Tag: adoption

News

The End of an Era

LS

We have been so thankful to journey with you through our adoption process. It has been a journey that often feels like a highspeed rollercoaster and sometimes we aren’t sure if we are upside down or right side up. One of the more difficult loops we have had to endure has been our second adoption process.

In 2019, we were matched with a then 10 year old boy named Shan who lived in northern China. As we prepared to head to Scotland, we fully anticipated and even planned to be traveling to China a few months later. As 2020 rolled in and the world shut down, we were told our adoption process was on pause. Like with almost everything, we thought this would be a question of weeks…then months…and then it turned into years.

Throughout it all we continued to pray fervently for our son and for adoptions to resume as quickly as possible. We also sent several packages for birthdays, Christmas, and other occasions. As time continued to march on, we watched our son grow up via pictures every 5-6 months. We saw videos of a growing preteen who addressed us as mom and dad. As the days turned into years, our hopes continued to go up and down. Rumors were in that certain families were possibly be reevaluated for travel, other countries were sending a few families over, China asked how many of the original families were still in process. And then, quite suddenly, without any warning, at the end of August 2024 we received word that China made the decision to close all adoptions.

The language was carefully analyzed – it wasn’t clear if this referred to only future families or those in process too. And yet, these felt very much like desperate grabs…we were pretty sure the door had closed. Lifeline was amazingly helpful throughout this. They sought to care for families, provide all options, and empathize with the difficulties of 5 years of unmet expectations. In addition, they redoubled their advocacy efforts focusing on families who were matched. We became part of 300 families whose stories grabbed the attention of various news outlets, all in the hope that this would help generate interest at higher levels.

Along with many of the other families, we tried to not get our hopes up, while still desperately not wanting to give up on our son. While we were in Brazil, Lifeline launched its biggest advocacy effort yet. This involved a series of videos showing stories and making pleas. It also involved drafting and signing two letters – one to the President of the United States and one to the President of China. Lifeline’s own president spent significant time talking to anyone in Washington D.C. who would listen and made it up to some fairly high levels in seeking to plead for the families.

The recent meeting between the two presidents was seen as the best hope. China Lifeline staff and the Chinese Child Welfare Protection Agency indicated the only chance would be if intervention happened at the presidential letter. All the efforts amazingly did net the information and letters being placed into the preparation packet that was handed to the President. Prayers were that it would come up as a part of the discussion. Unfortunately, a few weeks out the indications demonstrate that this topic was never broached. Due to this, this week Lifeline made the very difficult decision to suspend their China adoption section.

Although none of the families on that call were shocked or surprised at this decision, it was the thing none of us wanted to hear either. Lifeline, without a doubt, took this as far as possible and then some. And we knew it would probably come to an end sooner or later…in fact, last year was the fairly sure nail to the coffin. But this certainly marks the end of an era – a long, very drawn out process. In some ways, the deaths that you see coming a long way off are some of the most exhausting. It is the train you cannot stop, but you try to delay it in any way possible. The deaths that come sudden and unexpected pack a stronger gut punch, but there is an aspect of the swiftness that brings a different set of pain than those which never seem to end.

We don’t know why the Lord allowed our second adoption to end this way. We hate this most for Shan, who longed for a family, was told he had a family, and is left without a family. Furthermore, we aren’t even sure if he knows why. We pray that God will bring the truth of the Gospel to him and that perhaps one day we might finally be united in eternity if not before.

It wasn’t a shock, it was to be expected, it was already a truth our hearts knew…and yet, the end of an era has come with much sorrow. In His grace, we know the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and remains sovereign and good…even when this era dies a thousand deaths.

News

Ending with a Bang

LS

Today, October 12th, is Kid’s Day in Brazil. It is a day in which families tend to do something special together with their kids. Because of this, there were a lot of additional guests that seemed to arrive overnight. The lunch also had an enormous amount of sugar and sweets. The kids convinced mom and dad to set the dessert limit to 3, but after 2 most of them were too stuffed to even try another.

This fun holiday was new for us and made for a nice way to end our time in Brazil. Tomorrow we begin the journey back and in many ways, the start of much of the hardest part of the process. Life to date has had minimal other things which has allowed us to focus fairly solely on the adoption process. We have been incredibly grateful for this! However, that is all about to change as we try to adopt to the new “normal”.

We praise the Lord for the opportunity to finish our trip the way we did. The generosity of some additional gifts make this a truly special last few days! We are also grateful for your prayers throughout this whole time. As we transition back, one of the changes that we anticipating happening is less frequent posts. We have really enjoyed posting as it allows us to reflect back on what the Lord is teaching us. We hope that you have been greatly blessed and perhaps this has given you more insights into adoption. Because of this, we do hope to keep posting and simply plan to change the frequency (to weekly or twice a week).

As we head home, we know many of you may be wondering what type of help would be most needed? This is one of those questions often burning in our minds, but that we are nervous to ask about. Because of this we wanted to share a few ideas. But since we don’t fully know yet and because perhaps you might know another family near to you who has recently adopted, we would like to share some more general ideas.

First, please ask! Rather than being a burden this can actually be very helpful itself. If you know of an adoptive family, ask them what are some concrete things that would be most helpful? Instead of offering specifics that you think would be good, it is more useful and less stressful to have you come with an open offer and a desire to learn what would be best. We don’t actually always know because things change on a dime with adoptions. Transitions often include significant stress and setbacks. This might mean that our needs look quite different initially than down the road.

Second, bear in mind that the most helpful things might be different that what we usually think of. If you are wanting to help a larger family, chances are that you would consider making a meal or offering to babysit. Especially when it comes to the latter, this might not actually be the most helpful for an adoptive family. Even meals can be a bit tricky because we are learning what our kids like and don’t like…so we don’t have the advantage families normally have of already having a list of do not include and another of be sure to cook this. Babysitting is not actually as helpful initially as you might imagine. If you have been following along for a while, you might recall that one feature of adoptive children is that they often struggle to form attachments and also struggle with new people in the mix. Even though our children are older, we have already seen them have higher anxiety and stress when one of us is absent or when new faces are interacting with us. Because of this, it is actually usually best for adoptive families to initially do everything possible to be the sole caregivers in order to help teach kids who to turn to and rely on. Adoptive children can look outwardly very friendly and social – going up to others for various reasons (needs, requests, to be picked up, etc.). And it is very endearing to have a cute kid come up to you. However, this is actually a bad sign as it indicates that the kids have not really attached to their parents. It means that they see all or most adults as equal and the nearest one is who they turn to when they should be turning to their parents. One way you can actually greatly serve and help adoptive families is to redirect children back to their parents rather than try to solve the issue yourself. This really helps the kids learn and attach to their parents and really serves the parents in all the efforts they are making in this regard. This is also one reason why babysitting might actually not be helpful initially – because it could slow down or interrupt the attachment and bonding efforts. However, that being said, there are times and places for both these things (meals and babysitting). Meals especially can be a huge blessing…it just might mean adoptive families are a bit pickier than normal because they are trying to avoid meltdowns from kids who haven’t learned how to try new things. The best thing to do is ask if things like babysitting, meals, etc. would help and to be understanding if an adoptive family says it actually isn’t the best at this time.

Third, some of the biggest help is alleviating loads in order to allow families to focus more on bonding and attaching. This means that things like offering to get groceries based on a list given by the family might be extremely helpful – going shopping can sometimes be a nightmare as kids haven’t learned how to do this or that we don’t buy everything our hearts desire. Getting kids out the door might be a stressful chore for families, let alone an environment that is sometimes chaotic and rushed. Offering to help clean might really reduce a load for parents who are trying to bond, cook, and then try to figure out how to keep things in order. Just because we have a lot of kids doesn’t mean we immediately have a lot of help. Learning things like chores takes time and usually biological kids are introduced to this very gradually. With all the massive amounts of changes already taking place, adoptive children might be even slower to be involved in this because of all the other things they are already having to learn. Being willing to do laundry, pick up prescriptions, help with school registrations or doctor’s forms can all be small gifts that will have an enormous impact.

Finally, seeking to learn and understand the differences and challenges adoptive families face can really be a huge help. When we adopted Elijah some of the most stressful and unhelpful conversations were from well meaning people who told us that our concerns or our boundaries were unfounded because these things were “normal for all kids”. There is likely a good deal of truth to that, but this is rarely helpful for any parent to hear and there are actually some significant twists and turns that are unique to adoption (just as there are others unique to biological children). Being willing to learn rather than conclude or providing solutions is often a great blessing. Many adoptive families already feel misunderstood in so many places and having to constantly advocate for themselves and their children. It can take a great load off just to have someone say, “I would love to learn more about why you are doing things like this or the hardships that you are facing. Would you be willing to share more with me?” It is also helpful to bear in mind that with adoptive children age can be very deceptive. A child’s biological age will likely not match their behavioral age. Taking time to learn and have an open mind can really help families to feel understood and cared for better. Even during our short time in our current destination, we have been very aware of how many people are staring at us and very confused about the strange make up of our family. As unnerving as this is for us as parents to feel like a lot of eyes on on us, this can be even more stressful for our kids who really don’t like to feel like attention is focused on them. Like many adoptive children, we have already discovered that ours get stressed out by crowds, lines, and places with a lot of unfamiliar faces. This produces overstimulation and a heightening of their senses. Learning things like this might help you understand why we (or other adoptive families) might be slower to introduce kids or seek to shield them initially (when they are already facing a tremendous amount of transition and added stress). This certainly doesn’t mean you need to avoid families or their kids, but just know that our situation is quite different and so it is always better to ask and not assume.

Hopefully this give you some ideas for how to be a blessing to adoptive families! We are so thankful for so many who are eager to help and it really means an enormous amount to us! We do certainly want you to get to meet our children, but we might do it gradually as we are seeking to feel out our kids and what their needs are. And most importantly, we need your prayers! Life is hard and stressful by itself – adding in international adoption and ex patriots simply magnifies this! Yet, the Lord graciously works through your petitions and we definitely need you to take us before the throne of grace. We hope and pray the Lord will allow us to meet many of you face to face soon! And we will look forward to continuing to post as often as we are able to. Thank you for taking the time to read these rambling thoughts, for your prayers and words of encouragement, for your laughter and your tears. We are blessed by you!

News

Picking Battles

LS

If you are a parent, then you probably are already familiar with the phrase “picking your battles wisely” when it comes to your children. It simply is impossible to target everything at once – it will overwhelm you kids and frustrate them and leave you playing a real life version of Whack-a-Mole. This applies to adoption too, but with a slight twist.

When it comes to your own children, you know their entire history and have been directly involved in shaping it. This means that you have been working to lay the foundation from the start and so all along the way you have been slowly sifting out certain tendencies and building other good habits. This process is very gradual and allows you to help your child move progressively in a particular direction. Even then, there are certain battles you will battle today and others you will wait until a later time to engage in – all to keep the amount of warfare to a healthy level.

With adoptive children, the adoptive parents are parachuting into a history that already exists. Habits have already been established, the most formational years have all already occurred, and patterns are deeply ingrained. All of this has occurred without the input at all from the adoptive parents. Furthermore, adoptive children have often spent the most time with other children and we all know that they are not the best sources for learning habits and behaviors. This means that one of the challenges for adoptive parents is carefully picking battles. There are a million things that parents can quickly spot which are very different from the way they want their family to operate. Behavioral issues exist which are “normal” for adoptive children, but not in alignment with family values.

In order to minimize the wars and keep the battles at the same manageable levels as for biological children (not an overwhelming level), there are many things that have to be overlooked or perhaps survived. This might mean having a child screaming and kicking at you when you are trying to pull them aside after hitting a sibling – behavior that would normally not be acceptable, but too many battles at once will actually lose the war. Or it might look like trying very hard to remain calm outwardly as a child hears you say no and then does it one or two more times – something that again would not normally be permitted – while you try to talk to the child about respect and listening the first time. It might look like not immediately getting onto a child running away in the grocery store directly after you told them to stay put and instead trying to stay calm and pull them aside to quickly tell them that just because you said it was a joke and apologized does not make this acceptable. And, by the way, in case you were wondering, these are not hypothetical situations. This then compounds some frustrations and behavioral issues for the son who has been in the family longer, knows if he does the same things he will get in trouble, tries them anyway to see if he can get away with it too, and then gets very upset that others seem to “get off lightly”.

If you have been reading this blog carefully, you might be thinking that it sounds like we are writing about children younger than the ones we have adopted. That is another feature of adoption – experts say that for every year of instutionalized care, a half year of developmental delay needs to be taken into account. This means that our children will all (and are) act about 2-3 years younger than their biological age. In fact, we have more or less ignored their biological age and are simply trying to determine where they are and how we can best help them at that level.

Of course, in the heat of the moment, it can be very hard to remain calm (did you notice how much the phrase “try to stay calm” occurred?) and remember all of these things. Picking battles wisely is quite difficult for any parent, but when it seems like an unstoppable onslaught is upon you, it can be downright overwhelming. Thankfully the Lord is gracious with us and is teaching us a lot through this. And this is where we desperately need your prayers! Pray for our wisdom in this and pray for good communication – this is even more critical as we have to be on the same page about which battles we are slowly waging and which ones we are setting aside for a later time.

News

What’s an Adoption without Drama?

LS

Today was the first full day together as a family of seven! Much to the delight of our daughters, we had the shopping mall on the agenda to get some new outfits. While our kids did come with two suitcases full of clothes, we both wanted to let them get to be involved in picking clothing (for perhaps the first time) and also return other clothes that their orphanage could use for other children. Waiting until 9:30 seemed like torture (even though they didn’t get up until about 7…but in the excitement, breakfast was mostly ignored).

When we finally made it to the shopping mall (having to wait 5 minutes for them to open the doors), the girls immediately set out to find all the outfits they could. We definitely have some very fashion oriented young ladies and the quickly amassed a large number of combinations to try on. The boys were a bit quicker, but also had less options to pick from (so they also ended up with fewer outfits). Mom and dad were a bit overwhelmed and decided to not try to get everything in one swoop. One soccer ball later and at least one child hitting the hangry stage, we swung by the food court, to the delight of the kids, grabbed bathing suits, and then headed to an outdoor sports complex close to home. Getting out energy for a few hours had everyone ready to return to the apartment (although within an hour or two they seemed to get all the energy back!).

As we walked in the door, quite literally, Luke’s WhatsApp rang with a group call from Lifeline, our adoption agency. It seems that by some strange turn of events, the US Embassy in Brazil never issued what is known as Article 5. This is the final document that comes after all other approvals and essentially is the guarantee to the Brazilian government that the US government will, in fact, allow the adopted children to live, reside, and gain permanent citizenship in America. Somehow this was overlooked by everyone involved – most likely because it is, in every other case, a check box item. In fact, it is one of the few things that our agency is able to essentially fix the timeline for because it is so quick and ought to be an automatic issuance. Furthermore, this approval is required before meeting the children and is the key to the Brazilian government telling them to set the meeting date. So not only did Lifeline somehow miss this piece, but so did, apparently, the Brazilian social services branch.

Thankfully, we are blessed with a great agency who we fully trust are doing everything possible to sort through the situation. The embassy alerted Lifeline today of the fact that Article 5 had not been issued (it usually takes a clocked 5 business days and we are more than a month past the time it ought to have been issued) because they were still trying to determine the embassy’s role in the adoption because we are ex-patriots…one more reminder that for things like this, life becomes increasingly more difficult for those living overseas. Lifeline immediately set up a call with the embassy officials and are already working on plans to involve the Department of State if need be.

So what does this mean for us (beyond additional stress)? Well, at the moment there isn’t anything we can do, but wait to hear the outcome of what Lifeline is doing to advocate for us, to pray, to ask you to pray, and to trust the Lord with this too. If we need to get involved in discussions with the embassy or the State Department, Lifeline will let us know. Best case scenario this can get resolved quickly with the embassy issuing Article 5 (albeit after the meeting date) and being convinced that even though we are ex-patriots, every other adoption process in other countries for ex-patriots works this way (did we mention that we are the first ex-patriots to adopt from Brazil? Probably another reason all this got overlooked). Worst case scenario it could delay the finalizing of adoption temporarily or until Article 5 is issued – with this document Brazil would be in violations of the Hague Convention agreements governing international adoptions and would not consent to finalize the adoption. Thankfully, we are still 30 days away from that deadline, but we would also like to know this is wrapped up as quickly as possible with as little stress to us and prayerfully, no added trauma to kids (we are glad that it will hopefully not get to any sort of separation, but also do know it is a remote possibility). So, we would encourage you to join us in prayer! This is one more opportunity for us to trust God with things outside of our control. We are thankful God is in control of even this! Though it seems like we can’t seem to make it through an adoption process without unexpected and unique drama (we do feel bad for what Lifeline has to put up with us each time!), we have seen the Lord work through each one and are thankful for His faithfulness!