Callie and Brian Troyer have never met their 10-year-old son. For five years now, the Kentucky couple has been working to get Sam home from China to no avail. Now, they are making a plea to President Donald Trump to help them bring their child home.
The Troyers are just one of about 300 families who were in the adoption process for a child in China when the Chinese Communist Party shut down international adoptions last year.
“We have reached the point where I’m not sure that anyone else other than President Trump is able to to get our children home,” Callie Troyer said.
“We’ve engaged on every level of government that we’ve had access to,” Troyer said. “We’ve talked to senators, we’ve talked to governors, we’ve done the congressional letters through Congress, and we’ve had so many people that have been supportive of us, but, at this point, he has the opportunity to do what his predecessor was not able to do, and that’s to actually get these kids home to their promised families.”
The 300 children waiting in China were matched with a family before China stopped processing requests to be matched with a child about four years ago, and then shut down foreign adoptions in August 2024.
Bringing the children home who matched with families in the U.S. is “such a small thing on the world stage, but it would make such a huge difference to these 300 families and these 300 kids,” the mother said.
Sam is currently living in an orphanage in China. He was born with congenital cataracts and is completely blind.
Callie and Brian Troyer both had a grandparent who was adopted as a child, and even on their first date discussed their interest in one day adopting a child of their own. In 2018, they adopted their son, Gideon, from South Korea. Gideon has special needs and the couple thought they might not have any more kids since their son’s needs were significant, but in 2020, the couple began to consider another adoption.
The couple was already familiar with Sam’s story through a child sponsorship program they were involved with and had consistently been praying for an adoptive family for Sam for years when they began to wonder if they might be the couple they had been praying for.
The Troyers began researching resources for blind children in Louisville, Kentucky, where they live, and came to learn that Louisville is one of the best cities in the world for blind resources. Louisville has a school for the blind, medical resources for the blind, and a a brail printing press
“And so, the more we did the research, we were like, I think we might be the family for this little boy,” Callie Troyer said.
In October 2020, the family officially began the process to adopt Sam and China pre-approved the adoption in March 2021.
“As far as we’ve been able to tell, we were either the second to last or the last family to get preapproval before China stopped matching families,” Callie Troyer said.
Like the Troyers, the 300 families waiting for their children had already been matched with a child and were nearing the final stages of the adoption process.
Acting under the belief that Sam will one day come home, the Troyers have incorporated Chinese customs, such as making tiny dumplings at Christmas, into their family traditions. A bedroom in their home sits empty with toys and a bed with Sam’s name on the wall.
If China does not allow Sam to come home, he will likely move to the adult side of the orphanage when he turns 18.
Through the challenge of waiting for their son to come home, Callie Troyer says support from their community and child advocacy organizations such as Show Hope and Lifeline Children’s Services has meant the world to them.
“It has been a very humbling thought,” Troyer began as she held back tears, “that our child is … literally one of the most prayed over kids in the entire world. I mean, we have just run into people that are like, ‘our entire church stopped and prayed for him this weekend,’ or ‘our whole small group has been praying for him every Thursday for the past six months.’”
“I don’t know if we’re ever going to get to bring him home. We pray that we do, but goodness gracious, there are like, thousands of people at this point who have prayed for this little boy, and just what a sweet gift that has been for us,” the mother said.
Herbert Newell, president executive director of Lifeline Children’s Services, said further delaying the adoption of the 300 children breaks “promises to both parents and children.”
“President Trump has the ability to cut through red tape, demand answers, and ensure that these waiting children are not forgotten,” Newell, said. “It’s time to honor our commitments and bring these children home.”
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