One Day Will Be the Day

Thirteen-year-old Rolson waited five years in Haiti to join his adoptive family. With flights grounded in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the future was uncertain. But after a dangerous journey involving an armed car, a helicopter and an escorted flight to the U.S., Rolson was united with his adoptive family who had waited so long to hold him.

In the peaceful, wooded mountains of Central Haiti, vibrant like a sea of carpeted green, it’s hard to reconcile the stillness with the unrest engulfing Port-au-Prince, just beyond the hills.

Nestled among the terraced mountains is an orphanage, where a boy waits for a family to bring him home.

In Haitian Creole, yon jou la jou means “one day will be the day.”

In this place of stillness, he clings to the hope for that day to come.

From the First Moment

Brian and Mary Jo Sullivan were always interested in adoption.

“When we were engaged, we already decided that we’d love to adopt someday if that was God’s plan for us,” Mary Jo says.

They first adopted their son Finn from China in 2015. The Sullivans then began the process of adopting their daughter Gracie from Haiti a few years later.

As part of the adoption process, the Sullivans spent two weeks in the spring of 2019 at the small crèche, or orphanage, where Gracie lived. As they bonded with Gracie, they got to know all the children at the crèche, including an 8-year-old boy named Rolson.

“There was just something about him — something in his eyes,” Mary Jo remembers. “Each day we were there having lunch with Grace, he would kind of make his way to having lunch with us and just hang with us.”

After coming home from their socialization visit in Haiti, Brian and Mary Jo’s thoughts kept returning to Rolson.

“I remember going home and our family were all asking about all the kids … and I was like, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just find a great family for him,’” Mary Jo says. “There was just something so special about him.”

Starting the Adoption Journey

Within the next six months, Brian — along with some of their biological children — visited Gracie four times at the crèche. With each visit to Haiti, the Sullivans felt closer to Gracie — and Rolson. By the fall of 2019, the Sullivans knew it was time to take the next step.

“That’s where we felt that God was speaking to us,” Brian shares. “Rolson was our son as well, and even though it wasn’t in the plans, God had different plans.”

Still in the adoption process for Gracie, the Sullivans began their homestudy process for Rolson.

“We felt a strong connection with him and decided to start the paperwork and try to bring him home as quickly as we could,” Brian says. “There was just something special where we were drawn to him, and he was drawn to us. It was phenomenal.”

The whole family felt connected to Rolson. When Brian and Mary Jo shared the news with their children, everyone shed tears of joy.

Gracie’s Miraculous Adoption

Gracie was weeks away from traveling to her new home in the U.S. with the Sullivans when COVID-19 hit Haiti. With a heart condition and a suppressed immune system, she urgently needed to unite with her adoptive family and access medical care in the U.S.

In June 2020, we wrote a story about Gracie’s miraculous adoption.

Brian and Mary Jo had already completed her adoption process, but a passport, a visa and an approved exit letter prevented Gracie from leaving Haiti. With the last known flight leaving Haiti on April 9, Gracie needed to be on the plane.

The Sullivans share that it was nothing short of a miracle that Gracie made it on that flight — with all her paperwork complete.

With Gracie safely in their arms, the Sullivans began to wonder about Rolson.

Hope and Turmoil in Haiti

From starting an application to welcoming an adopted child, most international adoptions take an average of three years.

Between the COVID-19 pandemic, political instability and growing danger in Haiti, the Sullivans found themselves wondering not only if they’d be approved as the right family to adopt Rolson, but also if Rolson would be able to make it safely out of Haiti.

In 2021, President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated. Haiti then failed to hold elections several times and violent protests followed.

By 2023, militias and armed groups were active in Port-au-Prince, the capital. Murders, assaults and kidnappings increased exponentially — an increase of 122% from 2022 to 2023.

Despite the situation growing more dangerous in Port-au-Prince, the Sullivans remained hopeful.

“We knew, having been to the crèche, that he was safe — or relatively safe, right up in the mountains, and it’s beautiful up there,” Brian says.

The crèche was nestled in the terraced mountains outside of Port-au-Prince. In such a peaceful place, it was hard to imagine violence erupting just beyond the hills.

Matched at Last

The Sullivans held out hope, waiting for the day that they might be matched with Rolson.

Then, on November 23, 2023 — Thanksgiving Day — the Sullivans got the call they had been waiting for.

“It was a Thanksgiving we’ll never forget,” Mary Jo says as she smiles. “We were cooking dinner and Amanda, [our social worker], was on speaker[phone], and we were just ecstatic.”

That same day, November 23, was the same date the Sullivans found out they were matched for adoption with their son, Finn, 9 years prior.

It was a fitting announcement for the Sullivans on a day centered around gratitude and, often, family.

The next day, the Sullivans had their first video call with Rolson. They celebrated the news over a video call — the first of many to come.

Holt Suspends Operations

In early March 2024, two main prisons were raided, leading to 4,000 prisoners escaping. Gangs cut off access to the country’s largest port, Autorité Portuaire Nationale, causing food shortages.

From the time the Sullivans inquired about adopting Rolson to the spring of 2024, more than four years had passed. Their biggest concern was the program shutting down altogether.

“You’re just thinking, ‘Oh gosh, is it just going to fall apart after four years?’” Mary Jo recounts.

“That’s our son. The thought of not being able to bring him home was a dark, dark path that sometimes we’d go down in the middle of the night,” Brian says as he looks at Mary Jo. “But you’d try and stay away from it.”

On April 1, 2024, Holt International made the difficult decision to suspend family strengthening and orphan care programs in Haiti.

The humanitarian crisis rose to a magnitude that Holt could no longer provide services to children and families in a way that maintained the safety and security of our teams and partners on the ground. At the time of suspending Holt programs, criminal gangs controlled 80% of Port-au-Prince and blocked access to the ports and all major roads in, out and around the city. Haiti’s prime minister resigned due to rising tensions with no interim government in place to bring stability to Haiti.

Over the span of two decades in Haiti, Holt served nearly 20,000 children through family strengthening and orphan care programs and placed over 110 children through international adoption.

For families like the Sullivans, who were already matched with children in Haiti, Holt continued processing adoptions to safely join children with their families.

Faith in the Adoption Journey

Brian and Mary Jo weren’t sure what the next steps looked like, but they say that their faith played an important role.

“There were so many times where we would get so discouraged. We would have loved to have him home four years ago,” Mary Jo shares. “But we have a great faith, and we just believe that someone else has written his story already, and he’s just carrying it out.”

But we have a great faith, and we just believe that someone else has written his story already, and he’s just carrying it out.

In many ways, they seemed to need a miracle — or several — for Rolson to make it home.

One important step in the process was for a judge to sign a document for Rolson’s adoption. Days turned into weeks… and weeks turned into months.

The manila envelope sat on the judge’s desk in Port-au-Prince collecting dust.

At last, it was discovered the judge had fled the country and no one knew.

“There were so many issues — certainly towards the end especially, but even throughout — where they would try to go to government offices,” Brian shares. “But it wasn’t that there was gunfire, it was that the gunfire was too close. And they were like, ‘Sorry it was just too close to the office today.’”

Each small step of the adoption process was a leap — one that required social workers and staff risking their lives each step of the way.

“It’s not to say we weren’t frustrated at certain points when things didn’t happen. But man, for people to be going to offices to try and get this paperwork done,” Brian says, “it was not an exaggeration to say [they were] putting their lives on the line.”

The woman who ran the crèche made several trips to Port-au-Prince to help with the paperwork for Rolson. Countless others also played a part in the process, and Brian and Mary Jo were amazed by the incredible sacrifices others made for their son.

“We just had this immense gratitude for any time something did move forward because we understood the obstacles and the danger that people would put themselves in to try to get Rolson home to us,” Mary Jo says. “Something that took six months to get signed, you knew it just wasn’t for lack of trying — it was just people doing the best they could in the circumstances that they were given in Haiti.”

Falling Into Place

As the process continued to move forward an inch at a time, the Sullivans continued their video calls with Rolson nearly every Friday.

“They were an absolute blessing for us to see that he was healthy, safe and being taken care of while at the orphanage,” Mary Jo shares.

It was a special time to talk about their week and bond together. Some of the Sullivan kids began using Duolingo during the week to practice Haitian Creole. Rolson would sometimes sing songs he was learning in school to share with the family. Then, the Sullivan children would learn the song and sing it for him the next time on the call.

The Sullivans looked forward to bringing him home and gave him tours of their house in New Jersey, sharing glimpses of his home.

“We’d hang up the call,” Mary Jo says as she looks at Brian. “And you could just see he was so happy, but there was all this sadness, and we’d have to say goodbye. Like, ‘Can he just be here, God?’”

The Sullivans had grown used to pushing back Rolson’s arrival date. They had done it many times over. But by the fall of 2024, the dominoes began to fall into place.

Rolson needed to have his passport photo taken, which required traveling to Port-au-Prince. On two previous attempts, he had been turned back. The trip had been too dangerous.

It was now November.

As Rolson, a social worker and their driver made their way to the embassy in Port-au-Prince, they heard gunfire on the outskirts of the city.

They considered turning back, but after two failed attempts to complete the passport process, they decided to press on so Rolson could finally make it home to his adoptive family.

With quiet, steady confidence, they brought Rolson safely to the U.S. Embassy.

With one of the final steps behind him, Rolson was closer than ever to joining his adoptive family.

An Armed Car, a Helicopter and an Escorted Flight

After years of delays, the process picked up speed — almost overnight. An armed car was made ready, a helicopter was arranged and a flight from Cap-Haïtien to Miami was booked.

But Rolson needed an adult to escort him on the journey and keep him safe.

Mr. Pierre, a representative for Holt, answered the call.

He would escort Rolson each step of the way — traveling by armed car, helicopter and airplane — and then make the journey back home.

“Who’s doing that for someone else’s child? It’s unbelievable,” Brian says. “[He was] sweet enough to be doing all that but also sending pictures along the way. To talk about [Mr. Pierre] and how phenomenal [he was] and how grateful we are to him, there were three other kids [traveling to their adoptive families] and they didn’t have an escort, so he acted as their escort as well.”

“And he has a family of his own back in Haiti,” Mary Jo adds, “and just to put himself in danger…”

“It just shows the bravery and willingness to give, and [his] commitment to these children’s lives,” Brian says.

On December 30, 2024, Rolson, Mr. Pierre and the three other children traveling to their adoptive families climbed into an armored vehicle and buckled their seatbelts for the bumpy ride.

Armed guards hung out of the vehicle, perched to keep watch for danger. They were driven down the windy mountain roads near Port-au-Prince to a remote location in Pétion-Ville where a Hero Client Rescue helicopter waited for takeoff.

As the helicopter blades whirred and Rolson and the other passengers lifted into the air, their lives were changing before their eyes.

The helicopter landed in Cap-Haïtien, where Haiti’s only open international airport remained operational.

From there, Rolson took the final step of his journey: a flight to Miami to be united with his family.

An Unforgettable Union

The Sullivan family waited with anticipation in the Miami terminal for Rolson. All eight of them wore t-shirts with the phrase yon jou la jou — “one day will be the day.”

And that joyful day had arrived.

“Everybody was in tears, even our little guys,” Brian remembers. “Holding him was amazing. It’s the same moment that we felt holding our [biological] children the first time.”

Mary Jo shakes her head in agreement. “It was sort of like a nine-month pregnancy. It could be rough, it could be ups and downs. But once you hold that baby, you don’t remember any of that. With Rolson, it was the same way. Once he was in that airport and we were just holding him, it didn’t even seem like it was five years,” Mary Jo says.

After a couple of days in Florida, the family packed up and was bound for home: New Jersey.

“He just couldn’t wait to get home,” Brian recalls. “And rightfully so — it was the same with us. We couldn’t wait to get him home.”

Home at Last

As the Sullivans opened the door to their New Jersey home, Rolson was greeted by bright balloons and posters welcoming him.

At last, he had made it.

Rolson’s room was ready for him, complete with a Lionel Messi poster on the wall and Christmas gifts wrapped, waiting to be opened.

After a couple of weeks of settling in, the Sullivans went skiing. Rolson loved the snow — something he had never encountered before. Not only that, but he skied a black diamond trail — despite never having skied before.

“Every day is a new day,” Mary Jo says. “He’s doing awesome. He’s an incredible little boy.”

Brian shakes his head in agreement and adds, “As he’s gotten more comfortable, we’ve seen his sense of humor come out a lot more. We’re seeing more of his natural, beautiful self.”

He likes riding his bike around the neighborhood and playing basketball with his siblings, and he recently joined an indoor soccer team. Brian and Mary Jo say being part of the team has brought out his leadership skills. They see him as determined and driven — capable of anything he puts his mind to.

Rolson briefly appears on the interview video call, smiling. The three of them banter and laugh about the adventures they’ve shared. Rolson says he wants to be a police officer when he grows up and hopes to have a Jeep someday.

“It’s so fun to see him dream,” Mary Jo says. “You could do whatever you want. You just work hard and be a good soul — the world is yours.”

An Encouragement to Others

The Sullivans encourage other families to consider adoption, something they describe as life changing.

“A lot of people say that if more people thought about adoption, they’d change the world — it’ll change their own world for the better. We would love for it to be a more common practice,” Brian says.

A lot of people say that if more people thought about adoption, they’d change the world — it’ll change their own world for the better.

“You always hear the bad stories — that’s what spreads … but once you get to know the community, you see just how many wonderful stories there are,” Brian continues. “Please understand that it is such a blessing and those are not common stories, especially if you go through an unbelievable agency like Holt, who has a difficult, but rightly difficult, vetting process and works with Hague-approved countries.”

Although they waited five years for Rolson’s adoption to be processed and for him to travel to the U.S., the Sullivans say they are thankful for the thorough nature of working with Holt.

“Through Rolson’s adoption we got to see where having your paperwork right and all your I’s dotted, and your T’s crossed helps it move more smoothly and to know that we were doing the right thing, without forcing anything down any path,” Brian says. “And very sadly, we saw people that were ahead of us in line [with other agencies] that we just leapfrogged — or that they went backward — because something wasn’t done the way it was supposed to be done.”

A Life-changing Adoption Journey

With paperwork and waiting behind them and Rolson with them at last, Mary Jo and Brian feel immense gratitude. They say adopting three children has shifted their perspectives.

“When I first thought about adoption, I felt like this was something I was going to do for a child and that God was calling me to do this for this child,” Brian reflects. “In hindsight now, it’s almost selfish because what all three of them have done individually for me — and us as a family — far outweighs anything we’ve ever done for them or will ever do for them.”

The Sullivans offer some parting words of advice for families who are interested in adoption.

“Don’t be afraid. We have had the absolute blessing of experiencing the hug of a child born biologically and the first hug for a child that’s adopted,” Brian says as he looks at Mary Jo. “It’s the exact same feeling — the love for the children is the exact same thing. There is no difference, one way or another.”

“Our kids would say the same — they will fight the same, love the same,” Mary Jo chimes in.

“It’s been such a gift,” Brian says.

“We’re just blessed that God trusts us with him,” Mary Jo says, smiling as she looks at Brian. “At least for a portion of his journey — the next portion of his journey.”