Julie Gumm - Author

Why now is NOT the time to adopt from Haiti

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I’ve been following the story of the Rescue Children orphanage in Haiti and the Lifechurch members who quickly got there to help this orphanage they had been supporting. There are many other orphan/adoption related stories coming out of Haiti, of course. When you scroll down to the comments on these stories there are inevitably a dozen or so that say “How do I adopt one of these kids?”

On the one hand, my heart is thrilled that many new eyes are being opened to the plight of the orphan – not just in Haiti but hopefully all over the world. While circumstances are desperate right now, none of these children were living in ideal circumstances before. Many orphanages cannot even provide 3 meals a day for the kids in their care – something we take for granted.

However, what most people do not realize is that international adoptions in Haiti are most likely going to come to a complete halt.

The Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) is working hard on developing a plan to help those U.S. families already in process to complete their adoptions. These are often families who have been matched with children for several months, many who have visited Haiti and met their children before coming home to let the Haitian courts complete the process. I am praying fervently for these families and their children.

Why not rush to get these other orphans adopted and out of this dire situation? The JCICS site explains it perfectly with this statement…

Bringing children into the U.S. either by airlift or new adoption during a time of national emergency can open the door for fraud, abuse and trafficking. Every effort must be made in a timely fashion to locate living parents and extended family members. Many children, who might appear to be orphaned, may in fact be only temporarily separated from their family. Our efforts must be to provide the families and children of Haiti with shelter, nutrition, water and safety. Once the situation in Haiti stabilizes and timely reunification has taken place, adoption may be an option for the children who remain outside of permanent parental care.

So, if you’re one of those that have begun to think about adoption, I would urge you to do 2 things:

  1. Find a way that you can help the orphans of Haiti right now. Of course I’m pretty biased to World Orphans – we’re putting long range plans in place to engage Haitian churches in caring for the orphans in their communities. This is something World Orphans does all over the world and is well equipped to train pastors and church people in the holistic orphan care model. Give to World Orphans Haiti Relief.
  2. Pray about adoption and see if it is something that is right for your family. Photos and moving news stories can kick in our “save the world” instinct and often create a dreamy picture of “rescuing” a child in need. There is certainly nothing wrong with that desire, but it has to be more than that. Your adding a child to your family that you must love as much as your biological children. They will be forever yours. It will not be a walk in the park. Even the “easiest” of adoptions isn’t easy. Trust me. If adoption is something you are considering there are a ton of great resources online – below are a few to get you started.

If you have questions about adoption – international OR domestic, please leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to answer them and point you in the right direction.

Update: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced the provision of “humanitarian parole” for certain Haitian orphans. For now that means  children that have previously been documented as eligible for adoption and matched with a U.S. family for adoption. More Info.

World Orphans Volunteer Team

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I’m 2 weeks into my new job as Director of Communications for World Orphans and I am having SO MUCH fun! I feel like I’m drowning half the time but I keep kicking and there is a smile on my face the whole time. WO does so much stuff that I’m spending a lot of time just catching up, seeing all the things my team had in progress, getting lists of things that need to be done, etc.

We are doing some major rethinking to our overall marketing and communications plan and my brain is working overtime. There’s a new web site to plot out, new marketing pieces to develop, processes to put in place etc. But this is the part that totally excites me. The first week I kind of felt a little bit like I was wading through the water, floating an idea here and an idea there, testing the waters. And the reaction has been overwhelming – this is a group of people who are SO open to new ideas that it astounds me. Not once have I heard “well, that’s not the way we do things” – in fact it’s just the opposite. They have met every one of my ideas with not just acceptance, but excitement. They believe in me, my experience and my desire to do what is best for this incredible ministry. You have NO idea how good that feels!

I have an awesome team of guys working with me. Marcello and Marty knock out some brilliant design work – award winning design work in fact (Pikes Peak ADDY Awards). And Luke is our resident programming genius who makes all our back end systems work. The best part is that these guys are here not for the paycheck, but because they are passionate about the orphan and what World Orphans does. It doesn’t get better than that.

I’ve got lots of projects on my plate and some opportunities for others to get involved if you’re looking for a way to help the orphan community. Not a lot of experience needed. All you need to help with my first project is a love of reading adoption/orphan blogs and the ability to cut and paste into Excel 🙂

If you’d like to help, just leave a comment and I’ll get in touch ASAP.

Kids for Haiti

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We’ve been talking to the kids this week about what happened in Haiti. We rarely have the news on in our house (no cable or satellite anymore so no 24 hr news to watch). I read all my news online. So in one sense I guess we’ve sheltered them a bit. I don’t necessarily think they need to see the images of arms protruding from piles of rubble and bodies being emptied into a dumpster by a huge front loader to understand the gravity of the situation in Haiti.

We’ve talked about what an earthquake does (which led to questions I had to Google to answer) and what that means in terms of buildings collapsing and lack of clean water, power, etc.  We prayed together – for those missing loved ones, for those who already know the fate of their loved ones and for the many people in need of food, water and medicine.

This morning as we were going through our morning routine (which is spurred on by my “What do you need to do next?” every few minutes), Natalie is frantically running around looking for her wallet. I was getting somewhat impatient with her but was luckily distracted by a sibling for a few minutes.

Before I knew it she had dug out a few dollars and handed it to me.

“It’s for the kids in Haiti, mom.” (insert guilty silence and a few tears from mom)

They get it!! They have not, like so many of us, been jaded by life’s disappointments. They do not succumb to “the problem is so big what can one person do?” excuse that passes through our heads.

If we let them, they will just give.

So talk to your kids. This is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate being the hands and feet of Christ – whether that means your family donates $10, $100 or $1000. If you give them ownership in it, you’d be surprised at some of the ideas they come up with.

If you need one to get you started – try this:

All 55 Sports Chalet locations are accepting donations of gently used kids, mens and womens shoes that will go to Haiti in coordination with Soles4Souls. Go door to door in your neighborhood, get your kids school involved. (I’ve already talked to our girls Girl Scout Troop leader.)

Shoes may seem unimportant in contrast to food and water.

But wearing shoes prevents feet from getting cuts and sores from contaminated soil. Not only are they painful, but these sores turn dangerous when they become infected. The leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted parasites which penetrate the skin through open sores. This is true in “normal” times. Think about how much more dangerous it is going to be for the people of Haiti to be walking around without shoes in a city that lies in ruins and without proper sanitation.

If you have other ways for kids to get involved, leave them in the comments section. I would love to hear what you and your family are doing.