thoughts on faith, church, and life

Many of my blog readers know that my wife and I are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia.

Having completed all the requirements and necessary paperwork in November of 2008, we were finally placed on the waiting list. At that time, we were expecting about a year wait for the referral of a child. However, over the last 12 months, that wait time has lengthened significantly due to a variety of factors that I won’t detail here.

Now, most people do not understand why the wait is so long. They have a vague notion that the need is great and so it can be difficult to understand why good folks willing and able to adopt have to wade through a process that is both expensive and lengthy.

To be honest, we too are frustrated with the wait, but the reality is that the wait is an important part of the process.

As I see it, there are two primary reasons why we wait:

1.) The first is because our original request was for a child under 12 months old. The hard facts are that an infant is the preference for most people in the adoption process. That means, of course, that the line is longest if you hope to adopt a child under 12 months old.

Currently, we are seriously considering changing our original adoption request, because we are fully aware that older children are also in need of adoption and are the least likely to be adopted. The reality is once we change our request, our potential adoption will most likely proceed with due haste.

2.) The second reason, and the one I want to focus my attention on here, is that we were quite careful to choose an agency we felt possessed high character as well as good, ethical, and moral standards in the conduct of the adoption process.

The stories coming out of Haiti, like this one which appeared in my newspaper this morning, of perhaps well intentioned, but sorely misguided folks storming into the country in order to “save the children” and bring them back to the US for adoption have been alarming.

As a potential adoptive parent, the last thing I would ever want is any hint in my mind that “my child” could have been taken away from family who would have otherwise been willing and capable to care for that child within their own culture and within their own support system.

No one denies that the need in Haiti is great.

But if you’re serious about doing your “Christian” duty, then work to establish health care and other support systems for children who are displaced. Make sure you go through the appropriate channels to get the job done. And most of all commit to doing the hard work of truly determining if the child is a true orphan, with no extended family at all, capable and willing to raise that child before you even consider offering that child up for adoption to a family in another country.

Trust me it’s worth the wait. And it’s why we wait.