This episode follows Micki Lamb, a clinical director at Hopewell Health, who first tried to find her birth mother as a middle schooler walking through a snowstorm to mail a secret letter. Decades later, Micki discovered that her birth mother, Linda, had made a similar solitary trek at age 17—walking across Houston to safely place Micki with an adoption agency.

A boy's only Christmas wish was to be adopted with his brother.

Dawson wouldn't leave Dalton behind. Dalton has cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and is legally blind and nonverbal. When Robbin Brydges and her husband Steven found out about Dalton through the Dave Thomas Foundation's Wendy's Wonderful Kids program, they also found out he had a little brother who refused to be split up. They adopted them both.

Bob Stewart wrote “Shadow Boxer” in 1977, decades before he’d ever hear Karen Salyer McElmurray’s name. He wrote it about shadows in general, the kind everyone carries, unnamed. He had no idea it would end up soundtracking a memoir about a mother who surrendered her son at 16 and spent twenty-five years waiting for a sound she’d only heard once: her baby’s cry, in a hospital room she wasn’t allowed to stay in.

Kelley Shinn was sixteen, a scholarship-level cross-country runner, when a rare bacterial infection took her legs. A decade later she and her toddler daughter drove a Land Rover from England to Bosnia-Herzegovina, sponsored by the Landmine Survivors Network, to bring attention to landmine survivors around the world. 

The Athens County Children Services season of The Anna Jinja Show began with the executive director. It ends — in Episode 7, the true season finale — with the board chair. Nancy Schell has served as Chair of the ACCS Board of Directors for over a decade. 

What does it mean to tell the story of an organization that protects the most vulnerable children in your community — without exploiting those children's stories? 

That critical question sits at the heart of Matt Starkey's work. As the Public Information Officer and Community Events Coordinator for Athens County Children Services, Matt serves as the bridge between the agency's essential work and the public that funds, supports, and depends on it. 

What does it take to earn the trust of a teenager who has been let down by the very systems meant to protect them? 

In Episode 5 of The Anna Jinja Show's Athens County Children Services season, host Anna Jinja sits down with Lisa Seitz — a Life Skills Caseworker at ACCS with over twelve years of experience supporting youth in foster care ages 14 to 21. Lisa's work is both practical and profound: she helps young people navigate college enrollment, secure housing, obtain state IDs, manage savings, and develop the independent living skills they'll need to thrive as adults. 

What does it look like to offer sturdiness to someone navigating one of life's most complex systems? 

That's the question at the heart of Episode 2 of The Anna Jinja Show's Athens County Children Services Season — and Stephanie Russell answers it beautifully.

Stephanie is an independently licensed clinical mental health counselor (LPCC) and Treatment Foster Care Coordinator with the Southeastern Treatment Foster Care Network. A lifelong Athens County resident, she has built her career championing individuals and families in rural Appalachia through the intersecting challenges of mental health, child welfare, and substance dependence. 

What does it look like to truly meet people where they are — not where we think they should be? 

In Episode 4 of The Anna Jinja Show's Athens County Children Services season, host Anna Jinja speaks with Dan Fuchs, a school outreach worker with ACCS stationed at Amesville Elementary in the Federal Hocking School District. Dan's path is unconventional: after eight years in full-time pastoral ministry, he found a new calling in prevention-focused family services — and the transition, he says, has felt entirely consistent with who he's always been. 

"My darling, you aren't mine."  

Those five words opened one of the most tender, honest, and hopeful conversations we've ever had on this show.  Episode 3 of our Athens County Children Services season features poet and foster-adoptive mom Becca Lachman and Athens County Children Services (ACCS) caseworker Laura Schaeffer.  

What does it mean to truly love someone exactly as they are — not as a project to improve, but as a whole and complete person?  

That question is at the heart of this episode of The Anna Jinja Show, and the answers from our three guests are ones I believe every professional — in education, healthcare, counseling, or leadership — needs to hear.  

Some conversations don't just move you. They find you.  

On this episode of The Anna Jinja Show, host Anna Jinja sits down with Linda Pevac — known to readers by her author pen name, Emma Stevens — a domestic adoptee from the baby scoop era, and the author of three unflinching memoirs: The Gathering Place, A Fire Is Coming, and Choosing to Breathe.  

Some conversations don't just move you. They find you.  

On this episode of The Anna Jinja Show, host Anna Jinja sits down with Linda Pevac — known to readers by her author pen name, Emma Stevens — a domestic adoptee from the baby scoop era, and the author of three unflinching memoirs: The Gathering Place, A Fire Is Coming, and Choosing to Breathe.  

Some conversations don't just move you. They find you.  

On this episode of The Anna Jinja Show, host Anna Jinja sits down with Linda Pevac — known to readers by her author pen name, Emma Stevens — a domestic adoptee from the baby scoop era, and the author of three unflinching memoirs: The Gathering Place, A Fire Is Coming, and Choosing to Breathe.  

What does it truly mean to say YES to love?

On this deeply moving episode of The Anna Jinja Show, host Anna Jinja sits down with two extraordinary men — Bob Pohl, adoptive father and husband to author Susan Strong, and Patrick, the birth father of their daughter Caitlin. Together they pull back the curtain on what open adoption really looks like from the inside — and it is nothing short of transformative.

What does it truly mean to say YES to love?

On this deeply moving episode of The Anna Jinja Show, host Anna Jinja sits down with two extraordinary men — Bob Pohl, adoptive father and husband to author Susan Strong, and Patrick, the birth father of their daughter Caitlin. Together they pull back the curtain on what open adoption really looks like from the inside — and it is nothing short of transformative.

What does it mean to have two homes, two families, and two lives — and to love both fully?

In the latest episode of The Anna Jinja Show, host Anna Jinja sits down with Kristina Denbow, a transnational adoptee who was adopted from Kazakhstan as a child and raised in Athens, Ohio. After years of questions about her origins, Kristina made the journey back last summer — visiting the orphanage where she spent her earliest years and reuniting with her biological sister, grandmother, and niece.

What she found wasn't just closure. It was a flooding of memories, a rekindling of love, and a complicated, beautiful reckoning with identity.

What does it mean to truly love someone exactly as they are — not as a project to improve, but as a whole and complete person?  

That question is at the heart of this episode of The Anna Jinja Show, and the answers from our three guests are ones I believe every professional — in education, healthcare, counseling, or leadership — needs to hear.  

This episode of The Anna Jinja Show brings together two powerful voices for a conversation that will stay with listeners long after they press pause. 

Dr. Gretchen Sisson, author of Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, shares a decade of research revealing the constrained choices and unacknowledged grief of mothers who relinquish children. 

Paired with her work is songwriter Jim Pilgrim, whose original folk-and-blues song “Down Here on the Ground” tells the story of Sofia—a 15-year-old mother navigating judgment, sacrifice, and the question: what is best for Isaiah? 

Deb Gold is a certified ICF coach who helps globally-focused individuals and organizations take practical pathways to transformation to create purposeful and impactful transformation out in the world. Deb feels that it is important to share her adoption story, of how she entered the world, and how it’s informed her actions ever since and how she encourages others to open to the wisdom of the world.