K
aren Miranda is currently the general
supervisor for the Adult Rehabilitation
Center (ARC) in New Orleans, Louisiana.
She has been an Army employee there since 2002.
Karen's first contact
with the Army came
way back in 1968, when
she was just six days
old. Karen's journey
"full circle" is our iRony,
and it shows how God
sometimes moves in
mysterious ways when
performing His wonders.
"My dad was dying
of cancer in Meridian
[Mississippi], and I re-
ceived word that he had
`something important'
to tell me," Karen says.
"So my husband and I
drove from New Orleans
to see him, but when
we got there he was very
sick and was not able to
say much."
Karen's father passed
away soon after, and she went to his house to get
things in order. That's when she found out what she
now calls "the big secret."
"I was going through a drawer and came across a let-
ter addressed to `The Adoptive Parents of Karen May'.
I was stunned to learn that I was adopted!"
The news shocked Karen so much that she passed
out on the spot. When she came to, she tried to find out
more about her adoption.
"Your daddy wanted to tell you," a cousin later
explained.
Karen's mother and father divorced when she was
six years old, and afer that she saw her father only a
handful of times over the course of her life. When she
called her mother, Karen said, "Well, I now know the
big secret."
Karen's mom was surprised she had found out; it
was long ago that two young couples had agreed to
keep the secret.
"It was at the com-
missary at Keesler Air
Force Base that my
aunt came upon a young
couple who appeared
to be quite distressed,"
Karen explains.
The anxious couple
was from New York,
and had run away to
get married and to keep
her pregnancy from her
family. They did marry,
but the shame drove
them to Biloxi. The
problem, still, was that
they could not afford to
keep the little girl.
Karen's aunt took
down the couple's number
and quickly went to report
to her siblings, who had
not been able to conceive.
The organization that arranged for the adoption
was The Salvation Army in Biloxi, Mississippi. Since
hers was a closed adoption, the identity of her biologi-
cal parents was not released.
"I don't know why [my parents] never told me," Kar-
en says. "I love my [adoptive] family and I'm okay with
it--it was just a shock!"
It was likely also a shock to the 24 aunts, nine
uncles, and 150 cousins who also did not know that
Karen had been adopted by her loving family.
"Now that the secret is out, it's ironic that everyone
knows the Army I work for is the same that helped
change my life when I was so vulnerable as a newborn
baby!"
iRony
............
36
The War Cry | AUGUST 2015
by
MAJOR FRANK DURACHER
Full Circle
Karen Miranda came to work for The Salvation Army in
New Orleans in 2002. After the death of her father, Karen
discovered a family secret that brought her full circle.