I was a Bethany baby

Vivienne Hill first came to The Salvation Army’s Family Tracing service looking for her birth parent. She has now joined the service as its team leader. Vivienne describes being a ‘Bethany baby’, finding her birth parents and her passion for re-connecting families.

I have the best job in the world,’ says Vivienne Hill, who earlier this year became team leader for The Salvation Army’s Family Tracing Service, which helps to find missing family members. As an adopted child herself, Vivienne knows the power of re-connecting with family. ‘Finding my birth parents affected me so profoundly. I know how difficult it is, but I also see the huge benefits,’ explains Vivienne. ‘I absolutely knew I wanted to work here, because it’s so vitally important that in this disconnected age, we re-connect at a family level.’

Vivienne Hill describes herself as a ‘Bethany baby’—an affectionate term given to children born in The Salvation Army’s Bethany hospitals. Although the last Bethany centre closed down in 2011, there were seven Bethany hospitals around the country during the ’60s, when Vivienne was born. Unlike most babies, Vivienne was cared for by her birth mother for several weeks before she was adopted to ‘wonderful parents’, who were part of The Salvation Army.  

‘My parents were very open about the fact that I was adopted; there were no secrets,’ says Vivienne. ‘But when you’re adopted there is nothing beyond yourself. You can’t look at someone and say, “I’m like that person.” No matter now wonderful your parents are, there’s that feeling of disconnection—it may not be the same for other adopted people, but I certainly felt that.’

In 1985, the Adult Adoption Information Bill was passed, allowing adults who had been adopted to find their birth parents. The day the Bill became law, Vivienne sent off an application for her pre-adoption certificate—with her parents’ blessing.

When Vivienne got the certificate, she received only her birth mother’s name and last known address. Vivienne had some detective work to do: the address no longer existed, so Vivienne found an old map and started ringing around the area. After two hours of phone calls, she stumbled across a woman she soon knew was her biological grandmother. She laughingly recalls how that memorable conversation went:

‘ “I’m Vivienne, I’m an old friend, could you please put me in contact with your daughter?”
“Can I tell her who’s calling?”
“Um, just an old friend.”
“Did you nurse with her?”
‘I guess you could say that …” ’

Vivienne finally got her birth mother’s phone number, and nervously made the call. It was her mother’s husband who answered and before she even gave her name, he knew exactly who Vivienne was. They had been waiting for her call.

Reborn

God had been preparing Vivienne for this moment in time. Growing up in The Salvation Army, Vivienne had attended junior soldiers classes and given her heart to God. Yet feelings of rejection were never far away.

‘People think that you’re “just a baby” when you’re adopted, so it doesn’t affect you. But adoption is a rejection—being ripped away from your mother is a trauma and your spirit is injured. When you think about it, your spirit is ageless, so the wounds you carry in your spirit from birth are just as raw when you’re an adult. And you need to come to Christ for healing,’ Vivienne reflects.

When she was in her 20s, Vivienne had her first child, and it triggered a deep depression—which she believes was rooted in her adoption. She couldn’t sleep, was haunted by feelings of failure and couldn’t leave the house. With her husband often away for work, she was isolated and alone. God’s presence came to her through an unexpected source: the Jehovah’s Witness church. Their visits were a reprieve to her isolation, and she was reminded of her Salvation Army teachings.

One day, Vivienne prayed and committed herself to Jesus Christ once again. ‘My depression was like a light going out. But when I prayed, the light came back on. My depression lifted immediately,’ recalls Vivienne. ‘Everything changed when I came to Christ.’

It was finding unconditional acceptance in Christ that gave Vivienne the courage to search for her birth parents. God spoke to her through Psalm 139:15–16: ‘My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place … Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.’

‘This is so precious to me,’ reflects Vivienne. ‘Even if nobody else knew about me, God knew about me. He knew who my parents would be and who my birth parents were, and my adoption was part of his plan for me. Within that, I found incredible healing.’

And so Vivienne decided to make the call of a lifetime …

Reunited

The first words Vivienne said to her mother were, ‘You don’t know me, but you do know me, I was born in Bethany.’ And a very quiet voice came back and said, ‘I know who you are.’

Vivienne and her husband nervously travelled to meet her birth mother for the first time. It was a moment she will never forget: ‘As soon as I saw her, I knew her. It wasn’t like meeting a stranger. It was that feeling of “I know you from somewhere”, but I couldn’t place my finger on it.’ Vivienne recalls that she went into shock during that first meeting and was literally unable to talk, but the similarities between mother and daughter were unnerving.

‘I watched and observed, because it was fascinating to see our similar mannerisms. We met for dinner that night—and we were wearing exactly the same style of dress and both had a silver scarf tied at our neck.’ The symmetries continued. ‘Our husbands have the same first and middle names. I nearly bought the house she was brought up in. There were so many near misses, people we both knew and strange coincidences over the years.’

The story of Vivienne’s birth was finally unravelled. Vivienne’s mother was engaged to be married and the day before the wedding, her fiancée went missing. He absconded to Australia, never to be seen again. After being publicly left ‘at the altar’, Vivienne’s mother had to face single parenthood. In a society that did not accept single mothers, she was sent to Bethany to give birth and adopt her child out.  

Vivienne still maintains a good relationship with her birth mother and husband, as well as her half-siblings. She explains that while she has a unique and loving relationship with her birth mother, Vivienne’s adoptive parents will always be her ‘real parents’.

The final piece of the puzzle

To find her birth father, Vivienne turned to The Salvation Army’s Family Tracing Service. All she knew was his name and the city in which he lived. Family Tracing was able to track him down in Australia, and after a couple of weeks she received a letter. Her birth father told Vivienne about her family history and she learnt about his wife and her half-siblings. Another letter followed, accompanied by a photo of her father. Vivienne was elated, and made plans to meet him in person.

Then Vivienne received another message. Her birth father had said he no longer wanted any contact with Vivienne. His family did not know about her and she was never to get in touch again. Despite this bitter blow, Vivienne says she has no regrets. ‘It took a long time, but I can now say I am thrilled I found him. I got the information I needed to know. I don’t take [him not wanting to meet me] personally because he doesn’t know me.’

Vivienne’s faith in God has been pivotal in finding healing from any feelings of rejection. ‘When you come to Christ, the acceptance is complete, there’s no rejection and never will be any rejection. God is my loving heavenly father, and that is incredibly healing.’

Full circle

Sitting in her office at Family Tracing, Vivienne has come full circle. She is now helping others re-connect with lost family members. The role—alongside Captain Kristine Walker—is part-detective, part-counsellor.

Vivienne describes how they ‘pull at every thread’ in searching for missing persons, using internet searches and electoral rolls, as well as numerous other searches within the confines of the Privacy Act. ‘We may find out that the person attended a Baptist church in Tauranga in the ’60s, so that’s a thread we will follow up,’ she says. ‘If they are adopted, they may have a Māori birth name, or there may be an iwi connection. So we start pulling at those threads, and more often than not one of those threads will lead to someone,’ explains Vivienne. ‘No stone remains unturned. If they can be found, we’ll find them!’

But the role also calls for a very careful touch and empathy for individual situations. The privacy of each individual—whether the enquirer or the person being traced—is of utmost importance. ‘Every case has a back story—it can be tragic, funny, all those things—but you’re coming into a very intimate and vulnerable part of a person’s life, and being part of their journey is a privilege.’

There are times when a person is traced who doesn’t want to be found, and Family Tracing never judges or tries to influence that decision. ‘There may be good reasons why they do not want to be found. So we stop it right there, and the result will be “no trace”.’

But even when re-connection doesn’t occur, the process of reaching out can still be very healing. Family Tracing recently found a son who didn’t want to pass on his contact details, but he sent a message to his mother and father saying: ‘Losing contact was not your fault, you didn’t do anything wrong and I love you very much.’ That was enough to bring enormous relief and comfort to the family.

But with an 80 per cent success rate, more often than not the service is a catalyst for restoring family relationships. Recent stories come easily to mind for Vivienne.

‘A family had come from a war zone to New Zealand as refugees, and when they arrived the children got separated. One of the children, as an adult, was traumatised and sought help. His counsellor contacted us, hoping that finding his siblings would aid in his healing. We were able to reconnect him with his siblings,’ recalls Vivienne.

One of the most common reasons for family disconnection is long standing feuds, or an argument that causes a rift in the family. When these relationships are restored, letters of gratitude come pouring in. After Family Tracing recently re-connected a father with his son, the father told them: ‘Thank you so, so much. All I want to do is hug my son. Thank you for finding him.’

Vivienne says that Family Tracing is at the ‘cutting edge’ of the church, capturing Salvation Army founder William Booth’s original vision of caring for the lost and vulnerable. ‘We’re dealing with vulnerable people, often not churched, often at the edges of society. And that is the gospel call, to heal the broken-hearted and the disenfranchised.’

Go to www.salvationarmy.org.nz/FamilyTracing to connect with the Family Tracing Service, p: (04) 382 0710 or e: family_tracing@nzf.salvationarmy.org

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by Ingrid Barratt (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 17 October 2015, pp5-7
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.