Adoption is beautiful and screams of redemption, but it was never the original plan. Which is why there is brokenness in the process.
I tweeted that awhile back. It’s stuck with me as we have been seeing the brokenness in adoption the last few months.
This summer as I flipped through my timehop app, I’ve seen several reminders of steps in the adoption process God led us through a year ago. I saw how He was stirring our hearts, when we made that first big leap to apply to China, and how we felt when we found out we couldn’t adopt from China. How we appealed to the ministry and prayed and prayed for an open door, and how confused and hurt we felt when the door officially closed.
Simultaneously, things in Kyrgyzstan have been increasingly worrisome. While I will try not to bore you with too much foreign policy and world economics, they matter here. Kyrgyzstan joined the EEU, which some have hypothesized as Putin’s attempt at getting the Soviet Union back together and has had Kyrgyzstan further aligning it’s laws and policies with Russia. The country also has elections coming up this October…of which just one has occurred in the country’s existence that didn’t involve major political uprising, overthrow, protests, corruption, or deaths. The USA also thought it would be a good idea to give a humanitarian award to someone Kyrgyzstan views as a dissident, provoking Kyrgyzstan to cancel a 20 year old treaty with the US, and making their relationship rocky at best (as they further align themselves with Russia). Add to this an increasing terrorist presence, and to say we’ve become a bit concerned would be an understatement.
Along with that information, we have heard reports of untruthful, or down right deceptive medical reports given (think being told you were being given a healthy child, or one with minor issues, and arriving to find out they were not healthy, or had additional serious undisclosed challenges). There has been a significant slow down in referrals being given, and court dates that are being processed, with some general weirdness surrounding the reasons and future timelines. There has also been several reports from those who have undergone the process that there is just a general lack of trustworthiness and questionable in-country practices…which matters a lot when there are three trips involved.
While feeling like the floor was falling out from underneath us with adoption in Kyrgyzstan, there’s been another piece of information that has come to light: in January, China changed it’s laws. Where we had previously been blacklisted from adoption there, we now have a bright green light and a wide open door to pursue adoption in China.
To say this has been a lot to process is a bit of an understatement. I’ve spent almost every morning this summer scanning the newest headlines on Kyrgyzstan, researching who is “in line” before us in adoption and trying to guesstimate our wait, and trying to shake the unrest at the idea of traveling to Kyrgyzstan and receiving a referral from there we didn’t know to be accurate.
Submitting a dossier to a country is no joke. It takes A LOT of time, and A LOT of work. It’s also a lot of money. Walking away from Kyrgyzstan means walking away from a good chunk of our initial investment, and a completed dossier. It means shutting a door that can’t be reopened. It puts us practically back at the beginning of the adoption process, and starts the waiting process over. Plus there are real kids caught up in this whole debacle.
For us the question we kept coming back as we thought through and prayed about our circumstances was: If Kyrgyzstan starts processing things in September (as they have said they were going to), will we regret our decision, or still be content with it?
We both had the same answer.
Even if we get a referral from Kyrgyzstan, it’s no guarantee. There were dozens of parents that had been given a referral and were stuck trying to get their kids out for 6 years before the country reopened (google Kyrgz65 for for more information). A referral does not guarantee a court date either, but it does guarantee a $10,000 non refundable payment. We know a couple families who are stuck in the adoption process now, and it’s awful. We want to do our best to avoid that unless God has clearly called us to walk through that. And that’s not a calling we have sensed.
So, we have officially transferred to the China program. With no regrets. A crappy transition process, but only peace about what’s ahead.
Because, it’s always been China. Our hearts haven’t stopped beating for that country despite being told no a year ago. We always manage to find the sweet Asian girl in the room (where we live, there is always at least one!). And it seems, that all our pleading with God to open up a door when we appealed to the ministry worked. Just not on our time table.
When China said no, we were going to walk away from adoption, then Kyrgyzstan came along. We had our concerns, but still felt God pressing us to say yes. We have no doubt about that. Kyrgyzstan being an option kept us committed to international adoption until the door we had been praying would open in China did, just 6 months later.
One of our biggest concerns with Kyrgyzstan was all of the trips and how we would manage with our kids. We never had a peace about leaving them, and yet didn’t feel like we could take them with some of the in country issues. That’s totally alleviated with China. With one approximately 2 week trip, and it being more accustomed to westerners, taking our kids is totally feasible. While starting the waiting process over really stinks, it’s more definitive than Kyrgyzstan (based off what we know, we think we still could have been waiting at least another 6 months in Kyrgyzstan). Plus we feel like the timing is perfect. We’ve had a lot of transition in our lives in the last year, and to have a little bit longer to settle into those, we feel is totally God’s grace. Losing a chunk of money really stinks, but even that we feel like may even out in the end due to less travel and China being just slightly less expensive than Kyrgyzstan was.
Now we update home study, USCIS, and remake a dossier. (still having borderline panic attacks at the idea of repeating that process) Right now it looks like 12-15 months is the realistic possibility given our requests (age 0-3, girl, special needs).
We have been taking the opportunity to learn about Chinese culture, starting with food of course! I’ve got a stack of books about China’s history and revival thanks to a friend whose heart beats for Asian culture as much as mine currently does. I’m going to attempt to learn some Mandarin :/ and I’m already studying up on Chinese New Year which I can’t wait to incorporate into our family traditions. And we are trying to perfect our peace signs. I’ve also managed to track down the best pork buns in Atlanta.
While it’s been messy and heart wrenching to get to this point, we feel nothing but peace about moving forward.
Adoption wasn’t ever the original plan. Just like it wasn’t for us. We weren’t ever supposed to be separated from God. Thankfully, God has always known how it was going to work out. It’s messy, and it’s hard, but in the midst of the brokenness and pain there is so much beauty and redemption. The more we walk through the process of adoption the deeper love and respect we gain for our Father who laid everything on the line to adopt us. Beauty from ashes.
