The November 3 World Magazine has an article featuring Jim and Suzanne Faske, a couple in Brenham, TX, who have adopted to the point where they will soon have 15 children. They are in an adoption support group called Forever Families and work with a Campus Crusade group called Hope for Orphans. The title to this post is part of a statement Suzanne makes in connection with a struggle they had to adopt "Rachel, a little girl from China with arthrogryposis, a congenital disorder that gave her clubbed feet and a dislocated hip at birth". (The Faskes are on the Forever Families website here.)
The article states that China recently capped the size of adoptive families at four children and, at one point, even shut down its government adoption agency. China was embarrassed that it was pulling ahead of Russia in the number of children being adopted away.
Mary reports that Kenya discourages foreigners from adopting their orphans and taking them out of the country. See her comment.
When Carol and I were in Kenya, we spoke to a young couple who were missionaries working with one of Kenya's national prisons. They told us how a guard begged them to take newly born twins that he and his wife would not be able to support. The missionaries refused, because they said that if it became known that they would take in such children, they would be flooded with requests.
UPDATE: There is more about Rachel, mentioned in the World article, here. Warning: if you are attempting to suppress an interest in adopting a child, do NOT read about Rachel nor otherwise explore the Forever Families website.
3 comments:
you can also not adopt from China if: you are missing a limb, you don't have 80.000 net worth, you have a facial disfigurement, you have ever been treated for anxiety or depression, you have a certain BMI.....the list goes on and on and on.
Some of my friends who've adopted from China think they may be trying to slow down adoptions because of the Beijing Olympics--in order to save face--and that these restrictions might be lifted after the games are over.
I hope so.
One note: Non-Kenyans can adopt in Kenya--but it is a long, often frustrating, and tedious process--and generally it's expats already in country who do it, rather than people still in the U.S. (I would say that all the families involved feel its well worth the headache to have their precious children). I did meet one women recently who helps run an orphanage here, and it seems they might be working towards foreign adoptions there.
Thanks, M. I will update the post.
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