Korean Church Celebrates Adoption Sunday

As  six-year-old Isaiah Beiler of Macungie scurried exuberantly with a small herd of other young children, it was hard to believe he had once been shy. But he had been, his mother Holly Beiler said, until weekly visits to the Korean Church of the Lehigh Valley in Whitehall helped to change that.

Beiler and her husband, John, adopted Isaiah from South Korea when he was four months old and as he grew he had questions about where he came from that his parents felt ill equipped to answer. So the Beilers began frequenting the Korean church and found that not only did Isaiah feel at home but so did they and their other son, 10-year-old Jonah.

"Both of the boys take Korean language in the Korean school and they love it," Beiler said at the church's Korean Adoption Sunday, an annual event that seeks to expose children adopted from Korea  to the culture they left behind.   Beiler, a speech therapist with the Carbon-Lehigh Intermediate Unit who works at Harry S. Truman Elementary School in Salisbury Township, has immersed herself in the culture as well, taking cooking classes, and even donning  a traditional Korean dress called a Hanbok for Sunday's festivities.  

"They are really so grateful that American people adopt Korean children," she said of the congregation. "They are so welcoming to American families." 

And certainly no one left hungry. Congregants and the adoptive families feasted on such traditional Korean beef and chicken dishes as bulgogil and dakgogi and loaded up on the cabbage dish, kim chi, and noodle side of japchae. After lunch they watched a tae kwon do demonstration organized by Jon Chung Kim of Center Valley, who has a tae kwon do  studio in Allentown, and his son Charlie, who has another such studio in Bethlehem.  

Jon Chung Kim, a tae kwon do grand master, said the church has been holding Adoption Sunday every year since 1997 as a way to show appreciation to American families who lovingly raise children from his homeland. And it also keeps the children in touch with their roots in a place where most of the people look like them, he said.  

That's why Alan and Sue Beil moved to Whitehall, just a short walk from the church after adopting their daughter, Kailyn, 15, and son Carson, 12, from Korea when they were infants. "We actually started coming over here [to the church] before the kids were here," Alan Beil said. "We  picked Whitehall because it was ethnically diverse." 

Beil, who teaches at Salisbury Middle School, recalls the immediate connection he felt when he first saw his children. "Right when you see the kids come off the plane, it's instantaneous," he said.

His experience resonated with Carolyn Cino of Macungie, whose daughter Angela, 7, attends Wescosville Elementary School in the East Penn School District. "When she came over, the love was instantaneous," she said. Every now and then someone won't realize that she and Angela are mother and daughter, and it always surprises her because she forgets that they don't look alike.  

Early in the day, the children gathered in the front of the church to sing "Yes, Jesus Loves You," led by Pastor Jenny Schram, the children's minister. Schram said the congregation, under the direction of the head pastor, Kyung Soo Lee, has made a point of making non-Koreans feel welcome.

"We are one church whether we are Korean or American or Chinese," Schram said. "It makes no difference to the congregation that I have no Korean blood."