26000 Reasons to Adopt Internationally

Misty and I biked to church this morning on our tandem.  It was a beautiful day, and what I thought would be a great morning for a bike ride.  The church we went to is probably .75 miles from our house.  And yes, we were still late, but only because we had to get into our orphan costumes (see yesterdays blog), I was Mike Tyson.  The road looks like it is level, and it does not seem very far, but I swear, it felt like I was biking up El Capitan.  This may be because, we took our tandem and I suspect Misty was only pretending to pedal.

Apparently this church does not participate in orphan Sunday, because we were the only ones to dress up.  It is a small church, and like most small churches, the people were very friendly.  We were invited to coffee and snacks after the service and of course we accepted, I cannot turn down free food, though I should point out Misty scolded me when I grabbed a bigger plate to hold more food.  In her defense it was a serving platter.

So we get to talking with some nice folks from the church and inevitably they ask about kids.  Do we have any.  I appropriately abstain from making the "no, we're celibate" joke, and tell them instead about our adoption plans.  And than the question gets asked, "why don't you adopt from the U.S." now, I really hate this question, but it is a fair question.

For some adopting locally is the only option, and for others it is simply a preferred option. Misty works in local adoption, as well as being an unaccompanied refugee minor caseworker.  So we have somewhat of an inside scoop on what local foster to adopt looks like.  There are a lot of "success stories" out there, and some hard stories.  After careful consideration, we determined that it was not for us.

Local and international adoption are two hugely different animals.  Relatively speaking, there are a very small number of adoptable orphans in the states.  And in this group of adoptable orphans, basic welfare needs are not lacking.  Bluntly put, children in the United States do not starve to death and though our health care system may be ineffective, it really is not for wards of the state, they have some of the best health care available.

This is not the case for our global neighbors.  Every day, 26,000 children age 0-5, die of malnutrition (UNICEF's numbers)  .  That is today, yesterday, and tomorrow.  

To put things in perspective, we all remember where we were on September 11.  2,996 people died on that awful.  Today 26,000 children will die and it will not make a single headline.  There is a holocaust going on right now that is killing the worlds children but nobody is talking about it.

This is why we want to adopt internationally.  Please help us.