Over 200 hits in five days-I'd say you all are a little curious! Thanks for participating in this journey with us. We treasure your support and encouraging words. Well, if you aren't one of those aforementioned 200 people, you'll need to read chapter one below before continuing. As for the rest of you, here is chapter two:
Tim and I have always found the India/Tibet/Nepal region of the world fascinating. It's right in between where he and I have lived and worked, Afghanistan and SE Asia respectively, and combines the beauty, culture, and landscape of both worlds. It seeps of tales of Mt. Everest attempts, Shangri La, Bombay silk, bangle, and cardamom markets, and chanting Buddhist monks. We were actually planning on a trip there for our ten year wedding anniversary in 2009. It seemed natural to look here for our next child. Though Indian adoption laws require that either the father or mother be of Indian decent to adopt a child under four years old, and there are naturally no adoptions allowed through Tibet right now, we qualified to adopt from Nepal. Amidst its beauty, Nepal is the poorest country in Asia. It has the highest child trafficking rates in the world, with its little girls especially being "exported" to India and Malaysia. Clearly, there is a pressing need for adoptive families in Nepal. The Ministry of Women and Children's Welfare in Nepal says that if a family already has a boy in the home, they must adopt a girl. So, despite the fact that Nepal adoptions require two trips (who's complaining about two trips to our dream vacation spot...),we were psyched to bring home a baby girl from Katmandu.
However, literally the same week we made this decision, the new minister at the Ministry of Women and Children in Nepal decided to suspend international adoptions until he became more acquainted with his job. As a result of his examinations, a couple of weeks later, he decided to stop all international adoptions until Nepal conformed to the Hague requirements on international adoption. Such an undertaking, from one of the poorest places on earth, is quite time consuming. Since Nepal wasn't currently a part of the Hague Convention for international adoption, they weren't complying to the checks and balances within that system, and stories of children being stolen, persuaded, or bought from birthfamilies began clanging in our hearts. Tim and I cringe at the thought of unknowingly adopting a child who had been stolen from his or her birthfamily. And who knows if we'd even qualify for Nepal once it reopened, if it reopened, so why submit papers now-and the fees that go with them? Cambodia has been suspended for these reasons since what-2004? Still, children are sitting in orphanages there, stuck, waiting on the government to produce a transparent program.
So, I must say, for all of you who thought it was Nepal, you're wrong! ;) After much prayer, we feel great peace in putting Nepal on hold until the new rules are ratified. Supposedly, the draft of the new rules state that a family can adopt a child of either gender (even if both genders are already in the home), and the limit of two children in the family is broadened. If it's God will, we'll qualify and adopt from there later. With Tim and I's love for that region, how could we not!? In the meantime, we pray that Nepal moves swiftly to comply with the Hague so that its children are protected from child traffickers, and so that the more than 400 families who were in the Nepal program when it suspended can get their children home soon.
As a result of this, we were back at square one in the search for the right country and the right agency. Where in the world IS baby #3???? I'll tell you in the next post!
By the way, if you're interested in adopting a child from Nepal-and I STRONGLY recommend it once it reopens-here's the link for a fabulous agency. Ask for Eric. All of the children shown in the post are Nepali. http://www.faithadopt.org/home/programs/nepal
Then there's the fees. Some countries require two trips. That's a tremendous added expense. We only had to be in Manila for 5 days with Judah's adoption. Other countries require one or both parents be in country for a month or more, sometimes twice (Ukraine). The agency fees vary, the country fees vary, not all agencies work in every state so there's a homestudy agency fee, and then my favorite people: The United States Customs and Immigration Services who just saw it in the adoptive families' best interests to up their fees again from $500 something to nearly $800. Overall, including travel and USCIS fees, a family is looking at somewhere between $11,000 and $35,000 for the adoption of one child, with fees for a domestic adoption somewhere in the middle of those two figures. See? Big difference.
In summary, we spent a couple of months asking, "Where is there a need? From where do we qualify? Can we afford the fees? Is the program transparent? Are there children available that will fit well with our family? What are the wait times? What agencies represent this country? Do they return my phone calls? Do they have good references? Is the paperwork reasonable and bearable? What age of children are available?
