Since my sister posted this on her blog, I've been getting texts, calls, and emails from people worried about our adoption. So I thought I'd better let you all know what's going on with our adoption.
Yes, there have been changes to the Ethiopian Adoption system. And I think they are very sad and very wrong. There are currently about 5 million orphans in Ethiopia. (We wont talk about all the millions of children that are not orphans in Ethiopia that are suffering.) In the last year there were less than approximately .2% of their orphans adopted. There are some organizations that are pressing the Ethiopian Government to stop such rapid adoption growth in their country. They are worried that some of these adoptions are not being done completely ethical they say. What I think is that they are really just opposed to adoption. Period. So they have pressed to the point of Ethiopia announcing cutting back the processing of 90% of their adoptions. The whole thing makes me sad!
How has this affected our adoption? Not much. Legally these kids are already our children. If we were in Ethiopia now, they would be living with us. Ethiopia has already decreed that from our court process. This is great news for us! We will get to bring these kids home! What are we waiting for now? The American Embassy process to be completed so that we can bring them to America as American citizens. There have been some new policies and procedures implemented into the Embassy process though and because of that, our Embassy date is most likely going to be weeks later than we had orginally expected. We aren't sure how much, but we were told our best guess would be 6 weeks from now. Could be more. And although that is a disappointment for us, we are counting our lucky stars we've made it this far! Please pray for my sister and her family that their adoption will go smoothly and not take forever.
4 comments:
I'm so glad you've escaped most of the madness. It's all so upsetting but we're not giving up!
I will be so relieved when your kids are finally with you. I can't imagine how it must feel for you to have them so far away. I'm sending positive thoughts that this whole thing will be done soon so your kids can begin their wonderful lives with you.
I'm so glad you were deep enough into the process that it is going to be ok! Hoping you get to bring them hope soon!!!
We will keep your sister in our prayers. We are so grateful you are so close to finishing the process. Adoption is such an amazing experience. We are so happy for you and Steve. I often get frustrated with laws in our own country as well. Mark and I felt that we should try to adopt again and there are about 125 kids waiting here is SD. Most of them are sibling groups. We would be thrilled with that, however, our application will not even be looked at because of the Indian Welfare Act. We are not offically part of any tribe so we are not eligible. So, the kids stay in foster care instead of being adopted by a family who really wants them.
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