PORT ANGELES — Tiffany Sudela-Junker has a 13-year-old daughter: a blue-eyed blond girl who, after joining her new family, renamed herself Faith.
Mother and child look altogether carefree, shopping at the Port Angeles Farmers’ Market, participating in a kids’ poetry slam at the local library. And this summer, the family — including dad Jason Junker and Faith’s little brother Jonah, 8 — is eager to get out to Lake Crescent, Ruby Beach, maybe even the Wild Waves water park near Tacoma.
This family, though, is on its own amazing journey. It’s a ride out of a tragic past.
Tiffany and Jason adopted Faith in 2006, after she had spent the first years of her life in a drug- and violence-infected household in Texas. She was like a soldier coming out of a war zone — in fact a 6-year-old born to a mother too sick to care for her.
From the moment Faith came into the world, she had no one to trust. The adults around her were dangerous and drug-addicted, so the little girl, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, was placed in the Texas foster care system with her half-brother Jonah.
Tiffany and Jason, then living in Houston, had been trying to have children. But after going through infertility and miscarriages, they decided to open themselves up to other possibilities.
“We were open to everything,” Tiffany recalls.
And as she and Jason learned more about the children in foster care, they were compelled, she adds, “to help someone who was already here.”
The couple had been married five years when Faith and Jonah came into their lives. They were a foster family for 18 months, then an adoptive family — with two children who, at first, had no idea what love looks like.
In the six years since this family was born, the parents and the kids have struggled mightily. They’ve learned that when young children don’t have the chance to bond with or rely on anybody, they can lash out at everybody.
All the while, though, Tiffany and Jason knew what they wanted. They wanted to be a family. They wanted to reach out to two little kids who had been born into a harsh and harmful situation, and build with them a peaceful, loving home.
But their road has been full of twists. Back in October 2010, the Sudela-Junker family decided to leave their home state of Texas and move to Port Angeles, to be closer to Tiffany’s parents, Linda and Francis Sudela, who retired here.
“It was the best decision we ever made,” says Tiffany, adding that she and her family are finding a sense of community here: schoolteachers who are supportive; friends who want to help.
And so, day by day, this family is finding out: Healing is possible for children such as Faith and Jonah. That’s clear to a visitor to the Sudela-Junker household, and it’s clear in “My Name Is Faith,” the intensely personal and revealing documentary Tiffany has made.
Beginning when Faith was 8 and Jonah 4, she worked withfilmmakers Jason Banker, Jorge
Torres-Torres, Jonathan Caouette and Adrian Grenier to make the movie. It tells this family’s extraordinary story: what happened to Faith before she was transferred to foster care, the struggles she went through with her adoptive family, the progress she’s making in steps small and large.
Last spring, “My Name is Faith” was accepted into Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival and so Tiffany, Faith and Jonah traveled to Ontario, Canada, to conduct post-screening question-and-answer sessions.
One question was the one Tiffany has heard over and over: If you could do this over again, would you adopt these children?
“I absolutely, totally, 100 percent would,” Tiffany responded, with her signature gusto. “The only part I wish was different: I wish I had been better prepared, and there were more resources available to us,” when it came to finding support.
It’s hard for people to understand what it’s like to raise a child with post-traumatic stress. Everyday things like going to the park and letting your kids run and play while you chat with others moms — those aren’t yet possible, Tiffany says. Faith and Jonah, who is on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, need constant and close supervision.
“The reason we made the film is so that people can see how tough this is,” adds Jason. “I see my daughter struggle with even the most basic things as a result of what she experienced as a little kid . . . [and] she is not the only one struggling. For parents, it’s really tough” to raise a child who didn’t get to connect with anyone in her first years of life.
“Parents like us need help. They need a village, literally.”
They need understanding from other families, and they need a hand now and then from friends. Tiffany has found such support from women such as Amanda Sanders, who welcomed her into her yoga class. And one recent weekend, Jason took the kids camping at Salt Creek, so his wife could have a quiet evening at home. Jonah and Faith came back tired, happy and looking forward to more summer outings: the beach, the lake, a day in Port Townsend.
Movie night
Ask Faith what her favorite family activity is, though, and she immediately answers none of the above.
“Movie night: Friday night, when we get to stay up late and watch movies together, and eat popcorn,” the teenager says.
She also adores her mother’s cooking, especially her turkey burgers.
This summer, Tiffany is awaiting word from film festivals around the country about whether her documentary has been accepted. She has high hopes, after seeing audiences captivated by “My Name Is Faith” — in Toronto and at a screening last month at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Port Angeles.
“The screening at St. Andrew’s was amazing, and I was so thrilled,” Tiffany said. “[There was] lots of support; many people wanting to help Faith and us.”
She’s hoping to hold a community screening of “My Name Is Faith” later this year.
This is a film about finding connection: between parent and child, and between family and community. It’s about children who have been deeply hurt and about their recovery as they learn that home is not a scary place, but truly a soft, safe place to be.
And it’s about the transformation of one young girl.
Faith had a different name before she came to the Sudela-Junker family. Her adoptive parents had no intention of changing it.
“But she would ask us all the time: ‘What would my name be if I was your baby?’” Tiffany recalls. “Finally, we told her that if it was important, she could choose a middle name. She chose Faith because of her faith in us and our faith in her.”
Soon, she was introducing herself as Faith, and the neighbor kids were coming over to ask, “Can Faith play?”
There are still bad days at the Sudela-Junker house. But these parents and their kids have come a long way; they’ve learned about love from each other.
“I see myself in my daughter, even though she’s not a biologic piece of me,” adds Jason. “We’re given what we need, or what we can handle. I owe some of my own growth as a person to having her in my life.”
His wife adds: “Faith will have to work on her issues, and so will we, as her family, for the rest of her life. But then I guess that is true for all of us, right?”
To other parents, she offers this: “Don’t take for granted those little joys and natural connections between parent and child. For some families, those moments do not come naturally. Building them takes a lot of work. . . . It’s worth it.
“Faith is a shining example of why. She is connected to us now. And that is a huge gift.”
