...my two cents on a few things:

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. "

--Mother Teresa

People ask me why, still, adopt overseas orphans instead of our own. The fact is I am not saying not to adopt our own at all. I think all orphans need a family, here or overseas. I believe that God knows and will lead you where to go, sure, it might look like it is yourself, and agencies, etc -- but was it a successful adoption, or did it fall through? If it doesn't work, most likely it wasn't meant to be. I know that is why I can't adopt right now. I don't have the means but the means will come.

So, why Overseas? They will die without us. In cribs or beds, alone, its not just something people whom advocate for them say -- it is the sad truth -- they will be transferred to institutions like these [warning, disturbing content] -- and not just in the country featured in the example video.

Yes, they are disabled. But they are JUST KIDS. Taken out of conditions like those shown they can thrive, improve, develop, learn and grow.

I read a story once on an adoptive mother's blog about how the orphanage her daughter was at was not expecting her and she walked in to find all the kids tied to the wooden slats of a playpen when she went to visit her little girl.

Here, this is neglect and child abuse. Here, the perpetrator would be investigated, arrested, tried and if found guilty -- sent to jail. There -- these people are paid to do this. These children are OBJECTS to most, less than animals, a paycheck to take home. Yes, that sounds harsh. I know, but it is the hard reality of MOST over there.

In the USA, this does not happen. These kids here are in 'the system' yes, but they have A CHANCE. However slight it is, they at least have a chance to make it and the support and help they need, they get to go to school and get an education, they are integrated into a family with the idea of being taught values behind it. They are valued members of society.

In the United States most people want toddlers or babies, its hard to be an older child or a teen. The stigma is that older kids are already 'wired' to act one way or another and are not shape-able anymore. -- Right. Tell me, at what age do you stop learning and loving and growing emotionally and spiritually?

In International Adoptions most people want toddlers or babies too. Most often when you say international adoption you think of China. China, is one of the hardest, if not the hardest program to adopt from in the world. You can't be single, you can't be over a certain age, you even have to fall within a certain BMI weight as well. These are just a few of their requirements. I've heard they say its because they are trying to find 'families for children' not 'children for families'

That, I applaud and agree with. And yet, find hard to believe. Why does adopting from China take over two years?? They say its because they don't have enough kids there? And yet you have kids in china just sitting in orphanages and waiting and dying that are considered "not adoptable" why? Because they are missing a leg, have a cleft palate, have down syndrome, cerebral palsy? Is it because they were born a girl? There are PLENTY of children in China for ALL people to bring home. So why don't they let them go? Are their requirements for who is adoptable and whom is not just as strict?? They don't want them -- they allow only one kid per household. That in itself is adding to the problem of their over population, because they all only can have one child - most little girls get abandoned because boys carry the family name. Yet, abandoned girls are STILL there. They are STILL adding to the population. Soo.. why not allow TWO children per household?? This will give them a second chance to have a boy AND get kids out of orphanages and out of streets -- thus causing a drop in population. Sadly, China is not the only country.

I know that I am outside of the picture in all of these scenarios and as such I don't have all the facts, only just what I think and see, and so might be a bit unfair in my judgment. I do not understand these ways and how this is right. This blog gets MANY international hits daily. I am not trying to offend anyone or say that I understand their ways.

Another little girl in an East European orphanage died last week, without her family, alone. Her special need -- she was blind. Thats it. So how does a blind child die at age 4?

Like with Elton John when he wanted to adopt an HIV baby boy from Ukraine and was denied because he didn't have a 'legal marriage,' because it was policy. So what. He is a knight for goodness sake. That aside, if its about the kids, why not give them to the people whom want them, whom can love them and give them life? How can it be better for the child to be left in an orphanage as another statistic to die?

Just my two cents, that's all. I know I am waaay out of the picture and only have the half of it. But I, for one, want to adopt from Foster Care. I want to adopt from Overseas. Older kids or younger, whomever God places in my family.

Adopt kids from the USA, whole-heartily and yes I intend to, but also kids from overseas too. God doesn't pick one over the other - why should we? He loves "all the children of the world", and so should we. How can you love God, and not his children? All of them?





Take care, everyone.