Caroline McGrath, mother of two beautiful children, submitted the following poem. It honors the sacred ways in which our children become fully and completely our own~ through birth and through adoption.

One of Each

The United States Department of State issued this warning about adopting from the country of Vietnam at this time:

The Department of State warns potential adoptive parents and adoption service providers of the risk of initiating new adoptions from Vietnam at this time. The 2005 Memorandum of Agreement, required by Vietnamese law to authorize adoptions between the United States and Vietnam, expires on September 1, 2008. The United States is strongly committed to continuing intercountry adoptions from Vietnam if possible. Our primary concern is to ensure that the children and families involved in the adoption process are protected from exploitation. The Government of Vietnam shares this concern. Both countries acknowledge that more needs to be done.

Discussions about revision and renewal of the Agreement are a priority for both governments, but there is no certainty a new Agreement will be in place on September 1. In view of the processing time required in Vietnam from placement to the Giving and Receiving Ceremony, an adoption process begun now cannot be completed before the current Agreement expires. We do not know whether the Government of Vietnam will continue to process pending cases if the current Agreement expires before a new Agreement takes effect. Moreover, given concerns about the existing level of protection for children in Vietnam, it is unlikely that the Agreement can be renewed in its current form.

The United States Government stands ready to support Vietnam’s efforts to strengthen and improve accountability in its adoption system and to develop its capacity to regulate adoptions. In some cases, our background investigations have revealed evidence of irregularities, ranging from forged or altered documentation to cases where children have been offered for adoption without the apparent knowledge or consent of their birth parents.

In response to these problems, in November 2007, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service and the Department of State instituted new procedures to verify that children identified for placement meet the requirements of Vietnamese and U.S. law, before the child has been adopted under Vietnamese law. The Embassy strongly advises prospective adoptive parents not to travel to Vietnam until they have received notification from the Embassy that their case is ready for final processing and travel is appropriate. Parents should contact the Embassy immediately if anyone, including their adoption service provider, encourages them to travel to Vietnam prior to receiving this notification. The Embassy can work together with adoption service providers, Vietnam’s Department of International Adoptions, and local authorities to resolve issues such as the scheduling of a Giving and Receiving Ceremony.

We continue to urge Vietnam to comply with the terms of the 2005 Agreement and to establish a process that protects the interests of all parties involved in adoptions.

For more information on this matter please visit the Department of State website on Intercountry adoption.

Department of State Announcement: Accrediting Entities Announce Accredited or Approved Adoption Service Providers

Today, February 29, 2008, is the Uniform Notification Date (UND), the date set by the Department of State on which the designated Accrediting Entities (AEs) must announce their accreditation and approval decisions. Adoption service providers who applied for accreditation or approval to provide services in Hague Convention adoptions through either of the two AEs — the Council on Accreditation (COA) or the Colorado Department of Human Services (CO) — will be notified by their respective AE whether their application has been granted, denied, or remains pending. The list of accredited, temporarily accredited, and approved providers will be posted on the Department of State website, www.Travel.State.Gov, in the Children and Families section, as of 5:00 pm today.

Please note that only those adoption service providers that have been accredited, temporarily accredited, or approved by either COA or CO as of today will be able to provide adoption services in connection with Hague adoption cases after the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption enters into force for the United States on April 1, 2008. However, the names of additional adoption service providers will be added to the list on the Department of State website on a rolling basis once we have received notification from the AE’s that they are subsequently accredited or approved. Please direct specific questions about the accreditation or approval status of an individual adoption service provider to the applicable Accrediting Entity.

Information on intercountry adoption under the Hague Intercountry Adoption Convention, including which adoption cases are covered, is available in the Children and Families / Intercountry Adoption section of the Department of State website. Please direct any further general questions to the U.S. Central Authority at AdoptionUSCA@state.gov.

On February 12, 2008, Guatemala’s National Council for Adoptions (CNA) announced that the registration period has ended for registering adoption cases “entered” in Guatemala before December 31, 2007. They informed the U.S. Department of State that during the registration period nearly 2,900 cases were registered.

The CNA also explained to the Department of State that “constancias” (individual certifications of registration) will not be issued to verify that a case was registered. Each “aviso” that was filed with the reconstituted CNA, however, received a number and a signature from a CNA official. It is this number and signature that will be used as proof that the case was registered. The CNA will provide a list of the registered adoption cases directly to the PGN once they have completed processing all the cases.

The Department of State has advised that prospective adoptive parents should consult with their legal representatives in Guatemala about issues concerning the status of their adoption cases. The Department of State will continue to monitor the situation and provide additional information as it becomes available. For more information please go to the Department of State website.

Last Sunday, our pastor led us through a description of the very early church. These men, women and children had just watched Jesus crucified, resurrected and ascended to heaven. They were full of wonder and enthusiasm and zeal. They ate together in each other’s homes, every day. If anyone needed something, someone else sold off stuff to take care of it. They shared their possession and their lives. (Acts 2:42-47).
And what happened? Our pastor pointed out the radical nature of this band of Jesus-followers and how it turned its culture upside-down.

This small new religion, just by their sharing of meals and possessions, reversed the social and economic order of the day. In the Roman empire, large banquets were a way for a host to show where his guests ranked in the social hierarchy, displaying who was currently in the inner circle. These meals excluded people. But the church meals were inclusive, open to widows, orphans, and foreigners, the socially and economically marginalized groups. The church became a social and economic safely net for the poor. It was radical.

In the early church, God’s people became family to those who had no family. I think of the Roman practice when a baby was born. The baby was set at the feet of the father. If he picked up the child, the boy or girl was legitimized and became part of the family. Babies that were not picked up, perhaps because they looked weak, were outcast – often taken outside the city to designated places where they would die of exposure or from wild animals. The Christians reversed this horrible practice. They went out and brought the babies back, adopting them into their own families, and eventually putting pressure on the government to outlaw the practice.

Who needs a new family today? War refugees and children fleeing from those who would make them child soldiers. Big sisters trying to raise their younger siblings after their parents die of AIDS. Foster children longing for a permanent home. Women abandoned by men and left to make heart-wrenching decisions about their babies.

Can our churches weave these people into our families as exuberantly as the early church? Can we do it by sharing meals together in homes and selling our things to care for others? What keeps us from this?

A New Mission. Our life in Christ should overflow outward, forward, into the world. The early church became a new social order. It was joyous and inclusive. It was generous. People followed Christ in community. When we adopt children, we should not just be bringing them into our individual families, but into communities of celebrating people who enfold them into love and worship.

If we do, perhaps we will see God work as he did in this early church. They didn’t have their own buildings, but they enjoyed the favor of all the people and God added daily to their number those who were being saved.

Cities all across the Greco-Roman world had a taste of the eternal party that never ends. Let’s join in!

When I was in Ethiopia I met a young boy, 10 years old, who made an impression on me immediately. We spent time together laughing, talking, and once we even danced around a fire with handfuls of his peers. I remember looking at him with his smile glowing in the firelight and thinking that I would do anything to find him a family. My commitment was strong. I walked back from the party that evening to my little Ethiopian flat and emailed everyone I knew telling them about this child, pleading for a family for him.
Time went on. I returned home with my son. Right before Christmas a letter came all the way from Ethiopia. It was from this child, the one that I had in my own heart committed to not rest until he had a mom and a dad. I wrote him back. Time went on again. Another letter came in the middle of January. And, yesterday another letter came. My husband handed me the letter and it made my heart happy to see that he was still thinking of us.
He wrote in his letter about school, and his good memories of us. He wrote that even though his parents were dead he knew that God would take care of him because “God makes all things good.” But, it was the end of his letter that caught my attention most deeply.

“Please, do not forget about me.”

I thought for a moment. I wondered why he was saying this. I had written to him. He knew that I had not forgotten him. I sent him messages through other traveling parents. I sent him pictures and mementos. I had not forgotten him. Or, had I?

I would almost guarantee that if you look in your junior high school year book there will be silly notes written from friends that ask you to not forget. I have one in my yearbook that claims I am a best friend with a girl that I cannot even recall ever knowing. “BFF (for those of you that were not hip that stands for Best Friends Forever!) and never forget our fun times!” are written in bold script. What fun times? Who is this girl? The memories have long left my mind. Over this forgetfulness I feel no conviction. But, over this child and his memory there is conviction deep in my spirit.

I had not forgotten his name, or that we had a good relationship, or that I really liked him. I had not forgotten to write him. I had not forgotten to talk about him with my son. But, I did forget the longing in his eyes, the raw need for him to be embraced by a family, the way he so patiently waited for someone to step up and say to him that he was coming home with them. I did forget this. I let my commitment to him, even though it was never promised aloud, wane over time.

Through tears I looked up at my husband last night and asked him if we could adopt this child (who also has a sister). I do not know if we are going to honestly. I do not know what is going to happen. I know that we are scared about adopting again as we have absolutely no room in our finances for this now. I know that we are nervous about adopting two children who are older. I know that this does not fit into our plans and that the mere idea of all of this just sounds plain out nuts to both of us. But, more than that I know that sometimes that which seems absolutely nuts is what God is truly asking of us. Very few of the men and women that God used in the Bible had tasks to do that were easy breezy instead they were radical, risky, and required sacrifice. We are praying now and trying to not think like Americans, but rather asking God to help us think and see through his eyes.

In the meantime, I am vowing not to forget. Time and distance are no excuse. There is a child, a marvelous child and his sister, who need to know that they are loved. This type of love requires action. They need to be pursued and embraced and taken home.

If you have a child that you have forgotten, a face you saw that lit a spark in your spirit, please remember it. Don’t pen it down in the yearbook of your life and close the pages only to let is slip away. Do something. Be a little nuts.

God spoke clearly to us these words, this promise:

Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you.

I think that he is speaking to us as a Father to his child, knowing that this will bring us deep comfort and hoping that we will follow his example to never forget the lonely.

Hebrews 13:5
Isaiah 58

Last Sunday, our church’s youth led us in worship. They sang Matt Maher’s, “Your Grace is Enough”, in which the second verse sings to God that, “You use the weak to lead the strong”. The weak who sprang into my mind as I sang were vulnerable, fatherless children. Do these weak children really lead us, we the strong, who sit comfortably with our homes and cars and computers, retirement funds and choices of what we want to eat each day?

The song brings me back to afternoons spent in Vietnamese orphanages. We spent several hours with small boys and girls who were eager for attention and love. They touched my heart and will not let it go. I see their faces when I sing on Sunday mornings. I have been changed by a few minutes playing with these weak children. I also call to mind what I have learned through my two sons, through their questions, vulnerabilities, ups and downs. My boys, and other orphans, have led me into impassioned prayer. They have helped me understand the compassion of Jesus and the righteous, indignant justice of the Father. Haven’t you, whether you have adopted, foster parented, visited orphanages, or cared for vulnerable children in other ways, all felt that you have been led by weak children? If we let them, these children will change our lives forever.

How is it that orphans lead us?

It’s not that orphans are idyllic angels, that we sit at their feet because of their moral, intellectual superiority. “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” (1 Cor 1:27-29). Who is more lowly and despised than orphans? These forgotten, left behind children are a window through which we can see God’s wondrous glory and salvation.

The strong systems of the world will bulldoze over orphans. Vulnerable children represent the opposite of man-centered empires. They show us the kingdom of God that turns our strength-exalting priorities upside down. They remind us of the topsy-turvy gospel that raises valleys and levels mountains. Orphans seem to have no power to influence great human empires. But Jesus quietly insists that we regard them. When we do, we remember the weak wisdom of the cross. The kingdom to which we belong is not built by the strongest and smartest among human cultures, but by the power of Christ, who died as a seemingly weak, lowly and despised man.

Where do orphans lead us?

To Jesus, our King and Captain and Leader, the one who became weak so that we through his poverty might become rich. He will not falter or become discouraged until he establishes justice on earth.

You use the weak to lead the strong. Great is your faithfulness!

Parents who finalized an adoption last year may claim a maximum credit of $11,390 for adoption expenses on their federal income tax returns. The tax credit phases out for taxpayers with high modified adjusted gross incomes.
The adoption tax credit is set to expire in 2010, but there is much legislative support for making the credit permanent.
Adoption related fees such as court costs, attorney fees, travel expenses, country fees, and other fees that are directly related to the adoption are all qualifying expenses. Adoptive parents who plan to claim the credit should file Form 8839, titled Qualified Adoption Expenses, and attach it to Form 1040.
For more information on the adoption tax credit please visit the IRS website and Adoption Learning Partners.

Rainbow Kids, a terrific online adoption magazine has sent out a plea for support asking that readers participate in a giving opportuntity that will save the lives of infants with heart disease. The organization, Love Without Boundaries, is in a challenge to recieve $10 donations from unique donors. The organization that wins this challenge will be granted $50,000 to go towards their humanitarian work. Love Without Boundaries is a volunteer organization providing medical care, foster care, education, and nutrition to orphaned children in China. To learn more about this opportunity to save the lives of orphan children in China, through a ten dollar donation, please visit the following websites:

Rainbow Kids
Love Without Boundaries
Love Without Boundaries Facebook Cause Giving Challenge

This morning our family snuggled on the couch and watched the newly burned DVD that we created of our adoption journey. Picture after picture was a visual reminder of the road we had traveled and a flooding of memories came to all of us. Before our little guy came home a friend of mine turned me onto the concept of “babywearing”. She showed me different options for carrying your baby on your chest and back. I sat down and with help made my very own baby carrier called a mei-tai, which is an Asian style carrier. As silly as this sounds (and my husband can testify to this) before leaving for Ethiopia I spent an evening testing out my carrier by walking around with a teddy bear tied to my chest! I was eager for the closeness of my son, the nearness, the connection.
He settled into that carrier with great ease. We walked in circles for hours during the time that we were not permitted to the leave the compound. His little eyes could simply glance up and meet mine. His weight was even on my back and shoulders. I carried him on my chest and back all across Ethiopia. We walked, we hiked, we adventured, we worked, shopped, and lived connected together in that carrier. We had adventures that would not have been possible if he was not attached to me tightly as if he was a part of my own body. While we were gone my husband set up the baby stroller. Even though we are long home that stroller has been used twice. When we are heading somewhere we pack our carrier. My son knows where it hangs in our house and he has been known to bring it to one of us when he is itching to be up close to Mom or Dad. He is content to be on Daddy’s chest while he folds the laundry. They talk about the colors and match socks together. He is content to let me grocery shop as long as he has the view from my back. He often falls asleep to the movement of my gate. In Ethiopia the women carried their children on their back everywhere they went. It was necessary for work, survival, and transportation~ but it was oh so beautiful to see mother and child connected by a piece of fabric and going happily about their days. I miss this. It seems that so many of the things that are supposed to make our life easier and our children content actually take them further away from us, when perhaps what they really need is just to watch the world go by from the safety and security of their parents back. My son is 24 bulky pounds of wonderful curious boy. The mei-tai still holds up well, especially with the frequent use that it gets in our home. In Ethiopia we were forced to walk everywhere and I never had to look for a reason to strap my son in close to me and go. Now, where automobiles rule the road it is a bit more difficult to live that lifestyle. But we search for excuses often amid other chances to be close like reading, snuggles, and horseplay. If you are adopting a little one or toddler I would encourage you to do some reading about the concept of babywearing~ if for no other reason than bonding. We loved it for two months as we ventured through Ethiopia and traveled across the world. We still love it today on our walks, grocery runs, and just about any other time when there is work to be done that would seemingly take away our time together.