Evelyn and the Adoption Controversy

I just read one more "we shouldn't adopt from Africa" article (because we are removing children from their families and culture.) First of all, I agree, the adoption industry is ripe for corruption; anytime you have the potential of making money in a third world country, the potential for abuse is a strong possibility. I completely agree that there should be strong laws by the country and standards by the adoption agency and when they are abused, the agency should lose their license. I chose the agency we are using for Ethiopia largely on the commitment that they use to make sure that abuse doesn't occur. 

One thing that is way too simplistic is the idea that no child that isn't 100% orphaned should be adoptable. Many people even go to the extreme to say that even the orphans don't need adoption, because the community will step in and care for those children. While that is a lovely idea, it is not the reality that I've seen. The children at the school that our adoption agency just took over are majority orphaned and they are living in the worst of conditions because the extended family and neighbors do not generally treat them like family, but domestic workers. These children would be so much better off, in my opinion, becoming a legitimate family member through adoption.  

Here is my personal, heartbreaking example of "family" that would appear as a statistical success to those that are anti-adoption. This is a picture of Evelyn, the little girl that we were adopting in Liberia that was removed from the orphanage by her Grandmother. The agency we used tried to persuade Evelyn's grandmother to allow her to be adopted, as her mother wished, because they knew that the Grandmother's plan was that Evelyn provide for her by prostitution once she was old enough to work. 

Evelyn, and a lot of children like her, deserve better!

Flashback Friday - Benjamin

This Flashback Friday post is the story about the day that we met Benjamin in Liberia.

When we traveled to Liberia in August of 2006, we didn't know any details about Victoria's biological family. When we were taken to meet her mother, she brought along 5 year old Ben and we were told about their two older sisters. I remember how badly I felt that I didn't have anything with me to give to him; we dug around in the diaper bag and only came up with a few packs of smarties. He sat quietly for the entire meeting, stared at us and ate those smarties. When he left with his family, we asked the social worker more questions. He revealed that Ben was already cleared for adoption, but not admitted to the orphanage due to lack of room. I remember standing in the hot sun and trying not to cry. Once we came back to America, we prayed about Ben's adoption for over two months before beginning the process all over again. It was JD in the end who really pushed for the adoption, which was the opposite of our first two adoptions. I rested in the fact that he really felt it was the Lord's will, although I found adopting a six year old out of the Bush of Africa a bit scary. We returned for Ben in June of 2007, along with Julia, but that's another story for another day.


Here I am with Ben and Tori at our surprise first meeting. I had no idea he would end up being my son!

One time Ben told me that before us he had only seen white people once on the beach. I asked him, "did you ever think you would end up living in America with white people?" He laughed and said, "no, I never thought that!" Life is full of surprises!

Flashback Friday - Faith

I was thinking about the faith that is required to adopt. If you think that pure chance dictates what child becomes yours, adoption is a frightening process. If you know that God picks the correct family for each orphan he cares for, the process is reassuring. When we claimed little Tori, we only knew that she was a baby girl from the Bush. We didn't know her name, age or see a picture for about a month. In that long month of waiting, I herniated three disks in my neck and was on complete bed rest. JD and the children were forced to take over the daily chores of running the house. The kids had never done much laundry or cooking until this point and were forced to really carry their load. Just when I was starting to get better, I suffered a major relapse and really had to consider surgery and physical therapy. At the end of the month, I decided that it was really absurd to proceed with the adoption. I was afraid I would not be better to travel to Liberia or even be able to lift a baby. I decided that the only reasonable option was to let someone else adopt our assigned baby and have them hold our adoption funds until I was better; then we could proceed with an adoption. I told JD my thoughts and wanted to release her to someone else before we got her information or picture. I knew it would be too heart-breaking if I saw her picture. We discussed it one evening and JD was positive that he didn't want to end the current adoption. He took over the paperwork load for me and told me that he'd go alone to Liberia for the baby if I wasn't better! He repeated that it was all a step of faith and he wanted to proceed in faith. Wouldn't you know, the very next morning an email came with Tori's information and her Liberian name was FAITH! It might seem like a coincidence, but I knew from her name alone that the whole process of adopting her was an act of faith and no matter my condition, she was meant to be our daughter. I have not doubted from that moment on that Tori was divinely chosen to be our daughter and we couldn't love her more!

Here's Tori at the orphanage the first morning with her new Daddy.

Here's Tori and I shoe shopping the day after we got her out of the hospital. That may be another post for another day, but Tori had very serious malaria when we arrived. We hospitalized her and had her IV treated, but found out that it had not been effective when we re-tested her in America. I don't believe she would have lived another month if she had remained in Liberia.

Little faith will bring your soul to Heaven, great faith will bring Heaven to your soul. - Charles Spurgeon

Orphan Statistics and One Little Face

I've read and compared a lot of orphan statistics; these seem to be quite conservative. I've heard over and over, "well, you can't save them all." No, I can't, but if everyone did their part, we could make a huge dent. The reality is that each one of these children are a soul and matter to God every bit as much as our children do. Can you imagine what we would be capable of if our child's very life hung in the balance? You can literally save a life for $20-30 a month. That is the cost to feed, clothe and educate a child on a child sponsorship program. I can highly recommend Mission of Mercy, we've sponsored children with them for our entire marriage. 100% of the funds go to your child, their over-head expenses are covered by corporate donors. Consider saving an orphan today!

Every 15 SECONDS, another child becomes an AIDS orphan in Africa
Every DAY 5,760 more children become orphans
Every YEAR 2,102,400 more children become orphans (in Africa alone)
143,000,0000 Orphans in the world today spend an average of 10 years in an orphanage or foster home
Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…
Every YEAR 14,050,000 children still grow up as orphans and AGE OUT of the system
Every DAY 38,493 children AGE OUT
Every 2.2 SECONDS, another orphan child AGES OUT with no family to belong to and no place to call home
In Ukraine and Russia 10% -15% of children who age out of an orphanage commit suicide before age 18.
60% of the girls are lured into prostitution. 70% of the boys become hardened criminals.
Many of these children accept job offers that ultimately result in their being sold as slaves. Millions of girls are sex slaves today, simply because they were unfortunate enough to grow up as orphans.


Tomorrow I plan on doing a Flashback Friday on my little Victoria. I am still amazed at how God spared her little life. Here's our referral picture of Tori; she was about 1 1/2 at the time of our referral.

I spent hours in 2006 staring at this picture; it's the only one we ever got before we arrived to get her!