10 families did not pass court last Friday, we were the only ones rescheduled. The other nine families didn’t even have their cases heard. When I heard why they didn’t pass on Friday I was absolutely devastated for them, and worried for the future of the Ethiopia adoption program. Unfortunately not all people involved in international adoption act ethically. They facilitate adoptions where the children are not actually orphans, but rather someone’s child. Because a few people working in the adoption field in Ethiopia acted unethically, nine families hearts were broken on Friday. No one from our agency was involved in the alleged acts, but these families were still affected. Their cases are on hold until the Ethiopian government can figure out how to properly handle the situation. The government does not want to risk children who are not orphans being adopted, neither do adoptive parents or ethical adoption agencies. Please pray for these families, their children, and the government of Ethiopia. I can only imagine the pain of these families, knowing their babies’ faces, but not knowing when the wait will end. When you adopt, you fall in love at different rates, but most all fall in love before they ever travel. These families love these children and want what is best for the children, please pray.
For some info and overall feelings on corruption in international adoption you can start with this blog post and click on some of the links if you want.
That is horrible!! My heart breaks for all of thoose families. Hopefully, they can figure this out quickly!
It is just devastating and terrifying…
Missy’s last blog post..Happy Mother’s Day!!
As one person who is effected by these recent developments, I ask you to please take this post off of your blog.
This is a very sensitive issue, and as adoptive parents waiting for court, we are trying so hard to protect the privacy of our child. These children are people who deserve to be able to tell their own story someday, if they so choose.
We would never think of (I hope!)posting such intimately private information about other adults on a public forum like this. Please consider the lack of respect for the children who are effected (our son being one of them) and remove this post.
We appreciate the concern and prayers, but we don’t need everyone to know about the specifics.
Thank you.
Anonymous-
I am so sorry for the situation you and your son are in, I can’t imagine the pain you are in. I know several people that have been affected by this situation. I meant no disrespect in my posting. I purposely left out some info to protect the children. I understand keeping the child’s story private. I did not link to any of my friends that had been affected even though they had posted similar stories on their blogs. I wanted to just tell the basic facts for all those in the process of adopting or thinking about adopting. They deserve to know the truth regarding international adoption and some of its pitfalls. When we choose to advocate for adoption we cannot provide one-sided stories, it would do a great disservice to potential adopting families. I do not feel my post in anyway told any child’s story. I made my post as vague as possible while still relating the facts as we know them.