Page, fresh off a 55-7 thrashing of White County, is off to a hot start thanks to its high-powered offense. The Patriots, 7-1, hope to win Region 5-5A and make noise in the TSSAA playoffs into November.
One of the key cogs of that offense is receiver Miles Bonn, who has 20 catches for around 300 yards. Bonn also excels in the classroom, where he’s taking honors classes as well as dual-enrollment courses through MTSU. He hopes to pursue engineering one day.
But the best story around Page football isn’t the great football. It’s the amazing story of the Bonn family’s adoption of three children from Africa and how the Page junior has impacted their lives.
“He is a very hard-working young man that has a huge heart and a desire to help those around him,” his coach, Charles Rathbone, said.
Here’s a touching story of how an American family waited five years to call two African boys and a girl their own, and how Miles played a part in it.
The year that changed everything
Miles’s sister, Ashley Bonn, now 24, took a year off between high school and her freshman year at Carson Newman. During the time, she went on a mission trip with their church, Franklin’s Christ United Methodist, and took an extended stay volunteering at an orphanage in Sierra Leone, West Africa, from January through June of 2013.
The Bonn family’s life was about to turn upside down.
My mom and dad went to drop her off and pick [Ashley] up. … My dad is always wanted to adopt ever since my parents got married,” Miles remembered. “But he decided that this was the place—God had sent them there for a reason. And my mom… she wasn’t sure.
“And they found three kids. And it took five years total to get every single one home, when normally it only takes a year. This was because of Ebola. This took forever because Ebola was a big just break on everything.”
Debbie Bonn, Miles’s mother, knew quickly their lives would change.
“[My husband] spent time at the orphanage,” she remembers. “And when he came home, we pretty much knew right away that we were going to be adopting. So we spent the whole time Ashley was there praying about who [to adopt.]”
A long, difficult process
The three children weren’t related, which makes adopting multiple children more difficult. It took five years from when the Bonns started to get all three home.
“What they really want is for you to adopt biological siblings together,” Debbie said, “but they happen not to have any biological siblings.”
But things were not always as certain. Many families go through the adoption process and wait years for an adoption to go through.
And sometimes they don’t. As big a challenge as adopting three kids is, it’s also tough to embark on a journey that takes years, knowing you could have your heart broken.
“There is, of course, this beautiful, amazing, lovely, life-changing experience through adoption,” Debbie says. “But there’s also a heartbreaking, longing, yearning, dark time as well.
“And we knew that up front, but we were committed, because we needed this. This is what we needed, and that we were supposed to do with our family expanded this particular way.”
The oldest two—Chauncey and Sofhia—came home February of 2017. The youngest, Festus (he’s since been re-named to “Rogen”) didn’t arrive until two weeks ago.
“[Miles] couldn’t wait to be that older brother that he always wanted to be,” Debbie remembers. “Him going through the process, he waited for five years, too. It was hard on mom and dad, but when they got here, it was really beautiful to watch.”
Waiting on Rogen was the hardest part.
Miles, who’d never been to Sierra Leone, didn’t want to wait a day longer than necessary. He went with Debbie on the plane to pick Rogen up.
“We thought it would be a really good idea that he came with me so he can really get a taste of the community of Sierra Leone, the beautiful lands, the beautiful people and the friendships he could start while he was there, and see where his brother and sister came from, what it looked like, what it felt like,” Debbie said.
“He just really absorbed it all. And yeah, I know he learned a lot of what it means to love in the raw, the rawness of love. As a mom, it’s just so beautiful to watch.”
Role reversal
Miles was the youngest of three—Corey Bonn, 21, is in school at UAB—and in the beginning stages of being the focus of the family’s attention. Suddenly, he was the oldest of three (and eventually, four) kids in the house.
Miles didn’t know how to feel about that at first, but that soon changed.
“I guess it didn’t really hit me until they actually came home. … I was wondering what it’s going to be like, and [they were fed and clothed],” Miles remembers. “And we always had beds and clothes for other people. But no one ever came home.
“And then when they finally came home, so that it was weird. I’ve never been an older brother. I’ve always been the youngest. And that was a weird role for me to take on. And it was.
“[But] I I love it. It’s the greatest thing. “
Miles’s new siblings had never experienced anything like America. He watched in awe as they soaked it in. He vividly remembers watching Chauncey and Sofhia come home.
“They didn’t know what anything was,” Miles said. “They were wandering around. … They had a bunch of costumes, they all tried costumes on.
“The best thing was, they’ve never seen an actual garage door. And so when we first got home, my parents pressed the button and the garage door opened. And they saw and they were just mesmerized by just a garage door.
“And you don’t realize how much crazy things are until someone from an outside country has nothing like that comes in and sees all this stuff that is like that. And I actually took a day off of school that day, just to hang out with all of them. All my family was home. It was crazy.”
The most precious relationship of all
Miles has a particularly special bond with Rogen, whom he’s known for just weeks. His 8-year-old brother has worshiped the ground Miles walks on since the two boarded a plane headed to America. A two-day flight with just the two and Debbie certainly expedited that.
You can hear the pain in Miles’s voice when he speaks of what Rogen went through in Africa.
“When he was first born, he was a true orphan,” Miles said of Rogen. “Didn’t know who his parents were, had no idea. So he was taken to an orphanage and they abused him. They didn’t feed him. He starved.
“And the Rainy Season—this is the orphanage that we adopted him from—the Rainy Season was able to take him in and feed him and stuff. And because of that, his throat dried… and he has a speech impediment and swallowing issues and all that. So you can’t—on top of his accent—you don’t understand anything he says. Sometimes you can comprehend and he’ll do things like, ‘I have to sleep,’ and put his hands together and lays hands on hands, head on hands. And just act it out.’
“But it’s hard for him because [how] he grew up, and when he speaks, his lips don’t touch. … You’re trying to understand what he says and you have no idea.
“And it’s horrible. But [his adoption] took longer than Chauncey and Sofhia, because we didn’t know who his parents are, and we had to get parent consent to adopt him. So we had to go to the orphanage that abused them since they were the first people to take him. And since they were so bad, they took forever. And then they finally found a mother, the mom who gave birth to them, she said ‘yes.’ … And then he finally got home.”
This time, Rogen found a home where there’s love.
“Every time I come home from practice, or a game or something. And he’s just there. Every time I walk in the door, he yells my name, he knows this me, he’ll come up and give me a hug. And he’ll be like, ‘You just came from school.’ And he’ll be like, “yeah, like, how was it like?’ And I’ll answer, ’It’s really good.’
He had to come over here to come to my school [Tuesday] to drop something off and he keeps telling me, he saw my school. He saw my school. And he was like, ‘I want to go there.’ Because I was there.
“And it’s—I love it. I’ve never had anything like this relationship before.”
“It was almost like they’d always been brothers,” Debbie said. “because there was no time lapse of friendship. It was just the best thing ever to watch. … They’ve formed this really tight bond, and Rogan just lights up every time he sees him.
Brothers in football
The post-adoption process hasn’t always been blissful. Chauncey and Miles are less than two years apart. As with most kids that close in age, a sibling rivalry formed.
“You can definitely tell we’re brothers,” Miles said of his relationship with Chauncey. “We’ll fight, we’ll argue, we’ll talk about fun things, all this stuff. Everything brothers do, and it’s good. I think we’re close, too, we just argue a lot.”
“It was really beautiful to watch, and kind of a struggle, too,” Debbie says. “You have another teenage boy that comes in, and you immediately start the competition there. Boys, you know, they’re figuring out how to be brothers and what that looks like.
“And I’m so proud because he, just even though the hard times of brotherhood, he’s just really been encouraging and fun to watch with his brother.”
Debbie sees one thing about Miles that’s key in making his relationship with Chauncey work.
“Miles, just—nothing bothers him,” she says. “Really. He has the ability to just let things roll off his back immediately. It’s such a wonderful trait to have. … That’s why. He’s such a great kid. He has a lot of trails a lot of people would like to have, but don’t.”
There’s no greater sign of Chauncey’s respect for Miles than this; he’s on Page’s freshman football team. The two will likely dress together on the varsity in 2019.
“My sophomore year, he watched me play football. And so he understood everything. … He realized he wanted to play,” Miles said.
Based on his love for soccer, Chauncey plays kicker. He hopes to perhaps join Miles as a receiver one day.
“Chauncey really looks up to Miles to show him the right ways of football,” Debbie said.
So far, it’s going well.
“It is good, I love it!” Chauncey said.
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