The Ralynn Healy - Lee Foundation

First, I would like to say that my memories of Ralynn are from

way back when she was an adorable little girl with her

patent leather shoes and adorable frilly little dresses; she

was a 'hoot.' AND in the middle of EVERYthing. Her cute little

twin ponytails and ribbons are fresh in my memories of Ralynn.

Secondly, I'd like to thank you all for your financial help for

Hannah-Joy's college tuition/expenditures. We are blessed

beyond measure and words are inadequate to express our

graditude for what you've done for Hannah-Joy in Ralynn's

name.

It has given Hannah-Joy some "tough shoes to fill" in following

Ralynn's example of following her dreams. But like Ralynn,

Hannah-Joy has wanted to be a doctor since she was about

three years old. She got a dotor's kit for Christmas and she

took our temps and blood pressure and tied us up with gauze

and bandages. SHE WANTED TO HELP US! Now, she wants

to be a missionary doctor and her field of interest is pediatrics.

She went on a mission trip to Mexico during this last spring

break to an orphanage. Since Hannah-Joy came from a similar

setting, she purposed in her heart that the NEXT time she got

to go there, she'd be able to REALLY help the children. Only

God could take the tragedy of Ralynn's death and make

something good come out of it.

Romans 8:28 speaks of this and I've quoted it many times.

BUT it wasn't until recently that those words became alive to

me through your generosity. THANK you from the bottom of

our hearts.

Ginger, Les and Hannah-Joy

Hannah-Joy's Story

My husband Les and I were missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators in the Philippines. In 1988 while volunteering in an orphanage, a little baby girl with no first name was brought there. She was in very bad physical condition with horrible boils all over her head. Her hair had been shaved-off except for a strip down the middle of her head; she looked like a baby Mohawk Indian. I didn’t want to touch her because the boils were oozing and awful. But God spoke to my heart and said to me, “With your tender heart, if you don’t hold her, then who will?” That began my relationship with “Baby Girl Fernandez.” But later it was my husband Les who the little nameless baby connected with emotionally. After several months, God impressed Les and me that we needed to consider adopting her. We knew that the adoption laws there were going to change due to a new head of the social welfare department. Les and I went to them seeking the paperwork to make that possible. But we were told that we could not adopt her while we lived in that country. But that was not what the existing law said; it was the way the new law read. We contested the fact that we were being put under the new law’s regulations but to no avail. Eventually, the social welfare made the new law retroactive to include us legally. Afterwards the Solicitor General opposed our adoption. He was the highest law in the land. From a human point of view, it looked hopeless for us to adopt Baby Girl Fernandez. But God spoke to us through His Word.

Psalm 33:10
“The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the people.”

Many people all over the world prayed for us and for this baby girl with no first name. Eventually the nurse at the orphanage told me, “I want to name this baby, Hannah. I want her to have a strong Christian name.” Hannah, in the Hebrew language means, “mercy or grace.” So now, Baby Girl Fernandez became Hannah Fernandez. We added Joy to her new name and hyphenated it making it one name. When Hannah-Joy was eight months old she became very ill (she had primary complex or baby TB) and needed individual care that the orphanage could not give her. They asked if Les and I would be willing to take her home with us and care for her. It was with the understanding that should the social welfare folk needed to see her, we would return her to the orphanage; we agreed to do that. She was 10 months old and could not sit up, crawl, and could barely hold her head up. She was way behind in her physical development because she lay in her bed all day every day.
We took her home and cared for her and after two weeks she was sitting up by herself. Within four weeks she crawled and after only eight weeks, she was walking around our coffee table while holding on to it. But Hannah-Joy’s language skills were amazing. By the time she was 14 months old, she was saying four syllable words. She understood both English and Tagalog (tah GAH log).
But the fight to keep Hannah-Joy was an on-going battle. There were 65 families who fell between the old adoption law and the new one. We found out that over 30 were forced to give their children back to the welfare department. They would come at night and take them away. I can tell you that we were living in horror of that happening to us. When we tucked her into bed at night, our prayer was that we would have no visitors who would come to get her.
We lived 19 months in fear of losing her to the social welfare agency. But then God did a most unusual thing. During my devotional time one morning, I read Isaiah 61:1-2. It seemed at the time that the Lord said to me, “Pay close attention to these words.” Later that morning, I went to get our mail and I had a letter from our friend, Shirlee in Friendswood, TX. She had written to us saying, “God gave me a Scripture for you.

Isaiah 61:1-2a
“He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom to the captives and release for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Les and I felt God saying to us, “Hang in there; the end of all this is coming.”

A couple of weeks later while I was praying, the Lord again spoke to me in my heart LOUDLY. “Go and call your social worker and ask about an “inter-country adoption.” To our knowledge, we had never heard that term before. I called Les and told him what I felt God saying to me. Les told me to call the social worker. When I spoke to Helen I asked her if there was such a thing as an “inter-country” adoption and she told me, “Yes.” She suggested that I call a lady named, Divina (dah VEEN ah). I called her that morning about 10 and at one that afternoon, Les, our attorney Vicki, and I met with her. Divina made a statement within a few moments saying, “In two weeks we are having a picnic for pre-adoptive parents. IF YOU ARE STILL HERE IN TWO WEEKS, I WANT YOU TO ATTEND.” I looked at Les and then to our attorney and we could NOT believe our ears. It had been 19 months passed our time to go to the US on furlough and within about 10 minutes time, we discovered that we could leave the Philippines WITH Hannah-Joy through an “inter-country” adoption agreement with and through the cooperation of Holt Adoption Agency in Oregon. That was March of 1990. Just 17 days later, the three of us deplaned in Dallas, TX. Hannah-Joy’s adoption was finalized later in August of that same year. She became a naturalized citizen of the USA that October.

Ephesians 3: 20-21
“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory.”