Savanna's Home of Hope

Savanna Komera Snead was suited to play the role of a refugee in my newly-released video, Back to the One.

Wearing a mylar blanket and a haunted gaze, the 11-year-old adopted daughter of Art and Shelly Snead was the perfect choice for the role, and not just because she studies drama.

Like the Haitian refugees I saw arrive on a Miami beach and sing about, Savanna knows what it means to arrive on a foreign shore. When she was three weeks old, Savanna was abandoned in a hospital in the Central African nation of Rwanda. Taken to the Home of Hope — a care facility in Kigali for orphans, victims of genocide, the mentally ill, and the elderly homeless — Savanna was one of 40 babies overseen by two nannies.

“We do not have any knowledge about Savanna’s birth parents,” Shelly says, “or the circumstances that forced them to make such a difficult and grim decision.”

Shelly only knows it must have involved desperation. In Rwanda, you face legal punishment for giving up custody of your child.

In January 2009, Shelly says God led them to Rwanda to explore the possibility of adoption.

“We wanted to give a family to a child who had no hope of one otherwise,” Shelly says.

After meeting Savanna, the Sneads were placed on a waiting list of hundreds of families. International adoptions were not a priority in Rwanda; the lady in charge had limited resources — 3 percent of her job description, a tiny office, and 1 fax machine.

Fortunately, Savanna’s adoption was catalyzed by the work of a Rwandan, a genocide survivor-turned-children’s advocate, who navigated through the overwhelming paperwork, governmental documentation, and local court appearances.

When Savanna was 3 she flew to a foreign country with her new parents to begin a new life.

Growing up in a biracial family (her brother, Samuel, is also from Rwanda), Savanna blossoms in the soil of a second chance. With a flair for the dramatic, the gift of art, a caring family, Savanna’s future is bright.

At the same time, she also wrestles with the challenge of nearly all adopted children -- parents who do not look like her, a story rooted in a different heritage, and a longing for biological parents.

Despite the fact she remembers nothing of Rwanda, Savanna is drawn to her native country. She often prefers to go by her Rwanda middle name of Komera and is interested in learning her native language of Kenyarwandan.

Savanna also has a heart for the refugee -- anyone forced to leave home in search of another. Over the past year, Savanna bonded with a family of refugee women from Yemen -- going grocery shopping, sharing meals, inviting them to their first Thanksgiving and Christmas.

As I watch the video, I see the heart of Savanna, conveying a similar story of displacement, desperation, hope and love.

It moves me to tears and inspires me to care.