Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Tenacious Love Found by an Adoptive Parent and Special Needs Child

Gary, his wife Helen, and their four biological children moved to Hong Kong in 1980 to work with Vietnamese refugees. In the late nineteen eighties, Gary was drawn to the plight of teenage girls in Hong Kong with crisis pregnancies who were crossing the border into Shenzen for late term illegal and dangerous abortions. In 1987, in co-operation with Ranjan and Phyllis Marwah, Gary and Helen founded the now well known charity "Mother's Choice" to provide these girls with real options to continue with an unplanned pregnancy by supplying temporary shelter, education, care and counselling

But the heart of Gary’s his story is about his relationship with his son, Jacob. In 1996, Gary and Helen met Jacob in a Hong Kong orphanage. He was born without eyes and had been abandoned by his birth parents. At only 2½ years old, Jacob had already lived in three different institutions. The family now lives in Colorado, and Jacob is in his early 20’s. He has global developmental delay, and though his receptive language is intact, he is non-verbal as a result of damage in the brain's expressive language area.

These struggles do not stop them from adventuring together: these days, Gary takes Jacob skiing or ATV riding in the mountains of Colorado, and shares a relationship with Jacob that is intimate and tender. In telling Jacob’s story, which at times is heartbreaking and at others uplifting, Gary hopes to share his message of hope for children and parents in challenging situations, and to advocate for children who need the loving and tenacious care of a family.

Click here to download the flyer