CANBY, Ore. Saved from a Haitian street littered with rotting corpses, Jeremiah and Isaac are adapting to the safety of a small Oregon town where their adoptive parents worry only that they'll miss some of their cultural heritage.
''One woman said it was a bad idea,'' said Will Greenleaf, who has become father to two black children in a nearly all-white community.
''She said I ought to move out of Canby and move to a black neighborhood,'' added Greenleaf, who recalls telling the woman that ''these kids need parents that's the bottom line.''
Jeremiah, 5, and Isaac, 31/2, were found in Carrefour, Haiti, during the height of the bloody military coup that forced out Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991.
''I found them with 30 other children in a cagelike atmosphere,'' said Annie Ravish of Fort Meyers, Fla. ''They both had been abandoned.''
Ravish, who has spent the past four years working to save Haitian children's lives, brought the boys to her care facility, The Gabriel Home, in Fort Meyers, Fla.
Most of the children eventually return to their families. But in some cases, when no relatives can be found, the children are kept at The Gabriel Home. The hope is that they will eventually be adopted, like Jeremiah and Isaac.
Greenleaf, 38, and his wife, Brenda, 32, had lost one baby in a tubal pregnancy that nearly killed Brenda. Then the couple lost an adopted child to sudden infant death syndrome.
The Greenleafs at first were going to adopt only the younger boy, Isaac. Jeremiah, who is not biologically related to Isaac, was to be adopted by another couple, but the couple backed out after they learned they were expecting a child of their own.
Ravish suggested that since the two boys had been together for a long time, the Greenleafs should adopt them both.
''We thought it would be easier for them to have each other,'' Brenda Greenleaf said.
For the two boys, Canby and Carrefour are like night and day.
Where they were left alone on the streets in Carrefour, each boy now has his own bed in the cozy ranch-style home they share with their adoptive parents and the family dog, Elvis.
''People are going out of their way to make them feel comfortable,'' said Will Greenleaf. ''I'm really surprised.''
Although the couple say they love their children, they cannot help wondering if they were doing the right thing by taking them so far from their homeland.
But Brenda Greenleaf says she believes they can give the boys more than they will lose.
''They will always grow up knowing that they're loved,'' she said, proudly displaying the inscription on her T-shirt, ''Love values all colors Racism hurts everyone.''
Ravish agrees, saying the most important consideration is giving the children a home.
''If people saw where these children came from to see them go into a family it really is wonderful,'' Ravish said.
