity and water. I had to cook, clean, beg for rice, and be the mother of the family. I rarely went to school.

I think my mom had seen me suffer enough. I’d had enough too! So, to make things easier, my mom sent my sister and one of my brothers to live with relatives in another village. People in Cambodia often take care of relatives’ children. I missed them but knew they were being cared for. I was the oldest, so I stayed; my mother needed me to take care of her and my baby brother, Long.

For a while it was just Long, my mother, and I. But then my brother, who was less than a year old, was very sick and skinny. One day I came home and Long wasn’t there. My mom said she had given him away to someone who said they could take care of him. He wasn’t coming back.

I was sad and confused but didn’t ask too many questions. I knew it must have been difficult for her, and we had no money for food or doctors to help Long. We didn’t know where he had gone, but my mom trusted the stranger who took him away, and hoped – we both hoped – that he would be safe and healthy.

My mom and I went on with our lives. We loved each other very much, but we suffered silently day ­after day. We were still struggling with hardly any money or food, and we missed Long terribly but ­never talked about him.

One afternoon, about a year after Long left, we ­received some good news. A man from the city came to our village and told us that a family in the United States had adopted my baby brother. He showed us pictures. My brother, now named Shane, was smiling, wearing nice clothes, and looking very healthy. Even though we missed him and life was hard for us, my mom and I were so happy to know that my brother was okay.

My peace did not last long. One night I had a horrible dream that my mom left me. I was crying and I couldn’t stop. I cried for such a long time that I woke my mother. I told her what I had dreamt. She said that she would never leave me.

Weeks passed, and then my nightmare came true. My mother died of a stroke. I blame my dad because of the injuries he gave her. Thinking about it now, I hate him.

I wish I could have done something. But when I saw my mother collapse, time passed so quickly I didn’t know what to do. I was only eight! The day my mother died, I didn’t cry because I didn’t know what death was. I did cry when they buried her. I knew at that moment that I would never see her again.

After my mother died, one of my aunts took me in. She was very poor, just like my mother. She was mean, and I think she was mad that she had to take care of me, but I had nowhere else to go.

One day the man who had brought the pictures of my baby brother came to visit again. It had taken him a long time to find us because I had moved. He was sad to hear that my mother had died. Then he gave me new clothes, a doll, and more pictures of my brother. My aunt asked him if the family who adopted my brother would want to adopt me too. The man turned to me and asked if I wanted to go live with my brother in the United States. Even though I didn’t know what to expect, I said yes. He said he would find out if it was possible. I waited for what seemed like forever. I started to think that maybe the American family did not want me.

But that wasn’t the case.

About a year later, the Americans who had adopted my brother finally came for me. As I now know, there is a lot of paperwork involved with adoption. They had to get permission from my family, the Cambodian government, and the United States government before they could come to get me.

The first time I saw my new parents was in a hotel lobby. I told the translator that they had long noses. I didn’t know I was being rude; I just wasn’t used to seeing Caucasian people. I was really nervous around them. I think they were nervous too. I didn’t smile until we went to the hotel room and my new mom showed me the clothes she had brought me. My face lit up fast! We didn’t talk much because I didn’t know how to speak English, but she made flash cards with pictures to help us communicate.

The day we left Cambodia I was filled with emotions. I was eager, worried, upset, and confused because I didn’t know where we were going and I had never been on a plane before. All I remember about my trip was that I threw up for most of the 21-hour flight. It was like the plane was a gigantic sickening machine. It felt as though the trip would never end.

When we landed in the United States I was so ­happy. After we waited in a bunch of lines, we walked out of the airport. The air was a lot colder than in Cambodia. In the distance, I saw a strange man waving at us. He looked excited and happy. I ­also saw a little boy next to him. I knew immediately it was my brother. I didn’t act excited to see him ­because I was still feeling so sick from the plane, but I was really thrilled.

My new grandpa drove us to my new home. In the car I looked out the window and saw strange yet beautiful houses. I kept peeking at my brother. He was now three years old and looked so clean and healthy compared to the last time I had seen him. At that moment I knew that I was going to be happy again.

And that is where I am now. The nightmares have ended because of two wonderful people who adopted my brother Shane and me. Adjusting to life in the United States wasn’t easy, but getting adopted is the most beautiful feeling. Even though we are not related by blood, I knew from that first day that my dad and mom cared about me very much. They filled up all the holes in my heart.

This piece has also been published in Teen Ink's monthly magazine.

7-year-old's photos to help develop funds for Cambodia

Kalliyan Srey-Ry Lagger holds one of her photos as mom Deb Lagger and sister Hannah Khim Lagger, 8, lend support. Kalliyan’s photos will be on display at Garden Smiles in Waterville. (THE BLADE/LORI KING )

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
By JC REINDL
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Toledo Blade (Toledo, Ohio, USA)

Seven-year-old Kalliyan Srey-Ry Lagger rifled through a box of photos on the kitchen table, plucking out the most radiant prints of the bunch.

"I like the color on this one. And I like the color on this one too," Kalliyan said, holding the close-up of a pink rose, its shiny petals dotted with beads of water. "I try to get the camera in the right place where I want it to be."

Gathered by the side of the talented young photographer were her adoptive mother, Deb Lagger, and her sister, Hannah Khim Lagger. Hannah is 8 years old and, like Kalliyan, was adopted as a baby from an orphanage in Cambodia by Ms. Lagger and her partner. The family makes its home in Lambertville.

Mother and daughters last week were making preparations to put Kalliyan's photos on display and on sale at the shop of George and Deb Carruth, Garden Smiles, in Waterville. The photos go up today with the plan to send half of the sales' proceeds to a recently opened English language and career-training center in Battambang, Cambodia, that was named for both girls.

The center was the latest result of a partnership involving Ms. Lagger's employer, Goodwill Industries of Northwest Ohio, along with Goodwill Industries International and the Cambodian-based nonprofit, Digital Divide Data. Ms. Lagger is director of work force development.

The rest of the proceeds are to go to Kalliyan's college fund. She and Hannah attend Monroe Road Elementary School, where Betsy Doyle taught them both for second grade.

Mrs. Doyle's class last year decorated water bottles and sold them at school to raise more than $100 that went to building a drinking well for Cambodian villagers. This year her class plans to sell bookmarks to raise funds to buy maps and globes for Cambodians learning English. Ms. Lagger visits the girls' classes to talk about life in Cambodia, a developing Southeast Asian nation of 14 million people where much of the population lives in poverty by Western standards.

"It's really neat to see the kids become aware of something beyond their own little world," Mrs. Doyle said.

Ms. Lagger said her interests in Cambodia grew as she learned about the country's history. She and her partner had been considering adoption, and in 2000 they worked through the World Child International Adoption Agency to adopt Hannah from an orphanage in Phnom Penh, the country's capital and largest city.

The trip to pick up Hannah was Ms. Lagger's first visit to Cambodia. She since has made three additional visits, each leaving indelible impressions.

"It's unimaginable poverty. I mean absolutely unimaginable poverty," Ms. Lagger said. "You know the little scooters we have here? You'll see a family of six or seven on those scooters. It's unbelievable.

"From our first trip there, I committed myself. I was just going to do whatever I could do to give back to the Cambodians for trusting me to take care of one of their children."

Ms. Lagger returned the next year to adopt 14-month-old Kalliyan from a rural Pursat orphanage. All that was known about Kalliyan's biological family was she had been the youngest child of parents who died. The adoption process for both girls involved lots of paperwork and took about five months, she said.

The Cambodian people have only recently begun to recover from decades of violence and unrest. After gaining independence from France in 1953, Cambodia experienced a military coup in 1970 and a period of civil war. The country was bombed and briefly invaded during the Vietnam war by U.S. forces hunting down Viet Cong.

In 1975, communist Khmer Rouge rebels captured Phnom Penh and forced the evacuation of all cities and towns in their attempt to transform Cambodia into an agrarian society.

More than 1.5 million Cambodians eventually would die from starvation, killings, and forced hardships under the regime's Pol Pot leader. These events were depicted in the Academy Award-winning film, The Killing Fields.

A Vietnamese invasion in 1978 then led to occupation and nearly 13 years of civil war. Cambodia has been under a relatively stable constitutional monarchy for the last decade and today has a fast-growing economy.

Ms. Lagger said she did not encounter much anti-American sentiment during her visits. Instead the Cambodians seemed to offer encouragement as they saw her, a white woman, cradling an Asian baby. She recalled a passer-by on the street saying, "Lucky baby. Lucky baby."

"They're grateful to Americans for adopting their children," Ms. Lagger said. "And we kept trying to tell them, 'We're the lucky parents. We're the lucky ones.'•"

Hannah and Kalliyan are aware of the circumstances of their birth.

But while Ms. Lagger makes occasional visits to Cambodia for her job, she isn't sure whether the girls are ready to experience firsthand the rough-and-tumble lives many Cambodians still live and then make the inevitable comparisons to their own lives here in the U.S.

"Maybe when they're teenagers," she said.

Kalliyan will be signing her photos from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Garden Smiles.

Contact JC Reindl at:
jreindl@theblade.com
or 419-724-6065.

Kolboth Boemer, the next US Olympic gymnast?

Kolboth Boehmer examines a table full of his gymnastics medals and trophies as he tries to decide which one is his favorite. Boehmer, 10, began gymnastics three years ago. (Photo by Jeremiah Tucker / Sauk Prairie Eagle)

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
By Jeremiah Tucker
Sauk Prairie Eagle (Wisconsin, USA)

Kolboth Boehmer, 10, suspended himself between a long table and the tall back of the chair his mother currently occupied.

Absentmindedly, he began to swing his legs back and forth as if he were giving a particularly unenthusiastic routine on rings at a gymnastics meet.

"He used to climb all over the woodwork," his father, Alan Boehmer, said. "He'd do pull-ups off that door over there," said mother Sarah Boehmer, pointing to the other room where Kolboth's older sister, Lisa, was hanging out.

"The little band off the woodwork over the door, he'd do pull-ups with the tips of his fingers," she said.

Kolboth, seemingly bored hearing about himself, continued to swing. Legs together, toes pointed, he had more poise than the boy-monkey picture his parents painted of his toddler years, but it was clear he still possessed the same pent-up energy.

Both his energy and poise have served him well as a gymnast.

Last month, Kolboth took second place on high bar in the Region Four Championships of the United States Junior Olympics Gymnastics.

"That's a giant, giant thing for him," said Kolboth's coach Brian Struebin. "That's huge."

Kolboth and his teammates from the Junior Olympic Gymnastics program at the CSA (Creative School of Arts) gym in Janesville competed against other gymnastics teams from Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska.

In the boy's Junior Olympic program, gymnasts compete at skill levels from one to 10. Kolboth's level five team took second place overall at regionals, missing first place by one point, Struebin said.

Based on his performance at regionals, where he competed in high bar, floor, vault and pummel horse, Struebin promoted Kolboth to a level six gymnast, meaning next season he'll have to perform more difficult routines.

His mom almost can't believe how much he has changed physically since he began gymnastics three years ago.

She said he has more muscle and stronger abs, an observation that appeared to embarrass Kolboth, who was now fidgeting on the couch.

Kolboth refused to speculate if he was in better shape than his classmates in the fourth grade class at St. Aloysius Catholic School, but when pressed, he said he could do around 130 push-ups in one go.

Struebin said Kolboth may not realize it, but he's probably been doing closer to 300 push-ups in practice.

Even more remarkable is how far Kolboth has come from the state his parents found him in when they adopted him eight years ago from an orphanage in Cambodia, just before his second birthday.

"He had terribly crooked legs," Sarah Boehmer said. "They thought he may have permanent damage from rickets."

His parents said he was malnourished with bowed legs walking around pigeon-toed, his distended belly bulging outward.

His nickname at his orphanage was The Boy Who Never Smiled.

The first time his parents said they saw him smile was when they placed a heaping portion of fried rice with shrimp in front of him.

"He looked in the wok, looked up at us, looked in the wok again, then looked at us and he just smiled," Sarah said.

Kolboth said he doesn't remember anything about his life in Cambodia.

Sarah, who is a nurse at Dean Healthcare, and Alan, who runs his own interior design business out of their home, also adopted Kolboth's sister Lisa from southern China.

They drive Kolboth the two-hours round trip to and from Janesville four times a week for physicall demanding practices while Kolboth sits in the backseat either doing homework or playing his Nintendo DS because, they said, Kolboth has a strong desire to compete in gymnastics.

"The youngest you can be in the Olympics is 18," Kolboth said, indicating how far he hopes to advance int he sport.

"No, it's 16," his mom said.

"Oh yeah, I always get that mixed-up," Kolboth said.

When asked why he continues to want to make such a time commitment -- he also plays soccer -- when most kids his age are content playing sports on the Wii, Kolboth said, "I don't know."

Then he laughed. Pressed further about his love of gymnastics, he admitted, "I like spinning, jumping and running."

But the best thing about gymnastics?

"Medals," Kolboth said.

Adoptive parents of Cambodian children forge a bond

Sophina Haubold, 6, of Malvern, gets a push from her father, Gary, at East Goshen Park. Hers is oneof about 25 families in the group Southeastern Pennsylvania Families With Cambodian Children. (Photo: CLEM MURRAY / Inquirer Staff Photographer)
Bonna Neang Weinstein will open her Khmer Art Gallery, at 319 N. 11th St. in Philadelphia, on Friday night for a New Year celebration for local families with Cambodian children.

Wed, Apr. 16, 2008
By Jeff Gammage
The Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer (Pennsylvania, USA)

Six years ago, two suburban women met at a typically suburban get-together, a Little People's Music class where both had enrolled their toddlers.

Joan Blair and Bonna Neang Weinstein immediately saw they had more in common than notes and lyrics.

Weinstein is a daughter of Cambodia, a survivor of the 1970s genocide known as the Killing Fields. And Blair has a daughter, Veata, adopted from that war-ravaged Southeast Asian land.

"I thought, 'This is great, but how is she going to keep this little girl interested in her heritage?' " Weinstein said of that day in Elkins Park.

Today, Weinstein, 43, runs the Khmer Art Gallery, just north of Chinatown, a venue alive with the majesty and mystery of ancient Cambodia. On Friday, Blair, 54, and 8-year-old Veata will be among the guests at a grand Cambodian New Year celebration featuring authentic music, dance and food.

Everyone is invited, but Weinstein has issued a special invitation to Cambodian adoptees, for she feels she understands their quandary. Though the United States is her adored, adopted country, "there's still that missing part."

Veata and her young peers occupy an unusual station, even within the complicated world of international adoption. Cambodia opened to American families in the 1990s but closed in 2001 amid allegations of child trafficking, without completing many adoptions in between.

Only about 1,755 Cambodian adoptees live in the United States - children bound by ethnicity and divided by geography. Their coterie is the opposite of the big communities surrounding children adopted from Guatemala, Russia and world leader China, who come by the thousands each year. Because the Cambodian children arrived in the same short span, they have no older generation of role models, and no new arrivals behind.

Four years ago, Denise Glennon of Malvern started Southeastern Pennsylvania Families With Cambodian Children. Her goal "was for my child to know other Cambodian children," she said. "There are so few, particularly in the suburbs."

Today, at the group's events, she notices that all the children are about the same age. "Our group is going to keep going," she said, "but it is heartbreaking."

Children adopted from China have a vibrant community centered on 67,000 children. Almost every big city has a chapter of Families With Children From China, a support and education group.

More than 400 families belong to chapters in South Jersey and the Philadelphia area, where they take part in midautumn celebrations, Mandarin lessons, calligraphy classes, cooking, music and book clubs.

By comparison, the Cambodian children's group has about 25 families. People come from as far as Gettysburg and Rochester, N.Y., for the annual summer picnic.

"Everyone wants this," Glennon said. "They want their children to feel like they're part of, not really a community, because the kids don't know each other that well, but that they're from a very special place."

Glennon and her husband, Gary Haubold, have three daughters from China and one from Cambodia. Sophina, 6, has enormous interest in her Cambodian homeland, but "truthfully," Glennon said, "it's confusing. 'How can I be from there when I'm your daughter?' It's a lot to think about."

And that's before Glennon tries to explain the homicidal reign of the Khmer Rouge, a subject Weinstein knows too well. She was not even a teenager in 1975 when the regime seized Cambodia and began the holocaust of the Killing Fields.

Government workers, scholars and professionals were executed; others were starved and beaten in labor camps. An estimated 1.5 million died.

Weinstein, confined apart from her father and brother, recalled being ordered to dig a retention pond - during the dry season. She was sure she was digging her grave.

Her father escaped to Thailand, and in 1979, after the Vietnamese invaded and drove off the Khmer Rouge, she and her brother made their way there, too. She emigrated to the United States in 1984 and lives in Abington.

Today, many of her countrymen dwell in soul-shocking poverty, in villages where land mines continue to kill and maim. It was desperate, postwar poverty that drove adoptions in the late 1990s.

"The birth parents are very, very poor," said Harriet Brener of Jenkintown, mother of a Cambodian daughter, Mya, 8. For some parents, baby formula is an unaffordable luxury, said Brener, who previously worked helping people adopt from Cambodia. Forced to choose among hungry mouths, they may leave a child at an orphanage.

Cambodian adoptions peaked at 402 in 2000. The next year, amid alarming reports of child trafficking, the U.S. government suspended adoptions. Two Americans who ran a Seattle adoption agency later pleaded guilty to criminal charges, admitting to a scheme in which children were taken from families and represented as orphans on immigration papers.

Advocates say the ban punishes the innocent, with estimates of parentless Cambodian children reaching several hundred thousand. It's unknown when or whether adoptions might resume.

Meanwhile, the American parents of Cambodian children seek community where they can find it.

"There aren't that many of us," said Judy Haupt of Exton, whose 10-year-old daughter, Sophia, attends a Cambodian classical dance class in South Philadelphia.

Blair and her partner, Nancy Kraybill of Elkins Park, take Veata to the same class, trying to provide a tie to Cambodia - an effort that is by turns embraced and rejected. Some days, Blair said, Veata is eager to get to class. Other times, engulfed by the culture around her, she's more interested in High School Musical.

Weinstein wants her Khmer Gallery, in a renovated warehouse basement on North 11th Street, to be a place where Cambodian children feel welcome. She's planning music and language classes.

Walking into the gallery is like stepping into a movie, perhaps Raiders of the Lost Ark, with intricate stone carvings filling room after room. Life-size wooden Buddhas keep watch over smaller deities. Behind a curtain, a windowless room holds beautiful, unsettling art, a memorial to the Killing Fields.

"I live, breathe, sleep and eat culture," Weinstein said. "And Cambodia is not just culture, it's identity."
-----------
If You Go

What: Cambodian New Year Celebration.
When: 6 to 8 p.m. Friday.
Where: Khmer Art Gallery, 319 N. 11th St., Philadelphia.
Admission: Free, but a reservation must be made at rsvp@punchmedia.biz or by calling 215-300-6081 or 215-882-1188.
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Contact staff writer Jeff Gammage at 610-313-8110 or jgammage@phillynews.com.

Diet doctor and £85bn heiress in custody war

Lionel Bissoon and Elizabeth Johnson with baby William

29/03/2008
By Tom Leonard in New York
The Telegraph (UK)

The flamboyant and privileged lifestyle of one of America's richest heiresses has been laid bare in a custody battle she is fighting over a Cambodian orphan.

Elizabeth "Libet" Johnson, 57, an heir to the £85 billion Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals empire, has been portrayed by a former boyfriend as ruthless, deceitful and predatory, using her enormous wealth to get her way.

The less than flattering portrait of a Manhattan socialite who once owned a 20,000sq ft apartment on Central Park has been provided by Lionel Bissoon, a Trinidadian-born celebrity weight-loss doctor with whom she was romantically involved.

The pair have been fighting for nearly three years over a five-year-old Cambodian boy whom both claim to have legally adopted, with the case leading to accusations of "legal kidnapping" and extortion.

This week, in Manhattan's state appeals court, Miss Johnson appealed against a judge's decision to revoke her previous judgment in the multi-millionaire socialite's favour.

Miss Johnson, whose grandfather, Robert Wood Johnson built his company into a pharmaceutical giant, has remained silent outside court, but Dr Bissoon, 47, has been happy to highlight her alleged faults.

He has pointed out how she had five husbands before she was 40 and claimed she has been romantically linked with many other men, including the singer Michael Bolton and the hairdresser Frederic Fekkai.

Dr Bissoon, who wrote The Cellulite Cure, became romantically involved with Miss Johnson in 2003. At the time, she was one of his patients. He says she began inviting him to her apartment in the Trump International Hotel and Tower.

Valued at one point at £31 million, the property was so big that she had considered installing a basketball court and a pool.

Dr Bissoon admitted that life with her had its attractions - jetting in her private plane between her various homes, including one in the ski resort of Vail and her farm in Millbrook, upstate New York.

Within months they were talking about adoption and, later that year, Miss Johnson found an orphan called Rath Chan in Cambodia, where she was involved in setting up an orphanage.

Temporarily getting round a US ban on adopting Cambodians, they brought the boy to New York on a medical visa in August 2003. He was given a £50,000 trust fund and two nannies, and installed at the Johnson apartment. However, by the following summer, the Bissoon-Johnson relationship was virtually over.

Miss Johnson, who has four grown-up children, told him that she intended to adopt the child on her own. Mr Bissoon initially agreed but changed his mind after the heiress banned him from seeing William following a row at her apartment.

Two years ago, a judge named Miss Johnson as the child's mother but revoked her order last year, citing the heiress's "substantial, material misrepresentations".

The judge was unimpressed to learn belatedly that Miss Johnson had failed to disclose that she had originally tried to adopt the boy with Dr Bissoon, and that he had actually adopted William first, in Cambodia in 2004.

Miss Johnson had also not disclosed that she had recently been treated for a drinking problem.

The four-judge panel has reserved its judgment.

Uncertainty for an Orphan [from Cambodia] Claimed in Two Adoptions

October 12, 2007
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
The New York Times (USA)

In the summer of 2003, an heiress with a flamboyant lifestyle decided to devote herself to saving Cambodian orphans.

While she was in Cambodia, starting an orphanage on the Mekong River, she became enchanted with a toddler known as Rath Chan — “rath” means “orphan” in Cambodian.

Now Rath Chan, renamed William, is caught in a dispute between the heiress, Elizabeth Ross Johnson, and Lionel Bissoon, a celebrity weight-loss doctor with whom she was having an affair. They are no longer a couple, but both claim to have legally adopted the child.

Yesterday, a judge invalidated an adoption Ms. Johnson obtained in Manhattan Surrogate’s Court a year and a half ago, because of adoption papers in Cambodia, including a revised birth certificate naming Dr. Bissoon the boy’s father, according to Dr. Bissoon’s lawyers. The judge, Kristin Booth Glen, is the same judge who initially granted the adoption. She allowed the child to stay with Ms. Johnson.

The judge has ordered her decision sealed. But Dr. Bissoon’s lawyers agreed to talk about it because, they said, it was extremely rare for an adoption to be vacated.

Bonnie Rabin, one of Dr. Bissoon’s lawyers, said the judge had found that the adoption in Manhattan had been “procured by fraud,” because, among other things, Ms. Johnson failed to tell the court that Dr. Bissoon considered himself the child’s father.

The judge ruled that Dr. Bissoon had adopted William first, in a “full and final” adoption in 2004 in Cambodia, which Ms. Johnson had ignored when she adopted the child in New York, the lawyers said.

Last night, Ms. Johnson issued a statement through a spokeswoman, Marcia Horowitz, saying she was devastated by the judge’s decision. “The surrogate court’s decision setting aside an adoption that the court had granted last year ruptures my relationship with my son, whom I have loved and raised since infancy,” Ms. Johnson said.

She said that the decision ignored the “deep bond” between her and the child, and that she would immediately appeal.

Ms. Horowitz said the child, now almost 5, would stay with Ms. Johnson during the appeal.

Robert S. Cohen, Ms. Johnson’s lawyer, declined to comment yesterday. But during court proceedings, Ms. Johnson’s lawyers argued that there had never been a Cambodian adoption, that if Dr. Bissoon had arranged anything, it was only permission from the Cambodian government to adopt the child. They said that whatever he did, he did to help her adopt the child, and that he challenged the New York adoption only because he wanted money. Ms. Rabin acknowledged that Dr. Bissoon had asked Ms. Johnson for child support.

Dr. Bissoon said he did not want to take William away from Ms. Johnson, but wanted joint custody. “I’m the only father he has,” Dr. Bissoon said after learning of the judge’s decision. “I want him back in my life.”

He said he had not been allowed to see William since December 2005, when, he said, Ms. Johnson “staged” a fight with him and threw him out of her apartment at 1 Central Park West, in the Trump International Hotel and Tower. Ms. Johnson’s spokeswoman denied that Ms. Johnson had provoked a fight. “They parted ways,” Ms. Horowitz said.

Dr. Bissoon said the prospect of seeing the child again was “a thrill,” but added that he was somewhat bitter. “When you think of what we’ve gone through, not sleeping, sometimes not even wanting to go to work,” he said, “I guess the best nights I’ve had is the nights I would dream about him.”

Ms. Johnson and Dr. Bissoon became romantically involved in February 2003, Dr. Bissoon said. A month earlier, he had been profiled in People magazine as the doctor who helped the singer Roberta Flack lose about 40 pounds through mesotherapy, a treatment that involves injections of medications.

Ms. Johnson, now in her 50s, had been married five times, had four children of her own, led a jet-setting life as a socialite, philanthropist and traveler, and had been romantically linked to a string of celebrities, like the singer Michael Bolton, the hairdresser Frédéric Fekkai and Jerome Jeandin, a chauffeur at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. She is the great-granddaughter of Robert Wood Johnson, a founder with his brothers of the pharmaceutical empire.

Dr. Bissoon, 46, is an osteopathic doctor with offices on the Upper West Side, in Los Angeles and in West Palm Beach, Fla.

On a trip to Cambodia in June 2003, according to an affidavit filed by Dr. Bissoon in Surrogate’s Court, Ms. Johnson called him to announce, “I found your son.” Although they had never discussed adoption before, he said in an interview, she told him that the boy, Rath Chan, looked just like him.

She was working to establish her orphanage, Golden Children, on a 17-acre site east of Phnom Penh. According to an Internal Revenue Service filing, Golden Children had assets of $8.8 million in 2005. The filing lists Ms. Johnson as president and the socialite Anne Bass as vice president.

Cambodian adoptions were growing in popularity around the same time. But Ms. Johnson was not the best candidate there because of her age and the fact that she already had children. In addition, the United States had restricted the immigration of Cambodian infants because of concerns that they might be sold.

Dr. Bissoon said the immigration problem, along with opposition by Ms. Johnson’s family, had led to an elaborate plan for him to adopt the baby in his native Trinidad. But the plan fell through, he said, because Trinidad frowned on adoptions by single fathers.

The baby was brought to the United States for medical reasons, according to Dr. Bissoon, who said he went on to file adoption papers in Cambodia and to put his name — but not Ms. Johnson’s — on the baby’s revised Cambodian birth certificate.

After the romance ended in the summer of 2004, Dr. Bissoon continued to visit the child at Ms. Johnson’s apartment three to six days a week, he said, until Ms. Johnson banished him in December 2005. She then went on, he said, to adopt the child in New York without telling him.

Dr. Bissoon said he had not seen William since he sneaked into his preschool on his birthday in January 2006. But he said he did not think the boy had forgotten him. “Children don’t forget that easily,” he said.

Couple honored for adopting Cambodian girl with genetic disorder

Maya Hughes (née Rath Srey Mom), center, stands with parents Susan Potter and Mark Hughes on Friday at their Gardiner home. (Photo by Joe Phelan, Morning Sentinel)

October 4, 2007
Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine --A Gardiner couple who adopted a Cambodian infant who was brought to the U.S. for treatment of an extremely rare genetic disorder were among this year's recipients of the Angels in Adoption Award.

Mark Hughes and Susan Potter were among adoptive parents from around the country who were honored Thursday in Washington, D.C. by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.

Through a newspaper story, Potter became aware of the girl, now named Maya, who at 23 months weighed only 10 pounds when she arrived from Cambodia in 2000 for treatment for Pallister-Hall syndrome, a disorder that usually causes malformations of numerous parts of the body.

Maya received five months of advanced treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital and had six major surgeries.

Touched by the girl's story, Potter and Hughes applied to adopt her. Now 9, Maya is a healthy fourth-grader who enjoys gymnastics.

Sen. Susan Collins, who nominated the couple for the award, said Maya's story was "truly touching. I was very impressed with Susan and Mark for all that they have done to ensure that Mya grows up a happy and healthy child."

Maddox celebrates sixth birthday

Aug. 9, 2007
BANG Showbiz

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's son Maddox celebrated his birthday with a two-day, boys-only party at the weekend.

The birthday boy - who turned six on Sunday - was joined by a group of young friends for a military-themed party in the garden of Brad and Angelina's oceanfront home in Santa Barbara, California.

Maddox and his young friends were all dressed in army combat uniforms and had camouflage make-up painted on their faces as they enjoyed action-packed activities including water pistol fights and pelting each other with water bombs.

Brad, 42, also joined in the fun wearing an army outfit and helmet.

Maddox - who was adopted from Cambodia - is the oldest of the couple's four children.

Brad and Angelina also have adopted three-year-old Vietnamese son, Pax, two-year-old Ethiopian daughter Zahara, and 14-month-old biological daughter Shiloh.

Earlier this week, it was revealed Brad, Angelina and Shiloh will appear on a new Australian stamp.

A picture of the 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' co-stars and their youngest daughter - which featured on the front cover of A New Idea magazine shortly after Shiloh's birth last year - has been made into a 50 cent stamp.

A long way from Cambodia, a girl is all smiles

Maya Hughes (née Rath Srey Mom), center, stands with parents Susan Potter and Mark Hughes on Friday at their Gardiner home. (Staff photo by Joe Phelan)

By KEITH EDWARDS
Staff Writer
Morning Sentinel (Kennebec, Maine, USA)

GARDINER -- Nine-year-old Maya Hughes shouldn't be the sweet third-grader who runs and laughs with classmates; loves rainbows, gardening with her mom, and cooking hot dogs on the grill; and punctuates nearly everything she says with "please" and "thank you."

Someone who spent most of her first two years of life neglected and malnourished, unable to walk or talk, suffering from birth defects and stuck in a hammock in the back room of a Cambodian orphanage, would seem to have every reason to be angry at the world. Instead, tiny Maya has a sunny disposition so infectious it rubs off on peers and adults alike.

"Maya has a perseverance and cheerfulness she carries with her everywhere she goes," said her third-grade teacher and family friend, Liz Hall. "The amazing thing is, when she's paired up with another student, that student also ends being kinder and more patient, too.

"If I could somehow have everyone pair up with her, this would be a better world."

Her mom, Susan Potter, said adults are not immune.

When they see Potter and Maya at Hannaford shopping for groceries, some other shoppers may catch Maya's smile, and end up with a big smile of their own.

"I'll see them two aisles later, still smiling," Potter said. "She just has this aura about her. She's the single most extraordinary human being I've ever known."

Maya was born Rath Srey Mom in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on May 11, 1998, with multiple birth defects later diagnosed as Pallister-Hall Syndrome. Her birth parents, Potter said, realized they couldn't meet her needs and left her with an orphanage. Potter said the orphanage didn't have enough food or other resources for all its children. So Maya, because she was disabled, was nearly ignored.

"She spent 23 months in a hammock in a back room, by herself," Potter said. "She was malnourished. She never had any toys to play with. She never had anyone hold her."

In April 2000, Maya was brought to the United States by the Sharing Foundation, a nonprofit foundation formed to try to improve the health and welfare of Cambodian children.

A few minutes spent with Maya recently in the River View Community School library hinted at the progress she has made.

She not only walks, she runs.

She not only talks as well as any typical 9-year-old, she talks in adult-sounding sentences starting with phrases like, "Let me tell you something."

And she has clearly bonded with her parents and teachers, hugging her mom often and saying she would miss her when Potter said she had to go back to work. She's been through 10 major surgeries -- including surgery on her teeth, hand and feet -- and dealt with complications including a bowel obstruction and fungal sepsis infection.

Maya likes many of the same things other 9-year-olds do.

"I like being with friends," she said, her brown eyes shining. "I like rainbows. Gardens. Computers. I like going to the theater."

But she also likes to clean, cook and help her mom in the garden.

Asked why she likes to help, she raised her arms from her sides and gazed back with a look of disbelief that said, without words: "How could I possibly not?"

Potter said people will complement her, as a mother, for having such a polite child.

"I tell them it's the other way around," Potter said. "When you're around her, you just behave in a more civilized, respectful manner."

By the time Maya came along, Potter was in her mid-40s and had already raised a son and daughter. She didn't have toys or a crib or other items for small children.

Soon, Maya's story got out in the community. And the community responded.

"I'd come home and find things on my porch -- a crib, toys... I still don't know where some of the stuff came from," Potter said.

Potter figures Maya is where she is, and who she is, for a reason.

"There is something different about this child," she said. "When destiny calls, you've got to be strong. I don't know what her destiny is or what she's going to do when she grows up. But there is a reason for this child to be here."

Keith Edwards -- 621-5647
kedwards@centralmaine.com

Sophea Keirstead: A Little Girl with a Big Imagination

Sophea Keirstead, 6, center, with her parents Cassandra, rear left, and Carol Keirstead, rear right, and baby sitter Danielle Bergeron. Bergeron organized a benefit to raise money to allow the family to install a chairlift for Sophea, who suffers from congenital muscular dystrophy. Sun/ Bob Whitaker

05/22/2007
A Little Girl with a Big Imagination

By Rachel R. Briere,
rbriere@lowellsun.com
Lowell Sun (Lowell, Mass., USA)

LOWELL -- Sophea Keirstead has two fiancés.

She rehearsed with one and the other is coming over to practice soon. She has a tough decision: Who will meet her at the altar?

Her groom will have his hands full. Sophea has 25 children. She runs two businesses, a lollipop factory in Minnesota called "Sweet Lollipops" and a cupcake bakery simply called Cupcake Sophea.

Sophea is a 6-year-old with a wild imagination and weak muscles. She has congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD).

She swallows 16 pills daily, but needs a gastrotomy tube. She doesn't have enough strength to eat more than two bites of dinner. Sometimes she needs oxygen. The slightest cold can put her in a hospital bed.

"If we do an activity on Saturday, there is no way she can go to church on Sunday," says her mother, Carol Keirstead.

Fatigue is the thorn in her side. Sophea can walk for a short distance with a walker, defying the doctors who said she would never take a step. She attends school three days a week, and spends her days off in bed resting.

On Friday night, family and friends will gather for a fundraiser at Mount Pleasant Golf Club. The money raised will help adapt the Keirsteads' van so Sophea can travel in her wheelchair.

Sophea will sing a song either from Annie or The Little Mermaid. She hasn't decided. She'll wear a dress, "cool" shoes and her hair down with curls.

Carol and Cassandra Keirstead visited Cambodia in February 2000. The plan: visit orphanages with hopes of adopting a baby. No expectations, just hope.

One evening Cassandra was with a doctor friend. The phone rang. A village woman had dropped off a sick infant.

The baby's skull was deformed, probably because the caretakers never turned her over. She was filthy, maybe never even bathed.

"You could still see the birth coating," Cassandra says.

Cassandra still cuddled her.

Three months later, Hana Sophea Keirstead was lying in a crib on Branch Street.

The diagnosis at 13 months: "Failure to thrive." Sophea would never develop at the same rate as her peers.

At 14 months, family and friends gathered at her bedside "to say goodbye," Carol said.

Carol and Cassandra laid their heads next to Sophea, stroking her fine hair and asked her with a whisper to stay with them. Sophea opened her eyes and weakly nodded her head.

Carol is telling this story, and her voice grows soft. Cassandra silently looks on, head resting in her palm. Their two-story Victorian house with a maze of rooms is eerily quiet, except for the water boiling for the dinner. A voice interrupts from the second floor.

"Mom! I'm hungry!"

"That's her," Cassandra says.

This, too, is Sophea: She brings brie to school for snacks; she requests poached salmon for dinner; she prefers Brussels sprouts.

Danielle Bergeron of Lowell, Sophea's baby sitter, draws the blame for Sophea's "princess mentality."

"It's Danielle's job to break this Disney theme," jokes Cassandra. "She introduced her to the world of the princesses, so now Danielle can help her be the princess."

Bergeron began baby-sitting Sophea when Sophea was 3. She recalls their first meeting.

"I walked through the door and Sophea goes 'I like your sandals,' " Bergeron says.

They are a team. Which is why Danielle organized Rock for Sophea.

"The wedding is off," Sophea announces. "He married someone else. Everything is all set for my other boyfriend now."

She is sitting on her bed, playing with her stuffed dog, jet-black hair and big eyes twinkling behind her glasses.

"Duh -- I already dumped that one in the trash barrel," she giggles about her ex-fiancé.

A few hours ago, Sophea was finishing up a hospital stay, two days at Lowell General and three at Children's Hospital in Boston. At home, she never really escapes the hospital. There are machines with strange levers and buttons on the perimeter of her bedroom. The tube tethered to her from one of those machines continuously beeps. Sophea ignores the sound, and giggles like a high-school girl.

This kid with a big imagination and even bigger heart tends to draw smiles wherever she goes. The nurses at Children's Hospital always are delighted to see her.

"They say she is their favorite patient, but of course they don't want to see her in there," says Carol. "It's bittersweet."

A personal journey to the heart of Cambodia

04/15/2007
By Richard Irwin, Special to the Press-Telegram
Long Beach Press Telegram (Long Beach, Calif., USA)

HOW MANY authors would turn down an advance from a major publishing house so they could publish their own work?

Author Kari Grady Grossman did just that for purely altruistic reasons. Through Wild Heaven Press - part of Wild Heaven Productions, a documentary company that she and her husband George founded - a quarter of her new book's profits are donated to Friends of the Grady Grossman School, a nonprofit group that supports a Cambodian school that the couple founded in their son's honor in 2001.

In "Bones That Float: A Story of Adopting Cambodia," the Wyoming-based journalist tells the story of how the adoption of her Cambodian son led her to investigate the tragic takeover by the Khmer Rouge and the lasting effects it had on this small Asian country.

Tuesday marks the 32nd anniversary of the takeover. Grady Grossman's book covers the three decades that have passed since the genocide.

Cambodians celebrate their New Year in April, and this year could be a year of justice if the United Nations follows through on its plans to prosecute Khmer Rouge war criminals.

Grady Grossman entered a crowded orphanage in Phnom Penh on March 24, 2001. That's where she met her 8-month-old son and began a personal quest to uncover her son's past.

The journey took her through Cambodia's gruesome history of genocide and war. In her book, the Wyoming writer tells the stories of two Cambodians, one who managed to escape the Khmer Rouge's purge and one who didn't.

Grady Grossman,a 1990 graduate of Syracuse University, has spent the last 20 years traveling around the world to write and produce documentaries.

Her work has appeared on Discovery Channel Online, ranging from covering the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska to an expedition on Mount Everest.

In "Bones That Float," she takes readers on the back of a moto-taxi along the smoggy streets of Phnom Penh as she delves into her son's past.

"Bones That Float" refers to a Cambodian phrase for the sacred that rises from suffering.

In her book, Grady Grossman takes us into the jungle with the Khmer Rouge, where boy soldiers force starving families to work all day at gunpoint. Later it jumps to modern-day Cambodia, where innocent preteen girls are bought by foreign pedophiles.

The book inspired the Grady Grossmans to create a school in a remote village in Cambodia, which now educates 500 children every year.

The Cambodian students were recently featured on the Voice of America for a letter-writing campaign to stop the deforestation of their country. The students are demanding an end to corruption in their community.

The publication date was moved forward to April because the author sees an urgent need for the international community to help save the forests in Cambodia, as well as the livelihoods supported by it.

In the end, the author reminds us that we're all "one big family," and we shouldn't turn our backs on people suffering in other lands. Especially, Grady Grossman notes, when our country's foreign policy has contributed to some of this suffering.

Proceeds from her new book will help fund Grady Grossman's school. While "Bones That Float" will be available at major bookstores and online booksellers, more money per book will be donated if readers buy it directly from www.BonesThatFloat.com or by mail order to Wild Heaven Press, P.O. Box 65, Lander, WY 82520. The cost is $24.95, plus a $5 shipping fee.

Last year, the Grady Grossmans traveled to India, where they adopted their second child. She is now working on a book about that country.

Grady Grossman will man a booth at the Cambodian New Year Celebration on Saturday in Area 3 of El Dorado Regional Park, 7551 E. Spring St., Long Beach. She will discuss and sign "Bones That Float."

The event, featuring traditional food, activities and entertainment, will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $20 per car in advance or $30 on the day of the event. For information, call (562) 607-9261 or see www.cam-cc.org.

Johnson & Johnson Heiress vs Celeb Doc in custody battler over adopted son from Cambodia

Heir Vs. Celeb Doc In War For Orphan

Trial May Hit 'Jolie' Adoptions

By BRAD HAMILTON
New York Post (NY, USA)

April 1, 2007 -- When Johnson & Johnson heir Elizabeth "Libet" Johnson flew to Cambodia in 2003 to set up a $15 million foster-care facility in Phnom Penh, she came across a tiny boy in a box, an orphan who was all smiles.

She hurriedly phoned her boyfriend, celeb weight-loss expert Dr. Lionel Bissoon, and told him, "I found your son."

Now the pair are locked in a bitter battle over the fate of the child, now 4 - accusing each other of being inept parents, and worse.

Back in 2003, Bissoon - a Trinidad native who wrote "The Cellulite Cure" and counts singer Roberta Flack among his clients - flew to Cambodia after Johnson's call.

The pair had been dating for only six months, and they lived 10 blocks apart on the Upper West Side - she in an $18 million Trump apartment on Central Park West - but both fell for the boy, named Rath Chan.

Bissoon recalled: "When I held my son for the first time, he was looking at me going, 'Where were you?'

"In my head I heard his voice. Right there I made him a promise - I was always going to be there for him."

But there were problems. The United States had banned Cambodian adoptions in 2001 due to allegations of widespread baby selling. Also, Johnson's family objected - they didn't want a Cambodian orphan heir.

So the couple thought they'd be creative. Bissoon, alone, would adopt the child through his native Trinidad, which had no ban, and the couple would together raise the boy they'd renamed William in New York.

Nearly four years later, however, the blissful life Bissoon imagined is gone. First, Trinidad denied Bissoon's adoption claim because he was a single man, jeopardizing the little boy's immigration status after he'd already been flown to New York for medical treatment.

Then, Johnson - an heir to her family's $170 billion pharmaceutical empire - blocked Bissoon from seeing William after the two broke up in 2005.

Now the couple is now locked in a bruising court battle.

Being a friend to a perfect stranger

Saturday, March 31, 2007
By Jeanne Malmgren (Contact)
Independent Mail (Anderson, South Carolina, USA)

Four days ago, I was in a New York City courtroom. Marble floors, elaborate carved wood ceilings, tall windows overlooking the noisy, chaotic streets of Manhattan. You can imagine.

There, I was witness to a sad tableau.

At opposite ends of a 50-foot-long table, flanked by opposing teams of lawyers, sat two people. A man and a woman, once in love with each other, now fighting each other over a 4-year-old boy.

That boy is named William. He was born in Cambodia, as were my children. His adoption documents are identical to my youngest daughter’s. That’s why I was there. To help. And to try to ensure that one Cambodian adoption — and, possibly by extension, my daughter’s and hundreds of other adopted Cambodian kids in the United States — would not be declared invalid.

William’s father is a prominent New York doctor and author of a book about a cellulite cure. His lawyers asked me to testify on their client’s behalf. William’s adoptive parents, who never married, are warring over whose adoption of the boy is more valid. It’s a messy affair. Each adopted him separately, as a single parent — the father first, in 2003, before the couple broke up. The mother, who now has custody, went to Cambodia in 2006 and obtained documents naming her as the sole adoptive parent.

When I arrived in the courtroom, William’s father introduced himself and thanked me for coming all the way to New York to help someone I’d never met.

Then he showed me Polaroids of him with the boy.

“I haven’t seen my son for 15 months. She won’t let me near him,” he said.

He told me his former girlfriend is a multimillionaire, heiress to the fortune of a huge family business. If I told you the name, you’d find it on nearly every cleaning, personal hygiene and first aid product in your cabinets. She has owned several condos in the luxurious Trump Tower and is now selling — for $15.9 million — the Greenwich Village townhouse she bought last year from Meryl Streep.

Serious, serious money.

I looked over at her, sitting quietly at the far end of the conference table, cleaning her eyeglasses.

Several other adoptive parents had flown to New York — at the doctor’s expense — to testify about the validity of their adoptions. Both sides also had flown in legal experts and translators from Cambodia.

All for the love of a 4-year-old boy.

After I testified, I took a late flight back to GSP. When I finally got home, it was past midnight Thursday. The kids were asleep. I crept upstairs and lay down beside my daughter in her bed.

Her black curls, damp with sweat, were splayed all over the pillow. As usual, she had rolled around in her sleep and become wrapped in her pink blanket.

As I eased the blanket from under her, she woke slowly, saw me and smiled.

“Did they win the case, Mommy? Does the little boy get to have his Daddy back?”

I don’t know yet, I told her. But I hope so, honey.