From Disaster to Action

It has been a crazy few weeks in my professional world. I am absolutely astounded at the outpouring of help our community is prepared to give to the people of Haiti (I also have to say I am horrified by the few who have said that Haiti deserves this). I have talked on the phone continually for 2 weeks to people calling Bethany from all over the country who want to help. I have also seen our government do some very quick work on the behalf of the children in the adoption process.

I have gotten so many questions, all of them good, and all of them I am happy to answer, but want to take moment to get some facts out there...

Right now the only children that are getting humanitarian aid visas are the ones who are matched and in the adoption process with approved families before the earthquake.

The U.S. State Department, Save the Children, Joint Council on Adoption, Bethany Christian Services and others are all working hard to provide ethical and legal services to the children and families of Haiti. As much as we want to help the orphaned children, we need to make sure they are orphans, make sure that life in America is the best solution and if they do come to the U.S. for foster care and adoption that the families adopting them are prepared to work with the Trauma and grief these children are experiencing. Also it is important to understand what it means to be a multicultural family. For more information on all of this click HERE

I also want to take this time to bring all the children of the world to the center of attention. It takes a horrible, devastating natural disaster to help us remember that there are children/orphans in crisis all over the world. From Haiti to Africa to China to Michigan. These are children who have also lived through earthquakes, hurricanes, death, famine, flood and disease. Abuse, neglect, hunger, lonliness, fear...These are children where tomorrow is unknown, children who do not get tucked in at night. Haiti may not have a central government authority to process adoptions, but there are other countries that do. There are 143 million children that do. We are all astounded by the 1 million estimated orphans in Haiti, but that is a small proportion of the world. I hope that it does not take another devastating natural disaster to get the world to notice. In fact check out this video if you want.

So there is my soap box, I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for giving me an outlet!