As many of you know, we had a flight scheduled tonight at 6 pm to start our journey to Uganda for our second trip. This morning, I woke up at 1:00 am and tried hard to go back to sleep but couldn't so decided to check my email. I had emailed the lady who had performed our private investigation and asked about some of the content of the report. She responded back with news that sent chills down my spine.
The dishonesty began a very long time ago unknown to us and knowing more about the case now, it screams child trafficking and corruption. The kind you watch and read about in the media and cringe...the kind where you just wonder how in the world did this get so tangled? There is so much more to the story that there is no way to explain it all in a blog post and honestly thats now not my story to tell. The family felt hopeless, but when asked privately, they said they WANT their daughter and granddaughter, if only they could support her financially. At first thought, I said to myself, "well, they can't financially care for her, so she can't stay there." But the more John and I thought about it, the worse and worse we felt.
Poverty alone is never a reason to adopt. It's not right, it's not ethical, and it's certainly not biblical. We said from the beginning, we wanted to commit ourselves to an ethical adoption, one in which the mother and father are deceased or if alive, want nothing to do with their child. A Ugandan child that has a mother that wants her should be with her mother. Period. And if we truly are caring for orphans and widows as we were originally called to do, then it certainly isn't taking someone's baby due to poverty. I know most of you have heard this verse:
Now this holds a different meaning in addition to adoption that I didn't understand before, it also means to help widows and as I (very selfishly) want to ignore that little tidbit, it's there for a reason...because it's what is right. It's not always adoption that provides his redemption and love. It's helping others because you love that child and widow like they were your own child or mother. To adopt this little girl, after knowing this, would go against everything we believe in. Since the day the biological mother was discovered something hasn't felt right. We couldn't put our finger on it and we don't think it's a coincidence that we found these things out in the early morning of the day we were set to leave. I didn't understand the need to "help them help themselves" until I was in Uganda and saw firsthand that what these people need to end the poverty cycle is empowerment and education. I fully love and support adoption of course when there is no other alternative, but there has to be a change within the cycle or it keeps being repeated over and over again. Simply going to the country, handing out clothes, shoes, money, etc. is helpful, but what happens when there is no more handouts?
This is undoubtably the hardest decision we have ever had to make, to work so hard to make something happen that is honoring a child that deserves so much more, and to see it crumble right before us is agonizing, but this is the end of this chapter for us. It's shocking to even type. I know it's shocking to read. Everyone wants a happy ending, I know. Oh how I wish I could say it was less complicated and we could post beautiful airport pictures and live happily ever after. However, this adoption..the highs and lows have been some of the most stressful, meaningful, fulfilling, confusing, yet beautiful adventure I personally have ever taken. I can't even begin to explain the life lessons I learned in regard to poverty, the AIDS epidemic and the stigma associated with it, African culture, adoption corruption, and what it means to truly submit to control. I have learned how selfish I really am, how the feeling of helping someone who can do nothing for me is more fulfilling than any fleeting feeling of buying more for myself, that my problems really aren't problems, that I complain too much, that I had no clue before what true need is, that I should never judge a book by its cover and the person in need that we tend to overlook may also be the very one who saves us.
So although heartbreaking, the positive lessons far outweigh the bad. I am so thankful Eliana has so many people praying for her now and forevermore. I am so thankful to have so many giving, gracious friends who selflessly endured this long, extremely unpredictable ride with my family and held my hand every step of the way and never gave up, even when I felt like it. I saw God alive in so many ways that I would do this all again just to experience Him the way I had the opportunity to during this time. I learned the true hearts of people that I underestimated before....and learned that meeting a friend/spiritual mentor can happen in the most unlikely places (yes, even in a random van on the other side of the world).
There is going to be a lot of work ahead for the family in working towards being able to provide enough to live comfortably, but education and psychological counseling are two very strong components in beginning the reunification of a family. We plan to be a part of this process as well, working with an organization in Uganda whose work is dedicated solely to this. Ellie will go back to Arise and Shine and be with her sister Rebecca, until her family can get on their feet and then ultimately be reunited. Now that in my eyes, is a happy ending. That is the way God intended it. It still stings and hurts and will take to time to recover from, but we have faith this is best for Ellie.
We don't know what the future holds for our family..but I am so thankful and fulfilled to have 3 little healthy boys who call me mama. That is enough, and having a daughter..if even for a little while, was worth it and to God I am forever grateful for that privilege.
Please keep our family and more importantly Eliana's family in your prayers. I know everyone loves and cares for her already and has so many questions but please just give us some time to heal and move forward from everything for now. I mean that in the nicest way possible, it's just too fresh and we are still processing everything as well to answer too many questions right now.
On a much more positive note, Your donations are still sending Francis to college, and I can not wait to present this to him and will keep everyone posted once he decides on his University and curriculum! We raised $4,000! That is a great victory in itself.
THANK YOU all, your hearts and love is something I only hope I can give back in some way some day. Thank you for sharing this with our family...I hope God taught all of us just a little bit through this adoption. I didn't lose a daughter, I gained a big piece of my heart I never even knew I was missing.
Thank you for sharing, Amy. Our prayers are with your family and the family of your daughter. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
ReplyDeleteThank you Amy for sharing. I thank God for what you learned through this heartbreaking experience and I thank you for sharing where you are at and why. That takes so much courage and boldness. We have been on our Uganda adoption journey for 2 years and 7 months. I know His timing is perfect and I cling to that promise. I am praying for special blessings on you and your families (Ugandan and home). God bless you and encourage you!
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you again for sharing.
Brooke
Oh Amy I have so much love for you all & will be continuing to pray for your & her families. I feel you have been so wise & humble in this process and so admire your heart. Love you friend!
ReplyDeleteThis is the first time I have been to your blog. I am so sorry and so happy for you and she. You are in my prayers.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your heartbreaking journey and your lessons learned. I hope I will always remember: "the person in need that we tend to overlook may also be the very one who saves us"
ReplyDeleteThis may not be a happy ending, but a happy beginning for Eliana. She's been given another chance to continue on the path that she had started, when she first came into existence. Thank you for not letting your selfishness disrupt her and her family's life together. I truly hope more people would support the children and their families, or at least not separate them when it's unnecessary and disruptive.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, powerful post. Wishing all of you healing, joy, and strength, as your families are forever entwined.
ReplyDeleteI haven't stopped think of you, your family, Eliana and her family -- How beautifully painful, but oh how God-honoring the path is you are walking -- May this story, these families, be a testimony + example to so many who need their eyes opened to what's really going on in orphan care in the developing world. Amen.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a blessing and encouragement to read - that you love Jesus enough to do what is right in His eyes even when it crumbles your own dreams and breaks your heart. I am praying for you and your family...and Eliana and her family.
ReplyDeleteI am touched, amazing, and grateful for you example. Someone suggested this is not a happy ending. Oh but it is. I adopted a child who has a great mother. And guess who she wants to be with? Her mother. In her country. You and the little one will be blessed beyond what you can imagine for this brave decision. I know I don't know you, but I want to hug you and whisper in your ear "you did the right thing." Because the wrong thing, the other thing that most Christians do, tears apart families instead of builds them. feeling humbled, grateful and hope other adoptive families learn from you and have the bravery to walk away when they learn of this very thing in their own adoption stories, because it's way more common than the lies told on adoption paperwork. Hugs and prayers for you family.
ReplyDeleteSo blessed by your example. I will pray for your family as well as Eliana's. We went through something similar but vastly different as well. We set out to adopt a baby through domestic infant adoption thinking we were doing a good thing. We were chosen by a birth mom, the only problem is that she really wanted to keep her baby. It was to be a very open adoption which didn't sit well with us but the adoption agency led us to believe it was what was best. Long story short, we ended up not going through with the adoption. We felt that as Christians, we should be encouraging and helping these young women keep their babies. We too realized that we only want to adopt a child "in which the mother and father are deceased or if alive, want nothing to do with their child". Many birth moms relinquish their babies only to later realize that they made a huge mistake. We just kept thinking, 'what if she changes her mind?' especially with the openness & ongoing contact. Her family was encouraging her to give her baby up. These birth moms are forced to make a life long decision at a very vulnerable time in their lives. Their hormones are raging. They are often scared & confused. I applaud you and your husband for helping to keep this family together. God bless you!
ReplyDelete(Well that's a bummer. I wrote a response, hit "publish," and it disappeared. My apologies if it didn't actually disappear and it appears after I publish this one!)
ReplyDeleteI have great admiration for the painful decision you made. As someone who is much less than enthusiastic about international adoption precisely due to the potential for unknown corruption as well as the damaging potential for RAD exacerbated by culture shock, I must admit I have a fair amount of trouble supporting international adoption in the first place, even if all the "i"s seem dotted and the "t"s seem crossed. In addition, the verse you mentioned, I believe, actually refers to the "orphan and widow" as a unit, not as two separate people. In other translations, "orphan" actually says "fatherless," which would imply that the child mentioned is not actually a "true orphan" as we would think. Some Christians do use the fact that God adopted us into his fold to justify "taking a baby due to poverty," as you said. But God didn't take us from an earthly father and mother that didn't exist (because we were "orphans"). He took us BACK into His family because our sin separates us from Him.
I know that you must be in a lot of pain right now. You're deeply feeling the loss of the daughter you felt you already had. My heart goes out to you. But, though I cannot speak for God, I believe you made the right decision. I will pray that the little girl is reunited quickly not only with her sister still in the orphanage, but with the rest of her biological family as well. I also pray that God will richly bless you (and the rest of your family!) as you continue to follow His voice and move forward with His plan.
A friend sent me this post and said I would want to read it. I hope in some way it brings you peace knowing that you honored Eliana's birth family beautifully, and your actions spoke voumes about their worth. I think we get trapped into thinking that our money and passports and relatively easy (by comparison) lives make us somehow better suited to raise the child born into a poor family -- but all we need do is look around a little bit to find incredibly joyful families that are living and loving materially poor and their children often lack nothing because of it. I can only begin to understand how difficult it was to let go of this, but I too wanted to echo what others have said here - Bravo for putting the first mother before yourself and for showing us the face and heart of Jesus in doing so.
ReplyDeleteI have never read a better explanation of James 1:27. Your post was incredibly brave. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your beautiful story. We have recently experienced a similar situation and I know the pain and heartache of loss and the joy and fulfillment of being a part of family reunification. I applaud your courage and strength and will keep you and your family here and your family in Uganda in my prayers. Our story can be found on my blog www.caralitchfield.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteYou are an amazing person to see the truth and stop the adoption. There are not too many prospective APs that do that. You also write a truth that the adoption community needs to hear. Saving orphans and poverty is not what God meant by James 1:27. He means exactly as you wrote it--help the families to stay together. Do not split them up and put them with strangers. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing the process that your family has experienced and the decisions that you have painfully made. James 1:27 is often misused without the Christian circles, and reading your analysis of its meaning is powerful and spot on. There are so many complexities within adoption, and using your voice in the manner you have is opening eyes and hearts to the realities. I have more questions than answers related to adoption, but your choosing not to turn your head to corruption and ethics is commendable. All the prayers and wishes for this family and families all over the world.
ReplyDeletePraying for your family and E. Thank you for this beautiful example of love.
ReplyDeleteIf you still feel compelled to adopt, look into the US Foster Care system, there are so many waiting children that need a caring family like yourselves.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your story. Thoughts and prayers for your family during this time.
ReplyDeleteThis is putting the "best interest of the child" at the forefront. In fact, I advocate for the phrase to be changed to "best interest of the PERSON" not the cute child who tugs at your heart strings, but the full grown adult who will look you in the eye and ask "if money was the only reason I couldn't stay with my blood family, then why didn't you just help them with money?" You are 100% right, poverty is NOT a valid reason for adoption.
ReplyDeleteSo moved by your love for Ellie.
ReplyDeleteHaving adopted 2x, I know how incredibly difficult this loss must be for you. This child was your daughter - you dreamed of holding her, kissing her, and loving her for the rest of your life. The true beauty and treasure of what you are doing now will feel more real later, but for now -- giving your heart time to mend and heal from this loss is so important. I admire your strength to do the right thing. I believe that God redeems everything and even though you are already seeing glimpses of how God is and will do this, I believe you will be amazed and delighted at what He does in the long run.
ReplyDeleteWow, I am awestruck by your courage, love, and faith. I really admire you for loving Eliana so much that you truly put her best interest to the forefront. What an incredible thing you have done for this little girl and her family. That is the true description of a mother. I am so thankful to have found your little spot on the web (discovered you through Rage Against the Minivan) and I look forward to following your story more. God bless you, your family, Eliana, and her family as well.
ReplyDeleteThe reality of adoption today, and in the past, is that there are very few children being adopted worldwide who are "true" orphans. You may hear about 5 million orphans in Ethiopia, say, and it might motivate you to begin the adoption process, but if you adopt from Ethiopia, your child will not be an orphan in the sense of not having immediate birth family. The children being adopted from Ethiopia (as an example) must have family who have decided to go to court to release the child to be adopted. Most of the time it's for reasons related to poverty. This "adopt an orphan" idea is merely an illusion Western families wishing to adopt often have, and unethical people will take advantage of this.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, and being a Christian who has adopted two children - a daughter from the US and a son from Japan - adoption is still a very valuable as a family expansion reality, and one that is lovely in God's eyes. To quote another adoptive parent, it is a sacred exchange that makes the potential love received by the child wider, broader and deeper in the long term.
My children weren't "rescued" from anything: had we not made ourselves available, other perfectly wonderful families would have been chosen for them, or they're birth families could have rallied to support the birth mothers in keeping their child.
Circumstances, however, and personal decisions made by the women who ultimately had the authority to do so, caused our two children to expand their families through a plan that their (birth)parent(s) made because they knew that eventually their child would end up in foster care or in a culturally accepted orphanage system (both not great for kids). All this because of circumstances that would take too long to change for these particular children. This would make poverty (and in the case of Japan, poverty from eventual social stigma) a very real reason for a child to need to be adopted.
We chose two situations with potential for open adoption and the children to be able to access all sides of their families. We love this, and especially the US adoption has created a wonderfully large family picture that doesn't just exist in the imagination but in the tangible as well. Someday we hope that our son's adoptive/birth family will want the same physical reality.
I agree that you had to do what you had to do on finding out that there had been lies. Too often adoptive families don't find out about what's really going on until they have legal custody of the child, and there really is no turning back. Or the adoptive family just closes its eyes. I don't judge any of those situations.
I hope that when you've grieved the loss of this child, you can reconsider making yourselves available to parent a child again, in spite of what you know now.
beautiful, admirable, brave. thank you. may God bless you and your family and this sweet girl and her family.
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