A community sale and run/walk event in Camas will benefit the people of Haiti as they struggle to survive and rebuild their lives following the devastating, deadly earthquake on Jan. 12.

Camas resident Sheryl Stephens, one of the organizers of the community sale, said she was inspired to help for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that her twin daughters, Brianna and Bethany, were adopted from the Ebenezer Glenn Orphanage in Dessalines, Haiti when they were just 9 months old.

Now 12, the girls have a large, supportive, loving family and live a typical American lifestyle. But things could have turned out very different.

Sheryl and her husband Joe Stephens already had four sons when they decided they wanted to add to their family through adoption. It was an option they had thought seriously about before their boys were even born -- after Sheryl had suffered two miscarriages.

"That feeling in my heart of wanting to adopt never went away," Sheryl said.

A missionary nurse who was familiar with the Ebenezer Glenn Orphanage spoke at the couple's church, and after many conversations, communications, hard work, persistence and even a little bit of divine intervention, the girls arrived in Camas.

Read the rest of the story in the March 2 issue of the Post-Record