Discovery Days is a place for teen adoptees to come together and share their insight and feelings regarding adoption and its impact on their lives.  It is also a great place for teens to make new friends, build self-confidence, and ask questions while seeking answers in a welcoming atmosphere. 

Discovery Days follows Christ-centered values and creates a safe environment for teens to have personal growth. 

This year teens will have the opportunity to relax around a pool and swim, challenge themselves on a high ropes course while braving a zip line, and bond among friends around a campfire.    

Where:  Shepherd’s Fold Ranch
               500 Broadway Avenue,
               Avant, Oklahoma, 74001  

Who: Campers must be between the ages of 12 (by May 1, 2011) through 12^th grade recent high school graduates.    

Costs: $195.00  (This includes meals, snacks, T-shirt, accommodations and activities.)

Download:

To ensure an accurate and efficient registration process, registrations should
be submitted by July 6, 2012.   

Partial scholarships are available. Contact Rosalyn Metcalfe at 918-749-4600 or rosalyn@dillonadopt.com for information.  (If you would like to help a young person attend Discovery Days who might not otherwise be able to come, you can make a donation to Dillon's Camp Scholarship Fund.  For questions about donating to this fund, please contact Dillon's Development Director, Tonnie Dosser at 918-749-4600 or email.   In our efforts to constantly improve the camp experience for your teens, we also welcome your general camp donations!)   

Contact Lisa Leung at lisa@dillonadopt.com or call us at the Dillon office 918-749-4600 with any questions or concerns. 

Are you an adult adoptee with an interest in volunteering your time to help at Discovery Days? 
Then consider becoming a Discovery Days Counselor and download
our counselor application here:

Mail all applications and payment to:
 Dillon International,
3227 E 31 ST, Suite 200 Tulsa, OK 74105

Remember:  To ensure an accurate and efficient registration process, Discovery Days applications should be submitted no later than July 6, 2012. 
 

D I S C O V E R I N G By Melanie Chung Sherman "I am only one, but I am one.   I cannot do everything, but I can do something;  and what I should do and can do,  by the Grace of God, I will do."  --anonymous

The weekend started early in the morning, but we were ready for over 60 teenage Korean adoptees to begin descending upon the Dillon office.  Phones began ringing....papers flying...planes arriving...luggage everywhere...with the excited teenage chatter increasing as old friends were reunited and new acquaintances made.  This would be a weekend strictly for adoptees, facilitated by adoptees.

This was my first Discovery Weekend and I had no idea what to expect.  I had already learned that the first weekend, which was held in 1995, had had only five adoptees attending.  I marveled how much the weekend event had grown over the past five years.  One of the first attendees shared with me how attending that first Discovery Weekend had completely changed his life.  Until then he had never addressed his adoption story, his being Korean, or his uniqueness.  Out of that first Discovery Weekend experience, he went on to co-found a very influential adult adoptee group.  And so I was prepared for this to be a very powerful weekend.

There was no time to catch my breath as the day progressed, and soon it was evening and time to depart for Shangri-La Resort.  I looked around the parking lot as we loaded luggage into several cars and vans.  I felt at home surrounded by the sea of black hair, almond eyes, and fellow adoptees who shared my hunger to be around others with a similar adoption story.  Feelings of excitement, contentment and relaxation washed over me.

After arriving at the resort, we separated into groups for discussions on racial identity, birth family, the adoption process, peer pressure, dating and relationships.  Each group reminded me of my own childhood and the issues that I had faced as I grew into adulthood.  As I listened to various teens, I became aware that the issues they are confronting now seem more pressing than the issues I had faced only five years before. However, the need to "fit in" and the desire to be needed and accepted for who they are hadn't changed.   I was reminded how the road to self-identity and self-assurance has many twisting and winding curves, coupled with questions about race, adoption, and heritage. The teens were asking the same questions that I had once asked myself, and I realized that the same hopes, fears, and doubts adoptees face are timeless - unique in fashion but identical in pattern.

For many teen adoptees, this is perhaps one of the most fragile, yet wonderful, times in their lives.  It is a time of discovery through questioning.  It is a time of clarity mixed with confusion and apprehension.  It is a time to soar, reshape and redefine who they are, where they are going and to reflect on where they have been.   

Just like these teens, I had journeyed the same road to discover what it meant to be Korean, American and everything in between.  Just like them, I had wondered about my heritage and birth family, who I might look like, and how to fit in with peers, family and American society.  But I also wondered how I would do on my SAT's, if I would have a date for homecoming, and whether I would pass my driver's test on the first try.  

The weekend proved to be as powerful as had been promised and a strong reminder of the special function that educational events such as Discovery Weekend provide for our teens to get together and share their experiences and grow from each other.  As parents and facilitators of teen weekend retreats, remembering to keep an open door to adoptees' questions, fears, joys and everyday experiences is vital and important in maintaining healthy and strong relationships.  Although they may not openly talk about the issues confronting them at this stage in their lives, it doesn't mean that teens are not thinking about them.  Essentially, our teenagers just want to know that there will always be someone there to hear them, to ask them how their day was and to lend advice and support in an honest and loving fashion.

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not turn from it.
  --Proverbs 22:6

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