Kristina Denbow & Mather Family

An Adoptee’s Story of Courage, Connection, and Coming Full Circle 

Kristina's journey isn't just about going back to Kazakhstan – it's about the universal human need to understand where we come from and how that shapes who we become. 

Her story begins in a baby house in Taldikorgan, moves through multiple placements, and eventually lands in Ohio, where she was adopted by Signe Denbow at age eight.  

The Weight of Multiple Abandonment What makes Kristina's story particularly poignant is her experience of multiple abandonment. As she shared with host Anna Jinja, "I couldn't really believe that she was going to keep me because I had been abandoned twice before." This vulnerability – the fear that love might be temporary – is something many adoptees carry but rarely discuss so openly.  

The Power of True Friendship & Love One of the most beautiful aspects of this episode is hearing from Kristina's longtime friends Emily and Pete Mather, who selected and read a poem about childhood friendship.  

Her adoptive mother's support for this journey exemplifies what love looks like in action. Rather than feeling threatened by Kristina's need to explore her origins, Signe Denbow has helped make the trip possible, understanding that wholeness sometimes requires facing difficult truths.   

The Courage to Face Fear "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared to go back," Kristina admits. But as host Anna Jinja points out, that's exactly what courage looks like – facing fear and moving forward anyway. 

This episode of the Anna Jinja Show offers hope to adoptees and their families, reminding us that seeking answers about our origins doesn't diminish our love for those who raised us. Instead, it can deepen our appreciation for the abundance of love that surrounds us. 

Creative Content: Naïve by Tim Seibles / selected and read by Emily Mather

When I was seven, I walked home
with Dereck DeLarge, my arm
 
slung over his skinny shoulders,
after-school sun buffing our lunch boxes.
 
So easy, that gesture, so light— 
the kind of love that lands like a leaf.
 
It was 1963.  
We were two black boys
 
whose snaggle-toothed grins 
held a thousand giggles.
 
Remember? Remember
wanting to play
 
every minute, as if that 
was why we were born?
 
Those hands that bring us
shouting into this life
 
must open like a fanfare 
of big band horns.
 
Though this world is nothing
 
like where we’d been, 
we come anyway, astonished
 
as if to Mardi Gras in full swing.
There must be a time
 
when a child’s heart builds 
a chocolate sunflower
 
while katydids burnish the day
with their busy wings.
 
This itching fury that 
holds me now—this knowing
 
the early welcome
that once lived inside me
 
was somehow sent away:
how I talk myself back
 
into all the regular disguises
but still walk these streets
 
believing in the weather
of the unruined heart.
 
My friends, with crow’s feet
edging their eyes,
 
keep looking for a kinder
city, though they don’t
 
want to seem naïve.
When was the last time
 
you wrapped your arm
around someone’s shoulder
 
and walked him home?

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