Not even Bangkok riots can prevent little girl’s arrival

The Sherwood Gazette, Jul 22, 2010

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Nittaya holds her hands up when she hears the worship songs at church. The 18-month-old girl gives “Eskimo” kisses to her daddy and smiles when her mommy holds her after she wakes up.

That’s quite a different story than two months ago when Kevin and Amanda Bates, both pastors, traveled to Thailand to adopt Nittaya. She screamed if Kevin came too close. When Amanda carried her around the grocery store, she cried and reached out to unfamiliar women to console her.

The couple arrived in Thailand on May 14, the same day the political riots in Bangkok escalated. When the U.S. Embassy closed down, they faced problems obtaining Nittaya’s visa, her ticket out of Thailand.

Amanda and Kevin had already been waiting for months to bring their daughter home, after initially contacting Holt International Children’s Services, a Christian adoption agency located in Eugene, in 2008. At that time, they became No. 30 on Holt’s list of parents waiting to adopt a child from Thailand.

According to statistics from the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues, 12,753 children were adopted into the United States in 2009. Only 56 of those adoptions were from Thailand.

Kevin and Amanda had traveled to Thailand previously and fallen in love with the culture and the inner beauty of the Thai people. But Kevin had also been exposed to the human trafficking and child exploitation that occurs there.

“Ever since being introduced to that international tragedy I felt like I would adopt a child from Thailand. I felt called to,” he said. “God put that on my heart.”

The agency had previously told the couple they would most likely receive a son. So the Bates were a little surprised and excited when they received an email from Holt with pictures of six-month-old Nittaya in September 2009.

Her mother chose to give up her baby for adoption in the hospital immediately after she was born, hoping that Nittaya would experience a better life with a family that could provide for her, Amanda said.

“At that point you have to decide ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ We said ‘yes’ to her,” Amanda said.

Amanda and Kevin waited to hear when they could travel to meet their daughter. They knew Nittaya was in good hands at her foster home and relied on their faith to help carry them through the waiting period.

“We expected the timing to be different and a lot sooner. But in the end we are very pleased with the timing,” Amanda said. “The Lord’s timing really is perfect.”

The six-month wait allowed the couple to move from Grants Pass to a new home in Sherwood. There, they also began their new church, Resonate, which will begin holding services in October at Laurel Ridge Middle School.

Political unrest

Amanda and Kevin spent a week vacationing in Thailand before they met Nittaya, spending their first night in a hotel that was just two blocks from where the National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship, also known as the “Red Shirts,” were protesting against the Thai government.

“Right down the block there were policemen with huge guns and all the artillery and everything,” said Amanda. “It was crazy.”

They left the area the next morning and went to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.

During that week, the Red Shirts burned the town and used water cannons to destroy portions of Bangkok. The police forces got involved with the riots, resulting in a brutal fight and multiple killings. Access to the conflict zone was quickly closed – including the U.S. Embassy – where the couple needed to pick up Nittaya’s visa in order to leave Thailand.

Meeting their daughter

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