My Latest Passion

Because of the disaster that happened in Haiti, Ben and I were contacted about potentially becoming parents to a Haitian orphan (a child who was an orphan prior to the quake). We filled out the forms and waited…then got the rug pulled out from under us because adoptions were halted in Haiti.

Since then I’ve been learning a lot about international adoption and how it’s viewed by certain countries, people, and organizations. Most of the things I’m learning just make me sick to my stomach and make my heart ache. To make long stories very short, there are major aid groups like UNICEF who are essentially against international adoption because they want countries to be able to care for their own and raise their children in their own culture, etc. I get the overall point of wanting to keep children in their own country and culture and teach the citizens of that country to care for their own. BUT, if the country just CAN’T or WON’T do it, then I don’t see why we should make the poor children suffer just to be the learning tools of teaching an entire country a brand new way of thinking/living/being. Doesn’t seem right to me at all…

I’m certainly no expert on this, nor have I done extensive research on the topic or on UNICEF (I do plan to continue my research, though). But what UNICEF essentially believes is that the process should work this way. In a perfectly ordered world, an orphan child would go through a process to verify that it’s an actual orphan. Then, they would try and match that child with an aunt, uncle or some other family member. If that fails, they look for another family in the country. If none shows up, they would look for a foreign national living in the child’s country of origin. If they can’t find a foreign national, then begrudgingly, they might be in favor of that child moving across a national border to a loving family.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for orderly, legal, and responsible adoption. There’s just too much at stake here for my liking. You have to wonder if these orphans really benefit from this policy. My gut says that they DON’T benefit from it. What would they benefit from, you ask? Having a FOREVER FAMILY to love on them!

Here are some links if you want to read further about this topic…and I'd love to hear from you if you have a view that will show me that UNICEF is actually in this for the betterment of these kiddos.
Click here for an article discussing UNICEF’s history in thwarting international adoption
Click here for an awesome blog post about UNICEF’s views and a recent report from Haiti by AC (this lady knows her stuff!)
Click here for a story about 3 babies in Haiti (toward the bottom of the blog post) – the twins are totally speaking to me

Please pray for MERCY for the orphans. And pray for wisdom and discernment for the governments, NGO’s, and adoptive families.