Lowveld - Dec 2019

Tedes Matola, and Anastasia, Yolande, Emile and Benjamin, Katy, Jasmine,
Rafi and Silvestre Muller. Tedes, who although was not officially adopted,
is very much part of the family.
looking rather bereft. So I decided
to take her in and start caring for her
and just love her like a mum would.
“About a week later another little girl
appeared at my door looking for her
sister. That was Rafi and I took her in
as well. Then a month later they told
me they had a brother, Silvestre! I just
shook my head because I had already
fallen in love with the two little girls
and now there was a brother too. So
in he came as well and we were like
a family.”
Katy soon met the children’s dad,
who regularly came to visit them at
the orphanage. Their mom had died
of malaria and their father was too
old to care for them, and so he took
them to the orphanage. He and Katy
became good friends, and when the
time came, he gave her his blessing
to adopt the three siblings.
“Not long after, a man showed up on
my doorstep saying that he heard I
took in children. He then asked me
to take care of his granddaughter,
Yolande, as her parents had died. She
was such a darling I couldn’t help but
love her instantly.”
At that stage Katy was still single,
and with four kids in tow, she took
another courageous step to leave
the orphanage where she had been
working and set up another in Matola
where there was a need for one. “I
left with all four the children, which
was a miracle in itself because it was
unheard of for a missionary to leave
with any children. But it was just the
38 Get It Lowveld December 2019
way God’s plan worked and I was
soon able to complete the adoption
process for all of them.”
Shortly after Katy met her soon-to-be
husband, Emile, at church. “I told him I
come as a package with four children
and he said no problem. I said, you
must be joking - you don’t know
what that really means! But he was
adamant and it wasn’t long before we
got married.
Adoption is all
about saying
‘I want you,
I love you, I
choose you’
“We were then blessed with a child of
our own, Jasmine. Unfortunately she
has learning difficulties so we had to
move to South Africa to get her into
a better school where she could be
taught in English. We settled down
outside White River three years ago.
I then had Benjamin, bringing our
family to eight.”
Katy muses about her “rainbow”
family, with her being British, her
husband South African, four of
the children Mozambican and the
other two something in-between.
But through the joy there are also
challenges, not the least being the
transracial nature of their family.
“When you walk through the mall
with all the children in tow, you
attract a lot of stares. Everyone wants
to know who the kids are and why
you have them. Sometimes you
get a good reaction, sometimes
not. But I see more and more
transracial families and it has become
increasingly normal, which helps.”
She notes that as an adoptive parent,
it can be an emotional journey as
you often wonder if your children
are reacting a certain way because
of how you brought them up or
whether it is part of their DNA and
has nothing to do with you. “You
wonder when they act out if it is
because they don’t love you as
much because you are not their
biological mother or because they
are being normal, difficult teenagers.
But ultimately whether they are your
adopted kids or biological, you have
challenges to face and so do they.
You go through ups and downs just
as you would with your biological
children. That’s life.
“But I always tell them that while
they weren’t born in my tummy, they
were born in my heart. Adoption is all
about saying ‘I want you, I love you, I
choose you’. It is just as profound as
spending nine months in the womb.
And my dream for them is to see
them do well in life and have the
same opportunities as anyone else.”