By AARON MUELLER
Niles Daily Star

Ginny Bishop bustled around her daughter’s Maryland home anxiously, just waiting for the phone to ring.

Waiting to hear if her adopted granddaughter would be coming home soon.

She set up a crib, prepared a room for the toddler and waited, hoping and praying to see her granddaughter.

Christie and David Hubner, Bishop’s daughter and son-in-law, flew to Miami Jan. 22 on blind faith that their adopted daughter Ila from Haiti would be there waiting for her. Just a day before they had been notified that she may not be on that flight due to complications with her visa.
They arrived in Miami to find out the children had been flown into Orlando. The Hubners then waited a day and a half before they were finally allowed to see their beautiful 3-year-old daughter.

When Bishop, a Niles resident, heard the couple had finally met their daughter, she could finally rest.

“Relief, huge relief,” she said describing the family’s feelings after finally getting Ila. “Of course, excitement but relief was the biggest one.”

The Hubners had been in a marathon of an adoption process since 2006 but the earthquake sped up the process. Due to pressure from adoptive parents on elected officials, many orphans were rushed to the United States in the last couple weeks. If not for the disaster, it could have been another year and a half before Ila would have been adopted.

“This was a small blessing that came out of the earthquake for our family,” Bishop said.
The Hubners, having gone 60 hours with no rest, finally arrived back at their home in Frederick, Md. on Jan. 25, much to the excitement of Bishop.

Bishop had met Ila this past summer when she led a mission team from Community Evangelical Free Church in Niles to Haiti.

“I just loved being with her,” Bishop said with a smile. “It was really great to get to know her better.”

Ila speaks no English, so Bishop, a former missionary to Haiti who speaks some Creole, was able to help her adjust to her new life.

“I was able to help Ila understand some of the things that were going on, because she knew no English at all,” Bishop said. “They had a little toy phone that rings and says ‘hello’ and that was her first English word. By the time I left she was saying mommy and daddy.”

“Since I could communicate with her I felt like I had a special bond with her,” she said.
Ila is already learning what it’s like to have an older brother. She has occasional spats with the Hubners’ oldest son Mathis, 4.

“They are a little like oil and water,” Bishop said. “They’re both a little territorial about stuff. They’ll have some adjustment to do.”

But it’s clear Ila loves her new family.

“She warmed up to mommy quickly, and that made me feel wonderful,” Bishop said. “And it wasn’t too long before she was hugging daddy too.”

Bishop, now back in Niles with her husband Ron, already misses Ila.

“She has a beautiful smile,” she said.

The Hubner’s long journey to adopt Ila was chronicled by the Washington Post by reporters that followed them every step of the way. Read the article at: www.washingtonpost.com.
Read the Star’s first report on this story at www.nilesstar.com/2010/01/22/niles-couple-elated-3-year-old-haitian-adoptee-is-ok.