orphans.

Thursday, May 08, 2008 / Comments (0) / by elizabeth

Ok, a kind of long story not really kind of short:

I have a good friend (some of you know her, but since this is a public forum I wanted to be careful) who works at an adoption agency. She is the consultant for Vietnam adoptions. From what I understand, the adoption process is pretty complicated. There are referrals, home visits, and thousands of dollars poured into international adoption. My friend works with families who are hoping for a Vietnamese child.

Recently there have been a lot of political issues revolving around adoptions, and families are in jeopardy of not being able to bring home their children. While historically the US and VN do not thrive on a stable relationship, presently the US is not doing all they can to help these families.

The thing, I think, that we forget, is that there are real people behind this. Real lives that are affected. Real parents who want to give a child a home, real children who need homes. Many of these families are nearing the end of the process - but because of this mess, their time tables keep getting pushed back and the whole thing is close to completely ending. Meaning, they have been through an extremely long waiting period and it's possible they are going to be out thousands of dollars [not to mention the emotional toil this takes] with no child. And on the flip side, the child they wanted - wanted to love, to provide for - is still an orphan. It sucks.

Jesus says we are supposed to take care of orphans. In James [1:27] it says that caring for orphans and widows is religion that is undefiled. Basically, it's your belief shown in its purist form. Pure belief.

It's times like these that I feel helpless, but at the same time grateful to know there's at least something I can do. The first thing is to pray. God has a heart for these people - the parents whose hopes of a Vietnamese baby are being shattered, the children who so desperately want - and NEED - to be loved. He is near to the broken, and I know that these people are feeling very broken right now.

Secondly, on Monday there will be a plan released by the Joint Council on International Children's Services telling us where to go from here. Here are the details that i have so far:

Next Monday, JCICS will be launching a campaign to pressure the State Department to settle its dispute with Vietnam and sign a new agreement that will continue adoptions after September 1st. On Monday, there will be specific times and days for you to call your state representatives and ask them to sign onto this initiative. The idea is to get their attention. We want thousands of families to call at the same time so that congress will know we are serious about this. We also feel at this time that congress needs to step in and pressure DOS (the Department of State) to sign a new agreement with Vietnam. Who can call? EVERYONE. You should not only call yourself but have your families, friends and everyone you know to call their local state representative.

You can go to congress.org to get a list of your congresspeople as well as their email addresses. All you have to do is enter your ZIP. It might be a good idea to email them from this site as well.

Thanks for reading through this - I know it's long but it's something that is so important. i will be sending more info when I can, but until then please join me in prayer!

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