Paperwork

I knew there would be a lot of paperwork, but it feels a little overwhelming at the moment. We just received a TON of paperwork that we need to work through from our adoption worker. Definitely seems impossible right now. I am so thankful that the Lord knows and has already planned out how this whole adoption thing is going to work out.

Application Accepted

Well, this afternoon we received our acceptance letter from One World Adoption Services. Now we sign a bunch of papers and write our first of many LARGE checks. :)

Application

We just sent out our application to OWAS. I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a little sad though, they asked for a family picture and the only one we had was over a year old. Pathetic. We have GOT to get some family pictures done soon. :)

DRC info

From Wikipedia
"The Second Congo War, beginning in 1998, devastated the country, involved seven foreign armies and is sometimes referred to as the "African World War".^[4] Despite the signing of peace accords in 2003, fighting continues in the east of the country. In eastern Congo, the prevalence of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world.^[5] The war is the world's deadliest conflict since World War II, killing 5.4 million people.^[6][7]"
"In 2009 people in the Congo may still be dying at a rate of an estimated 45,000 per month,^[26] and estimates of the number who have died from the long conflict range from 900,000 to 5,400,000.^[27] The death toll is due to widespread disease and famine; reports indicate that almost half of the individuals who have died are children under the age of 5. This death rate has prevailed since efforts at rebuilding the nation began in 2004.^[28]
The long and brutal conflict in the DRC has caused massive suffering for civilians, with estimates of millions dead either directly or indirectly as a result of the fighting. There have been frequent reports of weapon bearers killing civilians, destroying property, committing widespread sexual violence,^[29] causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes or otherwise breaching humanitarian and human rights law. An estimated 200,000 women have been raped.^[30]
Few people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have been unaffected by the armed conflict. A survey conducted in 2009 by the ICRC and Ipsos shows that three quarters (76%) of the people interviewed have been affected in some way–either personally or due to the wider consequences of armed conflict.^[31]
In 2003, Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN's Indigenous People's Forum that during the war, his people were hunted down and eaten as though they were game animals. In neighbouring North Kivu province there has been cannibalism by a group known as Les Effaceurs ("the erasers") who wanted to clear the land of people to open it up for mineral exploitation.^[32] Both sides of the war regarded them as "subhuman" and some say their flesh can confer magical powers."
"In June 2010, UK aid group Oxfam reported a dramatic increase in the number of rapes occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While researchers from Harvard discovered that rapes committed by civilians had increased by seventeenfold."

Democratic Republic of the Congo

We have officially decided to adopt two babies from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or the DRC. There were many reasons why we decided to go with the DRC instead of Ethiopia, but the basic reasons were as follows:
1. We will be able to adopt two unrelated infants at one time. We only found one agency working in Ethiopia which would allow us to adopt two unrelated infants and they had put a moratorium on requesting girls. This was not the end of the world to us, as we already have two little girls, but I was hoping for another girl, so that did give us some pause.

2. We had heard rumors about Ethiopia closing at the end of this year. With the current time frame for adopting from Ethiopia, we didn't really see a way to finalize adoptions from there by the end of the year.

3.  While there are many, many orphans in Ethiopia in need of loving adoptive families, from what I've read, Ethiopian orphans are fairly well taken care of. Ethiopia has been recognized worldwide as a country to emulate in their care for and protection of their orphans. Even those children who will grow up in the orphanages are decently cared for and often loved by their "nannies" and "brothers and sisters" in their orphanages. Please don't misunderstand me. I know that the life of an orphan in Ethiopia is not perfect and being placed in an adoptive family is much better, BUT, overall, Ethiopian orphans are decently cared for.

4. The great NEED in the DRC. We have only just recently even heard of the DRC, but in the past few weeks, my heart has broken for the orphans living in this war torn country. There are over 5 million orphans in just this one country. These children are orphans because of war, starvation, and disease. Children living on the streets generally eat three times a week, when humanitarian aid is there to provide a meal. According to one article I read, the orphans living in orphanages are "the lucky ones" because they usually get one meal every day. Even those children living in the orphanages, eating once a day, are susceptible to sickness because their little bodies are not nourished enough to fight it off. Many die before aging out of the orphanage. According to the the Red Cross, 515 children (NOT just orphans) out of every 1000 children in the DRC will not live to see their 5th birthday.

5. From what I have read, adopting from the DRC is fairly straightforward and the timeframe is 6-18 months between the time you start the paperwork to when you bring your children home for good. Much of this time, if I understand it correctly, is dependent on the adoptive families getting their paperwork done quickly.

6. We have found a few agencies that work in the DRC and one in particular has been incredibly helpful in answering our many questions and answering my e-mails QUICKLY, often within 15-20 minutes.Unfortunately, adopting from the DRC is more expensive than adopting from Ethiopia. But our God is great and we believe he has lead us to adopt, so we will trust that He will provide what we need. Steve's work offers wonderful adoption help, so that is a start. :)

Please be praying for us as we start off on this journey. There are a few things we need to get taken care of before we have our home study, not the least of which is selling our current home and buying a bigger one. Lord willing, though, we will be well on our way to our new children soon. In the meantime, we are making and selling some fun stuff at our Etsy store (see our mini Etsy Store to the right), and trying to gather what paperwork we can before we apply for our home study.

I will try to update this blog as we learn more and as we go further along in the adoption process. We are so excited to see how God is going to grow our family in the next few years.