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SALT LAKE CITY -- Two teenagers from Africa arrived in Salt Lake City Sunday to begin a new life with new parents in a new country.
A Mapleton couple adopted them. They hope to give the teens new opportunities after a very tough life in another part of the world.
The family says Independence Day couldn't have been a more perfect time to welcome the brother and sister from an orphanage in the Congo, giving them a chance to become Americans.
"This has been a real treat, anticipating this day that we knew would eventually come," said Danny Raymer. "We're glad it happened on July 4. How appropriate!"
It means everything. We waited for two years to get them.
–Marilyn Raymer
Danny and his wife Marilyn may seem a bit old to be adopting, they're both in their late-50s. But they decided to launch a new family.
Bill and Jenny were dropped off at an orphanage in the Congo by their ailing mother a couple of years ago. The orphanage is run by a Utah-based charity called TIFIE Humanitarian.
With red, white and blue everywhere, the extended family waited at Salt Lake International Airport Sunday to finally meet their new family members. It's taken two long years to get Bill and Jenny to Utah.
"Frustrating, it has been," said Danny Raymer. "We knew it would take some time. We thought it would be mostly on the Congolese side, but the challenge has really been on the United States side."
But when Jenny and Bill stepped off the plane, it was worth the wait.
Jenny spoke to KSL through a translator Sunday. She said she was thrilled to be in a new place, a new world -- basically a new everything.
Marilyn Raymer shares that sentiment. "It means everything," she said. "We waited for two years to get them."
Now, on the nation's birthday, the hassles of the adoption process are behind them and a new life begins.
"Just an independence," said Marilyn. "The whole world is open to them now, and the possibilities are endless. We're just so grateful for that."
Bill says he is happy about the prospect of a better life.
"I'm very happy to be today with new family, in U.S.A.," said Bill. "It's a new country for me, a new world. I do anything in this family."
TIFIE Humanitarian has built three schools in the Congo and set up local businesses there to help the people become more self-sufficient. Disease and famine kill an estimated 45,000 people there each month -- about half of them children.
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E-mail: hollenhorst@ksl.com
