Applause for adoptions

Three-year-old Angelito folded his hands behind his back and squinted Saturday as he studied the balloon-maker.

How would the man make a monkey from that tangle of balloons?

Angelito's patience was rewarded with a group of thin balloons manipulated and twisted into the shape of Curious George, facial features added with a felt-tip pen.

“Thank you,” Angelito said quietly with a smile.

“You're welcome,” replied balloon-man Greg Schuerman.

For Angelito, this was a day of happy endings.

He and his 4-year-old brother Carlos formally became the sons of Omahans John Hurt and Jonna Childers-Hansen, who have been married close to six years.

Angelito and Carlos were among 45 children adopted during the National Adoption Day celebration Saturday at the City-County Building.

Ceremonies also took place in Council Bluffs, Kearney, Grand Island and Hastings. National Adoption Day, in its 10th year in Omaha, promotes the joy of adoption and calls for more famislies to get involved.

At the City-County Building, “Star Wars” stormtroopers traipsed about, a face-painter dabbed, a woman walked on stilts and Amazing Arthur juggled. Families ate cookies before and after going into courtrooms for their ceremonies.

Childers-Hansen has a son from a previous marriage, and Hurt has one from a prior relationship.

But Childers-Hansen, a teacher at Wheeler Elementary School in Millard, said she believed she had been called to be a mother again. Now 46, she felt adoption was the wise way to go about it.

She and her husband worked through Lutheran Family Services for about four years to find the right match. A couple of possibilities fell through. Childers-Hansen said she kept having a dream about twins.

Lutheran Family Services called Childers-Hansen in January with word that the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services had two brothers available for adoption. Would Childers-Hansen and her husband consider them?

They didn't have to consider much. “When we saw them, there was just an overwhelming feeling that came over both Jonna and I about these two children,” said Hurt, an independent contractor. Angelito and Carlos moved in 10 months ago.

On Saturday, Hurt and Childers-Hansen sat in court with Angelito and Carlos and answered an attorney's questions: Was it in the children's best interests to let the adoption go forward? Did they promise to love them? To raise them as their own?

Jonna Childers-Hansen wept slightly. Carlos sat on Hurt's lap and looked at her. Why are you crying, Mama?

They're happy tears, she told him, because our family just got bigger.

Contact the writer:

444-1123, rick.ruggles@owh.com

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