With heavy heart...

Today we learned via the reliable grapevine and then an attachement to thier website that our adoption agency formerly Kidslink now Imagine adoption has suddenly and very cruelly went bankrupt. There will be a formal announcement on Wednesday. The owners are being investigated for fraud and misappropriation of funds. The main owner, for some reason, is on her way to Ethiopia as we speak. This leaves over 400 families affected in some horrible way. Some have not even had a referral yet have paid over 8000 dollars already and have had thier dossiers sitting at the government in Ethiopia for over a year. If they can afford it they will have to start the whole process over again with a brand new dossier as many things in a dossier are time sensitive and expire. These people have already waited months and over a year in many many cases. For them the dream to adopt is over. Completely.



For others it's even worse.



Some have recieved thier referral and fallen in love with ther soon-to-be-child but have not been thru court and therefore the child is not legally thiers and never ever will be. This has got to be THE most devestating blow for everyone involved. I don't even want to think about it. It is the thought of this that has had me in tears everytime I think of Ayana waiting for us and then we cannot adopt her and then what? What would have happened to her? She would have went to another orphanage and may or may not have been adopted. I just can't let my mind go there.



Then the third scenario facing many families are the ones where they children are legally adopted but are waiting for thier visas to be issued. These families in the past (us included) had to sign a formal contract agreeing that we would NOT travel until our child's visa is ready. Now parents are frantically booking flights to go and retrieve thier children and take them into custody and stay in the country until the High Commission in Nairobi issues thier visas. This can and usually does take as long as 3 months. Sometimes more.



I still cannot believe that an agency in our country would do this. We still have contact with them in that we have to continue to send our followup reports on Ayana until she is 18 years of age. In fact just 3 weeks ago the daughter of the owner sent me a friendly email reminder to send in our report before the end of the month. We still have not been officially notified that they are no longer in exsistence and where do we now send our report to??? These reports are vital and REQUIRED to send to the Ethiopian government to ensure that the children are in fact being well cared for. This is essential for international adoption to continue.



The Globe and mail will have a blurb about it tomorrow, and I am quite sure it will be country wide news by the end of the week.



I know that adoption is not the answer for these countries. Any idiot knows that. And I have friends who after adopting internationally refuse to do it again based on principal.



But I would.



Since the moritoriam was put on Romanian adoptions there are thousands of children either suffering in orphanages or living under the street in tunnels. SOMEONE TELL ME THAT IS BETTER THAN BEING ADOPTED BY A FOREIGNER AND RAISED IN A LOVING FAMILY!!



YES it's true that many prespective parents are lied to about thier child's family. YES. But you know what???? In a country such as Ethiopia there is no formal foster care system in place as we have here. There are orphanages, or the street. If you are LUCKY, and I do consider these children lucky, you will have a loving extended family to care for you and raise you. In Ayana case she had a birth mother that for whatever reason COULD NOT RAISE HER. And TO MY KNOWLEDGE there was no extended family to do it either. Maybe her birthmom hid her pregnancy? Maybe she was kicked out of the family? I don't know. But here in Canada there are hundreds of women who lovingly give thier children up for adoption when they cannot care for thier children. Are some of these women in other countries given money? In some cases, yes. Are there some countries that are actively encouraging their young mother's to keep thier babies and help them make a life for themselves? YES. There is corruption, there is the pure.



This is a VERY hot button in the adoption community. In fact I am sure there will be many comments on this post arguing with me.



I have no problem with a family saying they will not internationally adopt because they do not want to support a corrupt system, that is thier choice. But my question is this... what happens to those children? And since when is it not our problem? Are we not all HUMAN BEINGS inhabiting the SAME PLANET? The way I look at it is we adopted a beautiful little girl whose parents could not raise her. We paid a fee for all of the expenses, and unfortunately now we know possibly a corrupt agency. And I would do it all again. Except I would have gone with CAFAC which has been doing Ethiopian adoptions for over 20 years. And successfully I might add.


But I don't want to be part of the problem either.


I don't know what the answer is. All I know is right now as I type these words there are DEVESTATED HEART BROKEN families right now who are sobbing and holding one another.


I pray for every single one.