One of the most surprising things I’ve encountered in the past few months since we started the process of adopting is how little people seem to know about Haiti. Naturally I bring it up in conversation all the time, so people ask me why we chose to adopt from Haiti.
I didn’t like the United Nations BEFORE I learned anything about Haiti, but in the past few months I have really come to despise them for their negative influences on that country. Having the UN peacekeeping force (MINUSTAH) may be a necessary evil, I don’t know. The way UNICEF is influencing adoption law there in Haiti is not good. Kristen explains why better than I can here.
The long and short of it is that Mike and I are willing to take the risks of Haiti’s crazy system. We’re willing to even get stuck in the system and wait a long time if that’s what it means to rescue a child from a life in an institution, or death from starvation if she were to stay with family members. Children are absolutely starving to death in Haiti, I see it every day on the Facebook pages of HIS Home, GLA and especially Real Hope for Haiti. Yes, they may have one or two living parents, but in some cases they will not survive unless they are placed in an orphanage and they should not live out their lives in one.
The headline of this New York Times piece from yesterday irks me. To say a child is not an orphan because they have living biological parents is misunderstanding the situation. When a child is abandoned by their parents due to poverty, they are orphaned. Yes, we want parents to be able to provide for their own children. But the problems are complex and so children are orphaned every day.
Some people have said to us “You can’t save them all.” No, but we can offer at least one a loving family. To her it will make a difference.