Born in a small village in the Dominican Republic, Ivelisse Holguin was 8 when a pan of flaming gasoline was accidentally flung into her face.
She dropped out of school when classmates shunned and taunted her because of her badly disfigured face. She cowered at the prospect of meeting new people and often tried to hide her scars.
“When she first came here, she spent a lot of time with her shirt pulled over the lower part of her face,” said Dennis Penning of Hazel Crest, Ivelisse’s foster father.
Today, 12-year-old Ivelisse smiles when called by her foster mother, Kieran Penning, to meet a stranger. She alternately plays and argues with her 8-year-old foster sister, Alyssa; pets the Pennings’ snowy white cat, Cody; and pitches in to help clear dinner dishes from the table.
This is Ivelisse’s second stay with the Pennings; her first visit, in 1994, lasted a year and a half. The Pennings are foster parents with Healing the Children, a non-profit organization that arranges for children from foreign countries to receive donated medical treatment.
Sue Casey, who until recently served as director of the group’s Illinois/Indiana chapter, said 234 children from overseas have received medical treatment in the U.S. through the chapter, 58,000 for the entire organization
The organization arranges for passports and visas for the children, sees that medical consent forms are signed, connects the children with foster families and seeks donations from businesses, churches and civic groups to pay transportation and other costs. Healing the Children, which has 15 chapters in the U.S., was founded in Spokane in 1979. The local chapter, founded in 1986, works with about a dozen hospitals.
Casey said children who are ill or have physical disabilities are referred by doctors in 65 foreign countries. “A doctor will know when a child cannot be helped in (his or her home) country,” she said, “and will recommend that they come to the U.S.”
Such was the case with Ivelisse. The severe scarring of her face required treatment and surgery unavailable closer to home. She has been operated on 13 times; her nose and ear have been rebuilt, a crossed eye fixed and her fingers straightened. She has been in the U.S. since May and is having fresh skin from her neck stretched and grafted over scarred areas on her face. Her physician is Dr. Nick Retson, a plastic surgeon from Merrillville, Ind.
Describing the lack of sophisticated burn treatment for patients in Ivelisse’s homeland, Retson said, “Their burn care is to shut the patient away.”
In fact, a home remedy for a foot infection is to blame for Ivelisse’s burns. In the remote village where her family lives, people often go barefoot, which leads to infections. A common treatment is for villagers to soak their feet in a pan filled with gasoline. Ivelisse’s sister was soaking her feet when the gasoline caught fire. The girls’ father threw the pan out a window and struck Ivelisse, who was playing outside.
Retson, who is medical director of the Illinois/Indiana chapter, became involved in Healing the Children in 1988. A patient whose church was involved with the organization asked him if he would be willing to provide treatment for a 5-month-old infant born with a cleft palate. “I had a hard time saying no to that,” Retson recalled.
He provides medical treatment at no charge to three or four children a year who travel to the U.S. Under the auspices of Healing the Children, Retson also has led seven trips of 15 to 18 medical professionals each overseas, where they run clinics. During a 10-day trip, they may see 200 to 300 children, operating on 50 to 70 of them.
“Healing the Children really works miracles for pocket change,” said Larry Betts, director of the national organization’s board, who is based in Wheaton. “The medical teams that go abroad give up time, give up the income they would have earned being here and pay their own way.”
Despite the medical professionals’ donations of time and expertise, Retson said, it’s the foster families who deserve greater recognition for their contributions.
“They are the real heroes of this story,” Retson said. “I see Ivelisse for 10 to 15 minutes a week (to check her progress). The Pennings are with her every day. They not only take care of these kids, they maintain their own work schedules and take care of their own families.”
The chapter has 20 foster families, who must be state licensed. They take children to and from medical treatments and provide basic care, such as changing bandages.
For the Pennings, deciding to become a foster family wasn’t a decision made lightly. They learned about Healing the Children in 1991 when it was discussed as part of a program at their daughter’s preschool.
“As people starting out in this, we weren’t sure that it would be something we’d like or even be good at,” Kieran Penning said. They have found, however, that the program is a good mesh with their family life. They have had six foster children since becoming licensed in 1992.
Several of the children who have stayed with them are from Latin America. Dennis, who is employed as a clinical service coordinator for the Hemophilia Foundation in Chicago, lived for 10 years in Latin America, where he worked as a school administrator. Kieran is a nurse.
Having children like Ivelisse live in their home has enabled Dennis to maintain a link with the Latin American culture and to speak Spanish. However, the Pennings insist that a health background or ability to speak a foreign language is not necessary for being a good foster parent.
“You don’t have to be a health professional,” Kieran said. “You don’t have to speak a foreign language because the children will pick up English so fast.”
Ivelisse is a good example of this, as she chatters in English almost as if it were her first language. She is enrolled in 5th grade at the local public school but also is scheduled to receive special education and tutoring in Spanish. She writes to her family each week, and arrangements are made occasionally to call her family, who don’t have a phone and must visit a neighbor to talk to her.
In addition to overseeing her schooling, the Pennings said they often help Ivelisse to work toward another goal during her stay. They are helping Ivelisse overcome her negative feelings about her appearance. She spent a week at a camp for children with cranial-facial disorders in 1994.
“A lot of what we do with Ivelisse is expose her to people,” Kieran said. “She’d been hidden away. She’s been coming out of her shell because she isn’t being treated differently.”
The Pennings said that having foster children in their home has exposed Alyssa to children of different cultures and to those who are fighting difficult battles against illness.
“She’s also learned about negotiating (with a foster sibling),” Kieran said, “and about tolerance.”
None of the organization’s foster families receives a stipend to care for the children, but the Pennings said it is worth it, even when it begins to seem a bit overwhelming.
“If this kid can come here and put up with all this (medical) stuff,” Kieran said, “then I can put up with a little stress.”
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For information on Healing the Children, call the Illinois/Indiana chapter at 219-836-2117.
