The Connection

Jack wiggles on Jennifer's lap in front of the computer while she tries to research a grant application. A Zimbabwean tapestry with muted background spotted with an elephant and a giraffe hangs behind her desk. Jennifer Jones and her husband, James Kaelin, adopted Jack from China in January when he was 22 months old. She explains the paperwork was endless, over a year. After all of the fingerprints and stickers, they finally got accepted into the system as eligible parents and learned from their matchmaker Diane that it could be about six months. "Then we got a call the next day while we were in Louisville for Christmas. They told us we had a baby and needed to be in China in nine days to pick up Jack. There went my plans to learn Mandarin and to get the crib set up and buy the diapers and everything else we needed."

JONES is a collector of women's stories from around the world and has invented the Collective Story Method (CSM) "built upon my now decades of work in empowering individuals to tell their stories." It is designed to focus first on the personal, then the individual in relation to the collective, and finally on the collective as a whole. "I went from the luxury of working full-time on my company, on the road a lot performing, working on my writing to…well, Jack woke up today at 4:30 a.m.” Jones isn't traveling or performing now but is still writing, producing 3-5 minute digital stories with voice makeovers. "This has made me even more organized. I know I have between 2-5:30 p.m. to get things done." Jack announces himself in the door waving his train and crawls into the rocking chair, ready to play.

She calls her projects "Letters to Clio" -- the Muse of History. The most popular of the shows in the Letters to Clio series is 'Performance of Life,’ a story of brutality and loss - but also a story of survival, new life and triumph. A framed poster commemorating her first story, Arab Springs, hangs on the wall adjacent to her tapestry. "But people don't perform Neela's story very much because it just goes from bad to worse. It’s very depressing. You can't make a happy ending when it isn't real."

Jones says she views life differently now that she has a son. “I’m changing my views; it’s universal to talk to another mother. Now I look at those women so differently. How would I react if I had 24 hours to get my children out of Liberia?" Jones says she had a double major at NYU in theatre and sociology and always wanted to use theater for change. "I considered myself pretty plugged in. But I was shocked as I learned about the girls trafficked in Nepal, the adoption rights in Ireland."

NEXT on her list of projects is the story of migrants fleeing Liberia. Jones points out that people who were doctors and high-level officials in Liberia come to America and work in grocery stores or do part-time administrative work. The parents still feel betrayed by their government, but there is a twist because the children are going back to rebuild. "I spent some time on the border in refugee camps and was set to go back when ebola hit." She has been interviewing people long enough that they can see what she has done and will talk to her. "But refugees are the hardest. They are afraid to give you something and expect something back, like a ticket for emigration to America." She said they "want to know why does this gringo care. But they want to know their story matters, that they are more than a blip." Now that she has Jack she has her own story to explore. One day she wants to write a book about what it is like to go around collecting stories, common themes, common struggles.

On to the day's schedule: Jack moves to breakfast. He has replaced mostly kimchi with yogurt and scrambled eggs (and Mexican food and he loves Indian). Then playing and playing. "I know every park within 30 miles. He will only take a nap in the stroller so some days I walk for five miles." Kaelin gets home from the State Department about 2 p.m. to take over "with more playing" and Jennifer returns to her stories.