This is the story of a man and a woman who couldn’t have children of their own, so they adopted them — and kept on adopting. Seventeen in all, and that doesn’t count the four they took in temporarily.
This is the story of Chris and Sally Mart, who turned their home into Ellis Island, taking “your tired, your poor … the homeless, tempest-tossed,” and gave them a home, lifting their lamp beside an open door. The children they took into their homes and hearts — some from abroad, others from around the U.S. — are all physically and/or emotionally challenged. They came with wheelchairs and missing limbs and diseases and syndromes and behavioral problems and often the baggage of birth parents or a poor home environment or both.