Sisters From Peru Find Home

Print Issue: February 28, 1980

Sisters From Peru Find Home

By Lynn Anderson

The three little sisters stood side by side, wide-eyed. Clothed in identical bright dresses they looked like they could have been posing for a magazine cover; they even had an audience of sorts. But the audience wasn’t really an audience, and the girls weren’t posing for photographs. Two of the sisters, Elizabeth Anne Edmonds and Mary Virginia Edmonds, were about to receive the sacrament of baptism, and the “audience” was comprised of other children who were there to welcome them into the Christian community at Saint Michael’s Church in Gainesville.

Betsy and Ginger Edmonds, ages 7 and 4, have only been in Gainesville since last summer when they were re-united with their younger sister Emily, 2. The three Peruvian sisters found their way to Gainesville through Linda and Tony Edmonds, but also with the guiding hand of the priest who baptized them Sunday, February 17.

Father Bill Hoffman, a priest of Atlanta, and a member of the Saint James Society, which does missionary work in Latin America, and the man behind it all, explains.

“Two summers ago, in 1977, I was home visiting my parents. I spoke with the Edmonds, and they asked me if I knew of any orphans in need of a home because they were looking to adopt a child. At that time, I didn’t know of any children and didn’t think I would, but I told them I would keep my ears open.

Father returned to Peru that summer. Within a few days, the nuns in the village, where he works, Andahuaylas, told him of a woman who was dying. They asked him to come to the hospital to administer the last rites, and upon arriving at the room of the dying woman, Father discovered a sad situation.

Lying next to the woman on her hospital cot was a tiny two-month-old girl. An older sister was “taking care of her,” giving her a bottle of sugar and water. The distraught husband of the woman told Father he didn’t know what he was going to do with his infant daughter; he had six other children to take care of in addition to farming his farm. If only he knew what to do with his infant daughter, he told Father Hoffman.

“I know what to do with the little baby,” Father says he thought to himself when the man came back to him in two days with the news of his wife’s death. The grieving man had no way to take care of the infant, and he was going to put her up for adoption, Father says.

For the next few weeks, letters were flying between Gainesville, Georgia, and Andahuaylas, Peru as quickly as the mail could carry them. There was an infant who was going to have to be put up for adoption, Father Bill wrote Linda and Tony Edmonds, and were they interested, he asked. Their answer wasn’t long in coming, and it was an unhesitated “yes.”

Adoption papers had to be filed, the usual home-study investigation made, and even FBI clearance on the Edmonds conducted before Linda and Tony flew to Peru to meet their new daughter.

“I don’t think Father Bill knew how much paperwork he was getting himself into,” says Linda Edmonds, shaking her head. “He’s done so much for us.”

Baby Emily stayed with a family in Peru until the proper adoption procedures had been met. Once everything was finalized, the adoption process was competed in Peru, and the Edmonds, along with their daughter Emily flew home to Gainesville.

Father Hoffman dropped by to visit the Edmonds home when he was visiting his parents in 1978 to see how everyone was.

“They were delighted and elated with Emily,” he says with a smile. “They said they wanted another child, and asked if I knew of any other orphans. Of course I didn’t; I don’t really run across that many normally, but I told them again I would keep my ears open.” He did keep his ears open, so open in fact that he heard of an amazing circumstance. A few days after arriving in Peru, Father was walking home from a cemetery and whom should he meet but Emily’s natural father. Father Hoffman mentioned that he had seen Emily, that she was doing well, and the family was very happy.

The widowed man’s home wasn’t so happy, Father says the man told him that day. As a matter of fact, he had had to place his two youngest daughters in an orphanage because he was unable to care for them. He just hoped those two would be placed in a home as happy as the one where Emily was, he told Father.

It was now an elated Father Hoffman who quickly wrote the Edmonds. Again the exchange of letters between Gainesville and Andahuylas began. Not only had he found two orphans, Father wrote Tony and Linda, but the two were the sisters of little Emily. Were they interested in adopting one of them? Father asked.

No, they answered, they did not want to adopt one of the children. They wanted both, and they were overjoyed, Father says.

This time, a high school classmate of Father Hoffman’s who was also adopting a Peruvian child flew down to get the girls. Since May, the girls have been living with their new family in Gainesville.

Father Hoffman was home visiting his parents recently and baptized the girls. His parents, in fact, are the girls’ Godparents.

The two older girls now await finalization of their adoption. The adoption procedures for Betsy and Ginger has been a little different, says Linda. Rather than adopting the girls in Peru, they are being adopted here in the United States. There is an agency in Atlanta, Friends of Children, who aids in adoption of children from other countries, Linda says.

The girls have learned English very quickly, Linda says, although they didn’t know any when the arrived. “I tried Spanish, but butchered it,” Linda says, “so I gave it up.”

“We just hugged and used our hands a lot when the girls first got here,” she says.

And they’re still hugging a lot. The sisters from Peru, once separated, are now together as members of one family and members of one body in Christ.