The story of little man’s photo begins back in
March. We saw his picture on a friends
FB page saying he needed a family. A few
emails later we began the process to bringing him home. The time between that first March email and
where we are today, one could say, has been interesting. We were put in contact with a gentleman who
lives in little man’s country. He was
the gentleman who would be able to give us the information needed to
adopt. Our facilitator told us not to
worry that she has a way to still adopt little man. During the next few months Mr. Gentleman continued
to ask me questions on how the adoptions work in his country and really wanted
us to use his lawyer friend. I replied
that a lawyer was not needed but thanks.
So now a few more months go by and I opened my email to find that the
gentleman living in little man’s country sent me the info needed to adopt. Then a few weeks ago I received a message
from our FB friend asking if I had seen that little man was listed on a
well-known ministry. I immediately
searched on my computer to see little man’s sweet face listed for adoption and
not only that but in less than 24 hours of being listed as available he had
already had a family committing to him! What
was I to do? Knowing that the bottom
line for ALL orphans is to find a family, were we, should we, back out (Like we
did with 3 sisters in South America) and just let the new family continue
working on bringing him home? I mean
after all, it would not be God that smashed their dreams. It would not be the Devil that smashed their
dreams. It would be me, us, our family
smashing their dreams. Or would it? Some
of you might be saying, well just contact the ministry advocating for little
man and let them know you are in the middle of bringing him home. Well, that is a little easier said than done
because the ministries facilitation team does not think highly of us. We adopted through this ministry in 2010 with
much difficulty. We went back in 2011 to
adopt a little girl we met in the orphanage we were at. She was listed on this ministries site. We were NOT going to use this ministry but
rather a totally independent facilitator.
Things got ugly in 2010 and again in 2011. So, was I was just supposed
to email and say hey, it’s us, the family that questioned how you do
things. The family that your facilitators
say HORIBLE things about. Well we are in
the process of stealing (ministries facilitator said “we were stealing HIS
KIDS” when we went back in 2011) one of “your facilitators kids” again. Yeah, we just wanted to let you know we are
in the process of adopting little man.
Okay, I guess we could have done that.
A day after our FB friend wrote us about little man
being listed; Mr. Gentleman wrote asking if we knew that a family was coming
for little man. He told us about the
family that was coming for him and that it would be soon and does our
facilitator know???? Okay. I wrote Mr. Gentleman back asking how on
earth he knew about the family as it had not been written publicly yet. I let Mr. Gentleman know of what we thought
of the ministry that little man’s info was in the hands of. I asked Mr. Gentleman if we were now supposed
to “race” this other family to little man and may the best family win?? Really?
Seriously? I questioned Mr. Gentleman and apologized in
my letter of what I was sure seemed angry.
I let Mr. Gentleman know that I was hurt. I was angry.
I was confused. How did this
happen???
2 days after I wrote the letter to Mr. Gentleman, I
received an email from the director of this ministry (1st shock). It was a letter letting me know that when she
first received the info on little man she did not know there was another family
working on bringing him home because Mr. Gentleman did not tell her (2nd
shock, did not know Mr. Gentleman was the source). It was not until she listed him that Mr. Gentleman
told her that there was another family working on bringing little man home. I’m sure Mr. Gentleman shared our email that
I wrote about our distrust with her ministry.
She wanted to know if we were indeed working on bringing him home and if
yes, she would tell the other family to choose another child because she did
not want 2 families working on the same child (3rd shock). She also asked if we wanted to fundraise
through her ministry (4th shock).
The reason I was shocked so many times is because of what we went
through with these guys in the last few years.
It is because of the things I have heard and the things I have read from
other families who have used them. I
admit, we seem to be having a trust issue here!
I wrote her back letting her know that yes, we were working on bringing
him home and no we did not need to fund raise because we were fully funded thanks
to adopting 3 kids last year and receiving our adoption tax credit. I found it curious as to why she had so many
questions for me like how far along were we, when did we file our USCIS, how
did we file our USCIS. Things I don’t
know why she needed to know unless it really WAS a race between us and another
family? I politely told her that we just
needed to update everything and hope to be there by his birthday and pray to
have him home by his birthday but things happen with adoptions all the time that
could delay the timeline. I let her know
that if we had any MAJOR delays we would let her know.
So now that I filled you in on the story behind the
photo, let me ask you guys. Should I be
worried? Will little man be there when
we get there? I know there is ALWAYS the
possibilities that the child gets adopted before you get there but I believe
the possibility is now even larger. I
believe the other family is still working on bring little man home which they
have every right to do. I don’t like the
fact that families do that to each other.
That is why we backed out in 2007 from adopting 3 sisters. We are so far along with little man’s though
that it is harder to back out. I would
love to know what you think! I would
love to hear from you.
I will be shutting my blog down right before we travel
and not letting anyone know of our travel date for a number of reasons. I will still be blogging but you will have to
read about it once we return home. We
plan on being in out of country a bit longer than your normal adoption as we
are working on some other things there as well.
Knowing how our adoptions go, I’m sure it will be a
barn burner!!!
