Adoption Update

I'm still waiting to see what Ethiopia's MOWA (Ministry of Women's Affairs) decides about the future of the adoption program there. It appears that the current rate is five cases per day instead of the previous thirty. At that rate, it will take about two years to process the children that have already been matched with families and few places will be jumping on the idea of starting adoptions beyond that. After watching several families lose all the money that they put into Liberian adoptions and never bring their children home, I'm rather diismayed to see several similarites in the current Ethiopia situation.

Today I received an email from a large adoption agency that does Ethiopia and Uganda. The lady stated that she didn't think Uganda would be a good country for us due to the number of children that we currently have (if I had a dollar for every time I've been told that!!!) Apparently, they have one family that has seven children and are having a pretty rough time getting through court. I guess God is answering our prayer to make His will concerning adoption clear. This "door-slamming" happened to us several times before Liberia opened in 2006 as well, so we will plug on until we are sure of the direction He has for us.

In the meantime, there are kids around here to pay attention to. This is Elijah's friend, Summer. On occasion he calls her "my baby, Summer." I think he's a bit confused since we've often spoke of getting him a baby someday.

They were parked on the counter to help confine the stickiness caused by the cantaloupe dripping off their chins.