silent long enough?

Well, I've been pretty quiet of late in blogland. I haven't forgotten about all of you out there. I know times are tough, and I pray for you and your struggles daily.

I've been torn, though, in my thoughts about writing. I guess the truth is that I know my thoughts may not be the popular ones, and so I've just sort of kept quiet.

I think I've decided to throw a few things out there now though. I still read most of the blogs I read before, and I still check the Guatemala adoption news websites pretty frequently, too.



Right now, there's lots going on, and lots of rumors, attacks, etc. As a preamble to some of what I may say, please remember before you crucify me here or elsewhere, or delete me forever from your list of blogs visited, that I was there, and did suffer through a hell of my own with our adoption. Sure, the details were different, but I am not some mere bystander who has no business speaking about any of this at all because I have no idea. I will go so far as to say that for most of the people I know about using the same hogar we did, even if your cases went (God forbid) another year from today, their overall timelines still wouldn't exceed ours. Now that I've made my preliminary defenses, here's what I think about some of the stuff I've seen lately.



Most people still want adoption to be beautiful and pretty for lack of better words. The truth is, that for there to even be the possibility of an adoption, there is serious pain and loss somewhere, and likely in lots of places. If you really view it from all the sides, there are sides that are and always will be tough to look at. We as Christians always love to parallel adoption here with our adopted status as children of God. This presence of pain and loss still exists in that analogy. Remember, for our adoption to happen there, Christ died on a cruel, ugly, painful cross. His Father sent Him to die. The picture isn't pretty from all sides.





Then there's so much of the attitude of I want things to be better, but I don't want it to affect me to get there. Everyone seems willing to admit corruption and problems exist, but nobody thinks it could possibly exist in theirs. Well, it's there somewhere, so I hate to say it does have to be in someone's. Having a Christian agency/hogar doesn't necessarily mean anything either if you were wondering. I can prove mine to be liars, as can many of you. If they and/or the attorneys (whom they love to blame stuff on) will lie about something as mundane as an update, who are you to say they won't lie about the larger stuff? To the agencies, it's more about getting it done so they can get paid. To directly quote one of my agencies employees from a public site 'WE WORKED WITH [ATTORNEY X] IN THE PAST AND HE IS GOOD, BUT EXTREMELY SLOW AND WOULD OFTEN LIE, BUT HIS CASES DID GET DONE.' I ask again why a Christian agency would still call a known liar good?


People have bashed everyone over the plans of birthmother interviews, calling them everything from immoral to illegal. First, let me say I am not saying I agree with all the rumored methods of these interviews, but I do support the right of the PGN to do them. I don't think it violated any of the grandfathering agreements. Again, I don't say this as an outsider, but as someone who long before this grandfathering mess had to deal with PGN requiring an extra interview. Did I like it? NO! Did I think it inappropriate in theory? No, I think and thought it is reasonable to take the steps to make sure if that's what it really took. (Remember, adoption isn't always pretty. It shouldn't be too easy, just like it shouldn't be impossible.)


Then there's a crowd up in arms against the State Dept for 'abandoning' them in this mess. The main problem I have with this, is that the loudest voices I see in this crowd are the ones who mere months ago totally dismissed the quite clear and quite stern warnings the State Dept made about starting new adoptions. Perhaps I'm being harsh, but sometimes when you blatantly and purposefully ignore all the warning signs, you have to accept the consequences of those choices, and don't really get to then bash the people who warned you for not running immediately to your aid in exactly the way you see fit. Are things really that different from exactly what they warned was probably going to happen? What more exactly were they supposed to do to 'protect' you?

Anyway, I'll shutup now. I really do think PGN should get it together. If they have indeed already approved some cases, get those done and move on to approving others. If they need to do more, then don't call them approved, just do what is needed already, whatever that is.

Sorry if I hurt anyone. It wasn't my intent.