Speaker 1: Before we begin, a quick warning that in this show
Speaker 1: we discussed child abuse and this content may be difficult
Speaker 1: for some listeners. If you, or anyone you know is
Speaker 1: a victim or survivor of medical child abuse, please go
Speaker 1: to munchhausensupport dot com to connect with professionals who can help.
Speaker 2: There is a family in Renton that I want to
Speaker 2: introduce you to. Mom Sophie went on an inspiring trip
Speaker 2: to Zambia and her college year. She's since adopted two girls.
Speaker 2: One of them has an incredibly rare disorder. Doctors say
Speaker 2: it's a one in a million chance.
Speaker 1: The audio you just heard is from a news story
Speaker 1: that aired on King five television back in May of
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. This story wasn't on my radar, but I
Speaker 1: had a lot going on back then. I had just
Speaker 1: had a baby and had a new book coming out,
Speaker 1: and this was around the time that Munchausen Biproxy was
Speaker 1: really entering my work life. The month that this story aired,
Speaker 1: I'd done my very first interview about my own family
Speaker 1: story for Vanity Fair, and this was followed by an
Speaker 1: appearance on a local station about my third novel, We
Speaker 1: Came Here to Forget. This was all taking place amid
Speaker 1: the second investigation into my sister for Munchausen biproxy abuse
Speaker 1: of her children. By the middle of that summer, the
Speaker 1: courts would return my sister's children to her, and a
Speaker 1: few months after that, the prosecuting attorney would make the
Speaker 1: decision not to file charges against my sister, Megan Carter,
Speaker 1: despite the horrifying and voluminous evidence against her. But back
Speaker 1: to Sophie in general, seeing stories about sick kids in
Speaker 1: the news is upsetting for a bunch of reasons.
Speaker 2: So family friends are banding together. They're trying to raise money,
Speaker 2: and this is something that is no little ask. We're
Speaker 2: talking about like sixty thousand dollars for a vehicle for them,
Speaker 2: So we just wanted to put their positive energy out there.
Speaker 1: Of course, there are the particular fears and questions that
Speaker 1: I bring to it, given my experience with my sister.
Speaker 1: Is this mom telling the truth? What if this child
Speaker 1: isn't a victim of a rare disease but a victim
Speaker 1: of the person purporting to care for them, even when
Speaker 1: there are no red flags for abuse, which is mostly
Speaker 1: the case. These stories are pretty dystopian because they illuminate
Speaker 1: a tragic feeling of our country's healthcare system, the horrible
Speaker 1: reality that families, many of whom I'm sure would prefer
Speaker 1: to keep their children's health private, are forced into a
Speaker 1: situation where they have to perform their trauma publicly in
Speaker 1: the hopes that kind strangers might step in to relieve
Speaker 1: the skyrocketing medical bills that could otherwise bankrupt their family. So,
Speaker 1: while I usually avoid these types of stories in my
Speaker 1: day to day life, once I did see this news
Speaker 1: report right away, I noticed that Sophie was positioning herself
Speaker 1: as the only one who saw what was happening with
Speaker 1: her child.
Speaker 3: I started noticing just kind of weird things or times
Speaker 3: where her body would just feel really different, like it
Speaker 3: would either be super super tight or like really limp.
Speaker 4: Doctor's visits filled the first few years life, and right.
Speaker 3: Away they found pretty significant brain damage, and so she
Speaker 3: was diagnosed with CP at the end of twenty fifteen.
Speaker 4: This is a sample, but Sophie quickly realized was experiencing
Speaker 4: something much more concerning.
Speaker 3: Complaining to the ne'real just saying like she's having seizures.
Speaker 3: So they would bring her in for an EEG and
Speaker 3: it was nothing. They're like, no, we don't see anything.
Speaker 3: Maybe she is there's the walls.
Speaker 4: Sophia admits she started to question her own instincts.
Speaker 3: There'd be times where she was like literally totally paralyzed,
Speaker 3: and I go to her doctors and be like, I
Speaker 3: know she's walking right now, but like she was literally
Speaker 3: paralyzed all day yesterday and they'd be like, no, that's
Speaker 3: not possible. I'm like, but like, it's she couldn't move,
Speaker 3: like I'm telling you, and they're like, okay, but she
Speaker 3: can't now, and I'm like.
Speaker 5: Right, I know.
Speaker 4: But after seeking a second opinion and running through genetic testing,
Speaker 4: she also.
Speaker 3: Has one on the ATP one a phree giene which
Speaker 3: is associated with a disorder called alternating hemopolygia childhood, which
Speaker 3: is a extremely rare, one in a million genetic disorder.
Speaker 4: And she's right, it affects one and one million children.
Speaker 4: It is progressive and has no cure.
Speaker 3: Wow, Lord, you took me up to the fullest extent
Speaker 3: on what I told you.
Speaker 1: I was willing to do. This piece on the Evening
Speaker 1: News ended up being the first chapter in what would
Speaker 1: become a major national news story. This is rare for
Speaker 1: Manchessen by proxy cases, which usually Gardner little national coverage
Speaker 1: outside of the truly sensational eyed stories like Gypsy Rose
Speaker 1: Blanchard and Miya Kuwalski. But there were many elements of
Speaker 1: this story that caught people's attention. For one, there were
Speaker 1: the optics. Sophie, who is young, white, blonde, and conventionally pretty,
Speaker 1: had adopted two children, sisters from a far away nation.
Speaker 3: I went to Zambia after my freshman year of college
Speaker 3: on a month long mission trip, and so when I
Speaker 3: was there, I just encounter the plight of an orphan adoption.
Speaker 3: Wasn't on my radar at all.
Speaker 1: In the televised segment, there are images from Sophie's life
Speaker 1: with her two adorable girls, interspersed with footage from the
Speaker 1: interview and b roll of Sophie's younger daughter, who were
Speaker 1: referring to as c, who is smiley and cheerfully dressed,
Speaker 1: in the family's kitchen. At one point, as the two
Speaker 1: play a game together, Sophie sitting beside her daughter's wheelchair,
Speaker 1: the little girl says, this my.
Speaker 2: Radar at all.
Speaker 1: You want to get so scared. It would be easy
Speaker 1: to miss this blip in the audio, but the little
Speaker 1: girl is saying, I don't want to get a poke.
Speaker 1: I'm so scared. This moment is odd because they're not
Speaker 1: in a medical setting and there's no medical equipment nearby.
Speaker 1: To most this might be a throwaway moment, but for me,
Speaker 1: it's a harbinger of how this seemingly inspiring story of
Speaker 1: a mother who'd moved heaven and earth to help two
Speaker 1: orphans became.
Speaker 6: So this is detective or work with the rents and
Speaker 6: police department. Today's date is March seventeenth to twenty twenty one.
Speaker 6: It is approximately eight oh three hours.
Speaker 7: And then can you just state your name for me?
Speaker 3: Sophie Hartman.
Speaker 7: In twenty nineteen, King five first met Sophie Hartman after
Speaker 7: she adopted two sisters from Zambia. She told us one
Speaker 7: has a rare neurological disorder called alternating Hemiplegia of childhood
Speaker 7: or AHC. At the time, Hartman set up a GoFundMe
Speaker 7: page to raise money for a wheelchair vehicle. Today, she
Speaker 7: faces second degree assault charges against a child, her own daughter.
Speaker 5: This is not based off of one investigator.
Speaker 1: It's not based off of a quick investigation.
Speaker 8: This was months of investigation by police and several experts
Speaker 8: who wait in King.
Speaker 7: County prosecutors are accusing Hartman of subjecting her daughter to
Speaker 7: medically unnecessary surgical procedures and restraints. Records say the girl
Speaker 7: underwent more than four hundred and seventy four medical appointments
Speaker 7: since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: When the Sophie Hartman case broke, it was the typical
Speaker 1: litany of eye popping numbers of doctor's visits and procedures
Speaker 1: that her daughter had to endure. But this season, we're
Speaker 1: diving into the complicated, many layered story of Sophie Hartman,
Speaker 1: a white evangelical woman from a small town in Michigan
Speaker 1: who traveled thousands of miles to Zambia and returned with
Speaker 1: two vulnerable little girls. People believe their eyes. That's something
Speaker 1: that is so central to this topic, because we do
Speaker 1: believe the people that we love when they're telling us something.
Speaker 1: If we didn't, you could never make it through your day.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrea Dunlop, and this is nobody should believe me.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to support the show, the best way
Speaker 1: to do that is to subscribe on Apple Podcasts or
Speaker 1: on Patreon. You get all episodes early in ad free,
Speaker 1: along with extended cuts and deleted scenes. From the season.
Speaker 1: You also get two exclusive bonus episodes every month, and
Speaker 1: for the first time ever, we have the entire season
Speaker 1: ready for you to binge right now on the subscriber feed.
Speaker 1: That's right. You can listen to every episode of season
Speaker 1: five right this minute if you subscribe to the show,
Speaker 1: and as always, if monetary support is not an option
Speaker 1: for you right now, rating and reviewing the show wherever
Speaker 1: you listen also helps us a great deal. And if
Speaker 1: there's someone you feel needs to hear this show, please
Speaker 1: do share it with them. Word of mouth is so
Speaker 1: important for independent podcasts. For even more, you can also
Speaker 1: find us on YouTube, where we have every episode as
Speaker 1: well as bonus video content. Figuring out where to start
Speaker 1: with these cases can be a challenge, and going in
Speaker 1: I always know that hearing from the person at the
Speaker 1: center of it is probably unlikely. However, in this instance
Speaker 1: we had a pretty compelling source document because Sophie wrote
Speaker 1: a memoir.
Speaker 8: The Strong Ache in my Stomach, that, like homesickness, was
Speaker 8: for another country, a land where children ran freely and
Speaker 8: dust filled every crevice, a place so different and foreign,
Speaker 8: yet one where Heaven met Earth more clearly than I
Speaker 8: had ever seen before.
Speaker 1: That was an excerpt from Sophie Hartman's twenty sixteen self
Speaker 1: published memoir entitled Crowns of Beauty. The book offers her
Speaker 1: first person account of her time in Zambia and her
Speaker 1: journey to adopt her two daughters, Sophie's younger daughter, who
Speaker 1: were referring to as C, and Sophie's older daughter, who
Speaker 1: were referring to as M. The cover is a moody
Speaker 1: professional photo of Sophie carrying her youngest on her hip
Speaker 1: and holding her older daughter by the hand. Born in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, Sophie Hartman grew up in a small
Speaker 1: town outside of Kalamazoo, Michigan. From what I've been able
Speaker 1: to glean about her childhood, she appears to have had
Speaker 1: a fairly normal, upper middle class life. I've spoken to
Speaker 1: some folks on background who know the family, and they
Speaker 1: told me that they were well off and well respected
Speaker 1: in town. The whole family was also very active in
Speaker 1: the church, and according to Sophie's memoir, she began her
Speaker 1: devout relationship with God at the age of fourteen during
Speaker 1: a Christian summer camp. Sophie was a talented athlete and
Speaker 1: played basketball and soccer growing up and after graduation, went
Speaker 1: on to college, and then, according to her book, a
Speaker 1: summer mission trip prompted her to leave school about two
Speaker 1: and a half years early, changing the course of her life.
Speaker 8: Scene at Kafui screams of a divine artist's touch, one
Speaker 8: that faithfully brings forth beauty each day. Within moments of
Speaker 8: setting foot on the soil. That day in two thousand
Speaker 8: and eight, draped behind the fierce beauty of Kafui's landscape,
Speaker 8: I witnessed the torments of everyday life by the people
Speaker 8: who called this compound home. I saw malner'sh children ply
Speaker 8: their way through sewage drains, chewing on plastic bags, and
Speaker 8: my heart burned in my chest. Filthy, unclothed babies crawling
Speaker 8: alone in the middle of the street caught me completely
Speaker 8: off guard, their desperate, empty eyes gazing lifelessly back at mine.
Speaker 8: The dramatic and contrasting reality that was present every day
Speaker 8: in Kafui devastated me, and I've never been the same.
Speaker 8: But maybe I had been missing something. Maybe beauty could
Speaker 8: always be found in places long thought to be dark,
Speaker 8: and maybe beauty could still surface in places of utter darkness,
Speaker 8: that is, if someone was willing to fight for it.
Speaker 1: Sophie appears to have been in and out of Zambia
Speaker 1: from roughly two thousand and eight to twenty fifteen, but
Speaker 1: the details of where she was and with whom are
Speaker 1: obscured in her memoir. In fact, everything about her time
Speaker 1: there is obscured, as she notes to the reader that
Speaker 1: she's changed the names of not only the people who
Speaker 1: appear in the book, but even many of the towns
Speaker 1: that she lived in and traveled to. I can certainly
Speaker 1: understand changing the names of people to protect their privacy,
Speaker 1: but the links she goes to to hide the details
Speaker 1: of her life there are somewhat extraordinary given that this
Speaker 1: is a memoir. Notably, in her acknowledgments, which here in
Speaker 1: the opening pages of the book, she thinks a large
Speaker 1: number of Americans by name, But given that the memoirs
Speaker 1: focused on her time in another country, her words of
Speaker 1: thanks to the folks in Zambia are strikingly different.
Speaker 8: My big Zambian family, you have changed my life forever.
Speaker 8: Thank you for not just being eager but ecstatic about
Speaker 8: this book, and thank you for letting me tell those stories.
Speaker 8: I'm so grateful we'll get to be together in the
Speaker 8: age to come. I look forward to amazing chocolates and
Speaker 8: the biggest pillow fights forever. You are beautiful to.
Speaker 1: Me, and that is it. I've written acknowledgments of my
Speaker 1: own for five books now, and especially on the first one.
Speaker 1: You name just literally every person ever, like the barista
Speaker 1: who got your coffee while you were writing in the morning,
Speaker 1: your third grade teacher, your dog walker. If these Zambian
Speaker 1: friends were so ecstatic about the book, why aren't we
Speaker 1: thinking any of them by name. The book is largely
Speaker 1: focused on time abroad, and we're given scant details of
Speaker 1: Sophie's life before in Michigan. In fact, we mostly hear
Speaker 1: about how much resistance she encountered for a decision to
Speaker 1: go to Zambia.
Speaker 8: A believer very near to me aggressively questioned my decision,
Speaker 8: What did you know about helping people in Africa? And
Speaker 8: how do you think you can handle all the poverty
Speaker 8: and the horrible situations when you have never experienced that.
Speaker 8: You will not be safe And all I'll be able
Speaker 8: to say when you come home is I told you so.
Speaker 1: And look, I can imagine that Sophie's parents were probably
Speaker 1: a bit dismayed at the idea of their daughter dropping
Speaker 1: out of college to move to Zambia. However, an idealistic
Speaker 1: college kid heading out to save the world is so
Speaker 1: common it's a cliche. We all know the guy who
Speaker 1: goes on to be an accountant but never shuts up
Speaker 1: about his time in the Peace Corps. But Sophie's description
Speaker 1: of the town's reaction to her decision elevates her to
Speaker 1: the status of martyr.
Speaker 8: Images of leaving my upper class at youation and culture
Speaker 8: and stepping into the dusty lives of children deemed filth
Speaker 8: triggered thoughts of a scripture passage I had read time
Speaker 8: and time again. Speak up for those who cannot speak
Speaker 8: for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute,
Speaker 8: Speak up and judge fairly, defend the rights of the
Speaker 8: poor and needy, Proverbs thirty one to eight nine.
Speaker 1: In the beginning sections of the book, we also hear
Speaker 1: from Sophie's little sister, Sam, who contributes journal entries describing
Speaker 1: the change she sees in her sister.
Speaker 9: I saw Sophie walking through a towering doorway, given away
Speaker 9: by her bright blonde hair and beaming smile. She rolled
Speaker 9: two large suitcases behind her, and she was wrapped in
Speaker 9: colorful Zambian fabric. I clung to Sophie's right side the
Speaker 9: entire ride, wide eyed and in awe of my big sister,
Speaker 9: who looked like an African princess.
Speaker 1: After her initial trip, Sophie returned less than a year later,
Speaker 1: and at nineteen, started interning for an orphan sponsorship ministry.
Speaker 1: That was where Sophie would find her true calling.
Speaker 8: He has called me to Zambia. I was there, and
Speaker 8: then he told me he wants me to move there.
Speaker 8: I'm still in college, but I'm leaving soon. He's called
Speaker 8: me to be a mother in this nation. He has
Speaker 8: called me to serve these children and to be a
Speaker 8: voice for those who have no voice. It's crazy. Most
Speaker 8: of my friends and family are trying to stop me
Speaker 8: from going, but I can't say no. I love Jesus.
Speaker 8: I love him. I love him. Oh, I love him.
Speaker 1: Reading this book was a disorienting experience, given the context
Speaker 1: a young white evangelical setting out to quote save the
Speaker 1: people of Zambia. I was expecting the writing to be
Speaker 1: a bit problematic, but it was also settling in for
Speaker 1: what might at very least be an interesting fish out
Speaker 1: of water story of someone leaving everything they've ever known,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know anything about Zambia, so I was
Speaker 1: looking forward to hearing the little details about day to
Speaker 1: day life. You notice so much when you're in a
Speaker 1: new place. It's what makes traveling abroad so thrilling. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: everything from the food to the fashion, to the local
Speaker 1: shopping habits and modes of transportation are new and fascinating.
Speaker 1: I was also quite curious to know what a twenty
Speaker 1: year old college kid even does when they land in Zambia,
Speaker 1: and after reading the nearly two hundred pages of this memoir,
Speaker 1: I learned none of that. Reading this book was the
Speaker 1: beginning of an experience that I continue to have as
Speaker 1: I try to get a handle on Sophie's story. It's
Speaker 1: like the closer I get to it, the more it pixelates.
Speaker 1: It's like trying to see through layers of smoke, only
Speaker 1: to discover more smoke. Sophie's primary descriptive of Zambia is
Speaker 1: that it's quote dusty and basically just kind of hellish.
Speaker 8: Walking through the streets of shanty Zambian compounds does something
Speaker 8: to me. These compounds are lums, squalid, densely populated areas
Speaker 8: where poverty and disease are rampant. Whether I return home
Speaker 8: with mud between my toes because of the rains, with
Speaker 8: dust in every crevis during the dry season, or with
Speaker 8: soiled clothes because of a mixture of urine and diarrhea
Speaker 8: from all my little friends, something unexplainable happens. My heart
Speaker 8: is moved every time, and something in the depths of
Speaker 8: me yurins for Jesus.
Speaker 1: Because at the obfuscation of many of the exact locations,
Speaker 1: I can't say for sure whether Sophie really encountered this
Speaker 1: much dust, but certainly the whole country is not dusty.
Speaker 1: Zambia is a developing country, but to reduce the nation
Speaker 1: to scenes of crushing poverty and desperately maltreated children, as
Speaker 1: Sophie does in this book is unfair and inaccurate. Zambia
Speaker 1: is one of the most urbanized countries in Sub Saharan Africa.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, when Sophie first arrived there,
Speaker 1: Zambia would have still been reeling from the global economic crisis,
Speaker 1: but they'd also undergone about a decade of economic growth
Speaker 1: and export diversification. Progress is being made in education, lowering
Speaker 1: maternal and child mortality rates and tackling the HIV AIDS epidemic.
Speaker 1: But there isn't much nuance to Sophie's descriptions of Zambia.
Speaker 1: The picture she paints is evocative of those Sally Struthers
Speaker 1: commercials from the nineties.
Speaker 10: For about seventy cents, you can buy a can of
Speaker 10: soda regular or diet. In Ethiopia, For just seventy cents
Speaker 10: a day, you can feed a child like Jamal nourishing meal.
Speaker 10: Since nineteen thirty eight, Christian Children's Fund has helped children
Speaker 10: of many faiths and their communities with food, medical care, clothing,
Speaker 10: a chance to go to school, or whatever is needed
Speaker 10: most Today, so many children around the world still need
Speaker 10: your help, and through Christian Children's Fund, you can reach
Speaker 10: out to one of them by sharing, well, just a
Speaker 10: little of your pocket change.
Speaker 4: It takes so little for you to.
Speaker 8: Become a special friend to a child in a developer country,
Speaker 8: but boy, the good it can do is worth more
Speaker 8: than you can imagine.
Speaker 1: So while there certainly is poverty in Zambia, much like
Speaker 1: in most places, Sophie's descriptions feel troubling. Now, it's hard
Speaker 1: to say on its face whether the problem here is
Speaker 1: that Sophie just needs to take a few more creative
Speaker 1: writing workshops, or if this is evidence of something deeper,
Speaker 1: but I just couldn't get over how the people she
Speaker 1: was with and the place she was in just never
Speaker 1: came into focus. Much more vivid than her descriptions of
Speaker 1: life in Zambia were Sophie's internal experiences, mostly talking to God.
Speaker 1: These were numerous and florid, occasionally veering into downright romantic
Speaker 1: passages like this one.
Speaker 8: You will find that I have loved you, Lord. I
Speaker 8: have loved you hard and with abandon. My eyes are
Speaker 8: on you, locked in I'm gazing. You will find me
Speaker 8: fully and holy in love with you. I will drink
Speaker 8: this cup, this double agony, this double grief, this searing pain,
Speaker 8: this deep anger, and this hatred of injustice because of them,
Speaker 8: and I will love you wholly as I drink this cup,
Speaker 8: sowing in tears, sowing in tears, sowing in tears.
Speaker 1: In her memoir and when she speaks to the media
Speaker 1: about her daughters, Sophie refers to the two young girls
Speaker 1: she brought home from Zambia as orphans. And there's an
Speaker 1: important cultural nuance here in the United States. When we
Speaker 1: say orphan, we usually take this to mean a child
Speaker 1: whose parents are dead. However, because of the differences in
Speaker 1: family structure, the word orphan has a pretty different context
Speaker 1: in Zambia. According to Zambian journalist Lori Machinhi, children become
Speaker 1: orphaned when they lose their parents, but parents are not
Speaker 1: seen as the only primary caregivers in a Zambian family.
Speaker 1: Zambians embrace the extended family system, so the adults that
Speaker 1: we would refer to as hans and uncles are also
Speaker 1: considered parental figures and often referred to as mom and
Speaker 1: dad as well, especially in traditional village settings. Similarly, cousins
Speaker 1: are referred to as sisters and brothers, etc. So when
Speaker 1: someone loses their parents and can't live on their own,
Speaker 1: the other adults in the family automatically take over custody
Speaker 1: of that quote orphan. In a few circumstances, where families
Speaker 1: are too poor or too abusive, the orphans will be
Speaker 1: taken to an orphanage where they will remain until they
Speaker 1: are able to be reunited with family, or, in cases
Speaker 1: where that's not possible, come of age and go out
Speaker 1: on their own. So while in the US we may
Speaker 1: think of an orphanage as a place where abandoned children
Speaker 1: await adoption. Orphanages in Zambia can serve as more of
Speaker 1: what we think of as a foster home for children.
Speaker 1: Because of the vagueness and frankly, the strangeness of Sophie's writing,
Speaker 1: it's hard to get a grasp on what she was
Speaker 1: doing day to day in Zambia prior to meeting and
Speaker 1: adopting her older daughter m Largely, it seems that she
Speaker 1: was in the business of saving souls. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about saving women and children and being a
Speaker 1: quote mother to them, but the particulars aren't clear other
Speaker 1: than various mentions of proselytizing and Bible study, and occasional
Speaker 1: mentions of meetings with various healthcare providers. And Sophie doesn't
Speaker 1: appear to have any specialized training. However, as well demonstrated
Speaker 1: by the book, she sure does seem to know a
Speaker 1: lot of scripture. There's a lot about Jesus in this book.
Speaker 1: I would say at least the third of the text
Speaker 1: is Sophie in rapturous conversation with Him. Now, as for
Speaker 1: any of the earthly men she encounters in her time
Speaker 1: in Zambia, Sophie has nothing good to report.
Speaker 8: One afternoon in late twenty ten, I was walking home
Speaker 8: through the compound where I lived, dialoguing with Jesus about
Speaker 8: my day. Drunken men directed profanities at me as I
Speaker 8: passed a tavern, but simultaneously, my eyes fixed on three
Speaker 8: little girls playing in the dirt just a few feet
Speaker 8: in front of them. Their soil dresses barely covered their bottoms,
Speaker 8: making it obvious that they wore no undergarments. My heart
Speaker 8: burned and adrenaline shot through my veins as I recalled
Speaker 8: that three days earlier, a young child was severely raped
Speaker 8: in an alley nearby. A fire rose within me as
Speaker 8: I recalled another very complex sexual assault case in which
Speaker 8: three precious young girls confessed that they had agreed to
Speaker 8: give themselves to a man for a gift, which turned
Speaker 8: out to be a single lollipop for the three of
Speaker 8: them to share.
Speaker 1: Now, sadly, sexual assault is both pervasive and universal, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately it has not been possible to corroborate or disprove
Speaker 1: any of the anecdotes Sophie shares in her book. The
Speaker 1: story she tells here could be true, but her descriptions
Speaker 1: of the people in Zambia particularly, but not exclusively, the men,
Speaker 1: often paints them as cruel and violent.
Speaker 8: The transition from my Southwest Michigan normal to my new
Speaker 8: Zambian compound was tough. It was now normal to cry
Speaker 8: myself to sleep every night, to be fondled and grabbed
Speaker 8: by men throughout the day, and to encounter severely abused
Speaker 8: women and children. It was also normal to hear heinous
Speaker 8: sexual comments by drunken men. It was normal to have
Speaker 8: bruises and sore limbs from being dragged into an alleyway,
Speaker 8: to be threatened with stoning and being thrown in fire
Speaker 8: while fighting to rescue children, and to be harassed and
Speaker 8: followed by individuals with legions of unrestrained demons possessing them.
Speaker 8: It was normal to hold babies who had been dumped
Speaker 8: in sewers, to feed children whose bellies and bottoms were
Speaker 8: being eaten away by worms, and to listen to little
Speaker 8: girls replay the abusive events of the night prior.
Speaker 1: And while we don't get any sense of the daily
Speaker 1: details like meals or dress, the passages about the suffering
Speaker 1: of the children she encounters are vivid and grows. The
Speaker 1: book positioned Sophie as both a martyr and a savior
Speaker 1: helping various women and children at great risk to herself.
Speaker 1: And while Sophie talks a lot about Jesus, she also
Speaker 1: paints herself very much as a christ like figure. Her
Speaker 1: story culminates with the adoption of her two daughters, C
Speaker 1: and M, following a lengthy battle with the Zambian government, who,
Speaker 1: according to her, fought her every step of the way.
Speaker 1: Sophie was under twenty five at the time, which made
Speaker 1: it against Zambian law for her to adopt children. She
Speaker 1: was also less than twenty one years older than M,
Speaker 1: her eldest daughter, which went against a separate legal requirement. However,
Speaker 1: the adoptions did eventually go through, with M in twenty
Speaker 1: fourteen when she was five, and with C the baby,
Speaker 1: when she was less than a year old.
Speaker 8: In twenty fifteen, one day after I had completed my
Speaker 8: primary responsibilities, I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to
Speaker 8: visit a crisis orphanage. I had been there only one before,
Speaker 8: and since then I had repeatedly asked Jesus for another
Speaker 8: opportunity to go. I declared under my breath that because
Speaker 8: Jesus made it clear in the Bible that visiting the
Speaker 8: orphan was true religion. I knew that more would happen
Speaker 8: during my time at the Orphanage than would meet my eye.
Speaker 8: I walked in, and there she was. As she wiggled
Speaker 8: beneath three blankets. I could start to make out her
Speaker 8: tiny frame. It was obvious just by her face though
Speaker 8: that malnourishment had left her entire body skeletal. Her body
Speaker 8: came to a rest as I drew her near. I
Speaker 8: looked down, gazing into her eyes. I couldn't help but
Speaker 8: stare at such beauty. She pulls her little fists close
Speaker 8: to her face and she rubs her tired eyes. I've
Speaker 8: never seen something so precious. My hand supports her damp bottom.
Speaker 8: The smell of urine meets my nose as the most
Speaker 8: fragrant glory.
Speaker 1: Every other case I've covered on this show has concerned
Speaker 1: parents and their biological children, so I wanted to better
Speaker 1: understand the nuances of the adoptions in this case and
Speaker 1: get some insight into the girl's experience. To help us
Speaker 1: understand the process and complexities of transracial adoption. We sat
Speaker 1: down with Chad Golder Sojourner, a Seattle based writer, educator,
Speaker 1: and performer who counsels, families and organizations on this topic.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the biggest kind of misconception
Speaker 1: or set of misconceptions about transracial adoption, in particular when
Speaker 1: you're talking about like a white family adopting black children.
Speaker 5: So I think so I've been one of the misconceptions
Speaker 5: is that the white parent knows more. Think about that way.
Speaker 5: We have this weird way about adoption and especially transracial
Speaker 5: adoptee is this narrative that they adoptees should be grateful.
Speaker 5: Some home is better than no home.
Speaker 10: How dare you.
Speaker 5: Not be grateful?
Speaker 10: You know?
Speaker 5: In this man? You know, I remember the whole album
Speaker 5: was that Sally's thruthers ads with the kids and the
Speaker 5: flies and all that, even at mentality, And the fact
Speaker 5: is that's not right, you know. And the fact is
Speaker 5: that you have to put in more energy and time.
Speaker 5: So one thing I did when I did We're we're consulting,
Speaker 5: is that somebody's going to be uncomfortable. It's just how
Speaker 5: life is. And if the parent is not feeling uncomfortable,
Speaker 5: you can assume that the child is uncomfortable. For translational adoptees,
Speaker 5: especially when dropping black kids, is you have to prepare
Speaker 5: them to enter into the world they're going to live in.
Speaker 1: I have a two year old and a six year old,
Speaker 1: and I really see my job as a parent to
Speaker 1: prepare my kids for the world that they live in.
Speaker 1: And this is hard enough as it is, so I
Speaker 1: can only imagine when an uphill battle be if you
Speaker 1: had such a difference in your lived experience to what
Speaker 1: you know that your children's will be. So it's really
Speaker 1: important to me to note that neither Chad nor myself
Speaker 1: is against adoption, transracial or otherwise. Families come to be
Speaker 1: in all kinds of different and often beautiful ways, and
Speaker 1: families are always complicated. It's also true that there are
Speaker 1: some additional layers of complexity when adoption comes into the picture,
Speaker 1: and as I know from talking to friends who've adopted,
Speaker 1: including our Season two family The Wayburns, it's just a
Speaker 1: lot to navigate. As Chad explained, there is always the
Speaker 1: risk that children in these situations will come to be
Speaker 1: seen as commodities, and consideration for them and their birth
Speaker 1: parents isn't always top of mind Sadly, in the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario, adoption can be seen as a marketplace. For example,
Speaker 1: prospective parents can flock to states that allow shorter windows
Speaker 1: of time for birthing parents to change their mind. And
Speaker 1: when you add international borders into the discussion, children are
Speaker 1: also at an en increased risk of being fundamentally and
Speaker 1: profoundly disconnected from their homeland.
Speaker 5: I think one of the reasons that people benefit from
Speaker 5: it it's their national adoption, it's yeah adopters, is because
Speaker 5: it's harder for you kept the kid away, so there's
Speaker 5: no three days you can't take him back. You know,
Speaker 5: it's less likely this kid's going to be taken from right.
Speaker 1: So this family, you know, it is a transracial adoption.
Speaker 1: It's a white mother of two black daughters. And it's
Speaker 1: also an international adoption that is a faith based adoption
Speaker 1: that took place in the context of this woman when
Speaker 1: she was quite young, going to Zambia to do missionary
Speaker 1: work and then eventually returning to the States with these
Speaker 1: two girls. So can you help us kind of understand
Speaker 1: these these different sort of complications that come around with
Speaker 1: these things.
Speaker 5: Well, so, first of all, somebody who's been running with
Speaker 5: Jesus is the Carter administration. I will tell you that
Speaker 5: God will never tell an eighteen year old to go
Speaker 5: six thousand miles to get a child. Okay, he might say,
Speaker 5: and go down to the soup kitchen, go mow the
Speaker 5: guy's lawn. So I think the problem with the international
Speaker 5: adoption for a couple reasons is you have no idea.
Speaker 5: First of all, you don't know what you're gonna get.
Speaker 5: And I don't mean that you know you're going to
Speaker 5: play sweet on a local currency. You can't spell, you
Speaker 5: can't find it on a map, I can't play. I'm
Speaker 5: not saying, but I'm not going to Zamber to get
Speaker 5: a kid. There's all these different things. You know nothing
Speaker 5: with history, and you want to take a kid and
Speaker 5: remove them. Just erase that part, which is very bold
Speaker 5: and brash. It just seems like who, like where? Like
Speaker 5: where is that biblical? You know? If you know Golb'm
Speaker 5: talking about guard helps some widows in Orpher and she
Speaker 5: doesn't like talk about just removing them.
Speaker 1: Missionary work itself is very fraught territory. It's mostly young
Speaker 1: white kids going to countries that have often been destabilized
Speaker 1: due to long histories of colonialism and foreign conflict, and
Speaker 1: as Chad pointed out, Sophie's traveling to Zambia to take
Speaker 1: two girls Home was probably not the most efficient or
Speaker 1: economical way to help out.
Speaker 5: I mean, being the playing there's all the money that
Speaker 5: they were, all of the stuff that goes into these.
Speaker 8: Couse.
Speaker 5: It's like why. It goes back to why my other
Speaker 5: concern about transracial international adoptions. I just think this thing
Speaker 5: that kids should be able to put their feet on
Speaker 5: the soil. Somebody, you know, like, are you taking the
Speaker 5: kid back? Like when are they going back? You know,
Speaker 5: becau it's all interesting, Oh we can't afford it. Well,
Speaker 5: you afforded it the first time, you know, you went
Speaker 5: to et open and get the kid, but now you
Speaker 5: can ever afford to go back. So I think, I mean,
Speaker 5: I want to see just totally disparaging about but I
Speaker 5: think there's you know a lot of stuff there that
Speaker 5: is still doesn't make sense. I think when you looking
Speaker 5: at you know, this whole concept an I don't want
Speaker 5: to use the white nationalism the way and we all think,
Speaker 5: but there is this white savior complex.
Speaker 1: This is the troubling vein running through Sophie's book. It's
Speaker 1: the grandiosity of thinking that Zambia is a problem and
Speaker 1: it's one that she's equipped to solve.
Speaker 8: A fierce fire started to burn in me with the
Speaker 8: knowledge that I had been born to fight for justice.
Speaker 8: The core of my god given personality, combined with the
Speaker 8: circumstances of my life, had given me a unique skill
Speaker 8: set that seemed particularly valuable in Zambia's darkest compounds.
Speaker 1: And the two kids that Sophie ends up adopting are
Speaker 1: not the only kids that she tries to quote save
Speaker 1: from Zambia. She attempted to adopt twins before she successfully
Speaker 1: adopted her older daughter m She also describes many other
Speaker 1: instances in her book where she's saving kids in a
Speaker 1: different way.
Speaker 8: I took a few steps in Espina's direction. She immediately
Speaker 8: retreated backward and began shouting, almost barking. In that moment,
Speaker 8: I became certain that she was under a demonic influence,
Speaker 8: and I immediately felt a generous boldness to share the
Speaker 8: gospel completely unhindered. I began to share the gospel from
Speaker 8: Genesis to Revelation. Espina was now seated with intense anger
Speaker 8: across her face. I calmly approached her and gently placed
Speaker 8: my right hand on her head. She pulled away, falling
Speaker 8: down in the dirt, and immediately I could tell that
Speaker 8: the little girl inside her was held captive by darkness.
Speaker 8: I got down in the dirt beside her and proclaimed
Speaker 8: freedom over her. I could hear her calling out Jesus, Jesus,
Speaker 8: and then suddenly she would stop. I made no retreat
Speaker 8: and simply continued to declare freedom in Jesus's name. Aspina
Speaker 8: thrashed around on the ground for quite a while, sometimes
Speaker 8: extending her hands up to the sky, but kicking up
Speaker 8: a dust storm. She screamed as if her entire body
Speaker 8: was chained, and I stood in agreement with Jesus as
Speaker 8: he ordered the demons to let go.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be dismissive of anyone's beliefs, but
Speaker 1: also what will The religious piece of Sophie's perspective feels
Speaker 1: pretty foreign to me as an agnostic, and we're going
Speaker 1: to bring in an expert to help us unpack those
Speaker 1: parts of the story. The positioning of Sophie as both
Speaker 1: a martyr and a savior feels extremely familiar to me,
Speaker 1: as does the book's fixation on crisis and suffering. So
Speaker 1: much is glossed over in the book, but the scenes
Speaker 1: like this one where Sophie is heroically saving children feel
Speaker 1: downright cinematic, so as we move away from Sophie's account
Speaker 1: of her origin story and the adoptions go through for
Speaker 1: both C and M in twenty fifteen, this brings us
Speaker 1: back into the real world, a world where Sophie is
Speaker 1: now a single mother of two, and after leaving Zambia,
Speaker 1: she doesn't choose to head home to Michigan, where her
Speaker 1: family and friends live, where her childhood church congregation is,
Speaker 1: or where her entire supports AYSM appears to reside. She
Speaker 1: moves to Seattle, where I live. This season on, nobody
Speaker 1: should believe me if.
Speaker 8: She wasn't guilty of these allegations, if she was not
Speaker 8: doing what this search warrant was alleging.
Speaker 1: You know how horrific.
Speaker 3: I mean, she seems like a saint.
Speaker 10: She would start to talk about money and how you
Speaker 10: know she doesn't have any money and she needs fundraisers
Speaker 10: and all those stuff.
Speaker 8: But her daughter is in one of the most expensive sports.
Speaker 6: And I believe the church raised about around thirty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Something like that.
Speaker 11: I'd gone through a very traumatic experience having your children
Speaker 11: taken away, and we as han church, got the opportunity
Speaker 11: to support her and hold her up with our prayers.
Speaker 2: But from my observations, she's like the healthiest kidder.
Speaker 7: Of seeing her life.
Speaker 11: Would eat as much as we'd feed her. But given
Speaker 11: the fact that her digestive system is so messed up,
Speaker 11: my daughter has to regulate that.
Speaker 6: I had a hard time imagining being a parent and
Speaker 6: making videos of those kinds of things for my kid.
Speaker 6: Did you ever witness having what Sophie calls one of
Speaker 6: her episodes. I did not.
Speaker 2: She allegedly had this journal entry that talked about how
Speaker 2: she had an issue with lying, so.
Speaker 3: Every time I go in, like to the doctor, she
Speaker 3: wouldn't be exhibiting those symptoms. I'm like, I know this
Speaker 3: sounds crazy, but.
Speaker 8: I'm not making this is not this is not. Yeah,
Speaker 8: well you're the mom.
Speaker 6: Yeah, would it surprise you if I told you that
Speaker 6: AC is not a terminal disease?
Speaker 8: Yes, it was, so.
Speaker 5: I think that all of the signs and symptoms are
Speaker 5: here for that. It's obviously a concern that she's pushing
Speaker 5: this child towards death.
Speaker 1: Nobody should believe me. Is written hosted an executive produce
Speaker 1: by me Andrea Zumma. Our senior producer is Maria Gossett.
Speaker 1: Story editing by Nicole Hill. Research and fact checking by
Speaker 1: Aaron Ajaii and our associate producer is Greta Strongquist. Mixing
Speaker 1: and engineering by Robin Edgar. Book passages were performed by
Speaker 1: Ilana Michelle Rubin. Special thanks this week to Chad Goler, sojourner,
Speaker 1: Glori Machinhi Francisco Alvarado, who originally covered this story for
Speaker 1: The Daily Beast, and the many people who spoke to
Speaker 1: us on background. If you, or anyone you know is
Speaker 1: a victim or survivor of medical child abuse, please go
Speaker 1: to munchausensupport dot com to connect with professionals who can
Speaker 1: help