ok, so yesterday I receieved a link that I posted on my wall about Ethiopia decreasing international adoptions by 90%. This basically means that the amount of cases that go through the courts each day will go from 50-5...... what next, huh?
Of course I was really upset and just felt so frustrated and dissappointed. Now, the general reasoning behind this is that child trafficking occurs on the part of countries when dealing with internation adoption. It is so horrific and dehumanizing. Some children are literally kidnapped from their homes, lied to that they are getting a good education and will later return home, or their parents are told they will receive financial support from the adoptive parents. All these scenarios are more are under the umbrella of child trafficking. Thankfully, the Ethiopian government is trying to decrease and eliminate child trafficking, so I do applaud their effort. However, this of course leads to the question of what does this mean for those in the process of adopting from Ethiopia?
I had a great conversation with our consultant this evening. She is a Christian woman who I highly respect. She first and foremost told us to pray before listening to her advice or any other sources. While she believes this information is relatively valid, Children Hope International (CHI) (our adoption agency) has not yet received an official letter from the Ethiopian gov't. When that happens, they will have all the facts and will send out a mass update.
Furthermore, our consultant went over the possible scenarios. Worst case, Ethiopia could shut down for a time for international adoptions, or the wait could be significantly longer. Better case, that the Ethiopian court judges will see that they can actually process more cases per day than 5.
We are definitely hoping and praying for the latter.
While there is awful actions in regards to child trafficking, the flip side of the coin is that there are millions of true orphans in need of families to love the
I cannot begin to express my emotional state about this. I will say this, I am MORE THAN EVER committed to Ethiopia and MORE affirmed that this is where my child is. God is making that VERY clear to me.
You know those TV commercials that have pictures of children in way torn countries that ask you to contribute to helping, by a guy with a white bead with his button down shirt, sleeves rolled up, holding an adorable and horrifically sad 4 year old girl? You know how you have this feeling of sadness for them, almost consider donating, and then change the channel or flip the TV switch off? Well, my switch is never turned off to my child. I think of him all day, pray for him and his mom constantly. There is a really graphic picture of a child in Ethiopia (probably a 1 yr old), lying face down, emaciated in the dirt, naked, with a vulture behind him. That picture haunts me everyday. every single day I pray that that wont be my child, that his mother will survive and that he can send her pictures, and maybe even one day meet her.
That is all for today. Please pray for my child. Pray for his mother. pray for us to have patience, which sounds really selfish in light of the first two requests.
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