Tuesday, March 8, 2011

burdened for ethiopia

since friday i have felt so burdened to pray for adoptions in ethiopia. as many of you have probably heard, the rumor mill is swirling with news that MOWA {the ministry of women's affairs - the division that oversees adoptions} in ethiopia, has threatened to cut the amount of adoption cases processed each day by 90%. instead of processing 50 adoption cases per work day, MOWA is saying that they will begin only processing 5 case per day beginning march 10, 2011. this still hasn't been confirmed by the ethiopian government, but is definitely the "talk" of the ethiopian adoption community right now...


according to the joint council on international children's services, the reasons for MOWA's dramatic cutbacks are:

1) the assumption that corruption in intercountry adoption is systemic and rampant

2) the Ministry’s resources should be focused on the children for whom intercountry adoption is not an option

not only is this information disturbing, but i can't help but to think of the many friends we know waiting anxiously to hear if this new system will come to fruition or not. my heart is particularly burdened for 2 friends in the home study process, 1 waiting on UCSIS approval, 4 waiting on court dates, and many waiting on embassy approval and clearance to bring their children home at last. ugh. these are just a few of the very real families we know waiting to give all the love and care in the world to a few ethiopian children. so many more are in their same situations...just waiting, hoping, and praying that this plan will be reconsidered.

my heart is even more burdened though for the millions of orphans in ethiopia that may never have a chance at a loving family if this is put into effect! this change could potentially cut the amount of international adoptions from ethiopia to just 500 per year, which is down from 4000 per year. meaning that 3500 children that could possibly have loving homes in just one year's time would be waiting in understaffed and understocked orphanages for years at their chance to possibly be adopted.

will you please join our family in praying for adoptions to stay open and ethical in ethiopia??

this is BIG. BIG for the children of ethiopia. BIG for the families who desire to love and parent these children. BIG for our family who hopes to possibly one day return to ethiopia and bring another brother or sister home for greer and charlotte. just BIG.

my heart is breaking just thinking about this. however, i do know that we serve a sovereign God and i'm praying that He's using this to shake up the system a bit, to get unethical adoption agencies out of the country, and to smooth the way for adoptions to continue in ethiopia for a long, long time. God is for orphans. He is for setting the lonely in families. He even gets justly angry over the harm of orphans and i believe that He is already all over this...

"DO NOT take advantage of a widow or an orphan. if you do and they cry out to me, i will certainly hear their cry. my anger will be aroused, and i will kill you with the sword;" -exodus 22:23-24a

we need to be crying out on behalf of these orphans!!!

if you want to help in other ways besides prayer, there are a few ways that you can do so here: emergency campaign for ethiopia. in particular, there is a petition to sign that will be given to the prime minister of ethiopia, as well as, a photo book with short, personal testimonies from families who have already adopted from ethiopia being given to MOWA. please help in any way you can!! thanks :)

4 comments:

Stacy said...

I needed to hear that last part!

Mandy said...

Thank you so much for encouraging people to pray for the situation concerning MOWA right now. We are currently awaiting child referral from Ethiopia and were just heart-broken at the possible delay. I am uplifted by the reminder that we serve a big God who knows the suffering of orphans and is angered by the harm being done to them!! I will be praying that they change their minds!

Jana said...

As one of the families currently awaiting a court date, I appreciate your prayers more than you know! Trying hard to remember that our God is bigger, stronger, and mightier than this. Did you get my e-mail about our daughter's info in case you get to that area?

The Koen Family said...

Do you care if I copy and paste this to my blog?!?! It would save me SOOO much typing time! ;-)