KEARNS, Utah — Kory gets to stay. In last week's Church News, the family of John and Louise Perkins was featured, which included seven adopted special needs children — with Kory's adoption in limbo. The 6-year-old, who was born in Poland without hands and feet, had come to live in the Perkins home, but the family was waiting for approval from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Perkins family, members of the Taylorsville 9th Ward, Taylorsville Utah Central Stake, has also been trying to adopt 3-year-old Marisol, a blind girl in Guatemala.
On the morning of Aug. 28, Sister Perkins received a telephone call from one of their social workers. "You got both of them," he told her. Kory's adoption papers are in Polish courts now; Marisol's adoption will be completed within two months.
"I just cried. I cried all day," Sister Perkins told the Church News in an afternoon telephone interview.
Earlier that day, she went to the elementary school where Kory was in class. Bringing him into the hall, Sister Perkins said, she knelt and told her newest son, " 'I have some news for you. You're not going to have to go back to Poland.' His first comment was: " 'Does that mean I get to go to the temple now?' "
Sister Perkins assured him that he would soon be sealed to them in the temple — "forever and forever."