Teaching our children the ways of the world

There are times bible-thumpers really fascinate me... simply because it's my belief A) the world is full of false prophets and deceivers and B) those who teach theory are often those who cannot do (or endure) themselves.

Therefore, I find this comment very interesting:

 people back then were sacrificing their first born to a demon god (Baal), people have paralleled that to abortion because most aborted babies are the first born.
Therefore saying that abortion is of the devil.

Those of the Christian faith claim to believe/know Jesus was the ultimate human sacrifice, making any other human sacrifice (blood and body given/offered, for redemption purposes) obsolete. 

If that is true, why should any mother have to sacrifice her unborn to a "loving couple", in lieu of 1) keeping what was chosen for her, "fit" or "unfit" 2) relinquishing to an unknown entity, (medical waste).  How is making a child bait for an adoption agency a "good" thing?

Furthermore, how is it the 'desperate to adopt' ... the one with a strong desire to have (covet) what belongs to another... is of better moral character, stock and fiber than the one who has sex outside the institution of marriage?  Do Christians know marriage is NOT required, according to God's Law?  [It's given sanctioned approval, but marriage, itself, is not a required act that must be done to receive God's approval.]

Better yet, how is the so-called Christian follower doing God's Work, if "creating an adoptive family" means one must break another family, first?  If sin is sin, (and "thou shall not covet the goods of another " is within God's Top Ten), then I have to confess, claiming adoption (adapting to new rules/life style), and adding the strong desire to please a master, (so once can have much more), and calling all of that "God's Will" (and done in Jesus' name) is not only sketchy, it's also a very questionable interpretation of what God wants people to practice, in day-to-day life.

I mean, really, let's read the desires (and the reasons behind those human desires of an adult) and see if certain acts can be justified, according to God's Law:

Ingrid Phaneuf, whose dream of adopting an Ethiopian child was ruined in the aftermath of the Imagine Adoption agency swindle

[From:  Parenting dreams on hold, April 11, 2011 ]

Right off the bat, we know money is used in a variety of good and bad ways in child/family services.  In Adoptionland, fees and costs are put upon the purchaser, person who buys a legal document Prospective Adoptive Parent. It is no secret, in private-practice, (whether it be infant or international adoption) people agree to pay tens of thousands of dollars, and endure various financial/character checks and cross-checks, all so they may receive the legal document that proves X person is ________'s parent.  And still, it's also widely know that corruption, false testimony, and blatant lies are told, all in the name of a "good" adoption plan. 

Meanwhile, there are all SORTS of obvious signs and roadblocks, seen almost every day in Adoptionland, showing those with eyes and ears, those with an adoption-plan ought to S-L-O-W  D-O-W-N before any plan or transaction is final.

In one recent article, we learn, step-by-step, just how me-oriented some adoption plans really are, and how blind some have become because their will has not been done:

To Christine Flage of Frisco, Texas, and tens of thousands of other American parents, the answer to the orphan crisis seemed obvious - adoption.

"We can fit more kids in our house, and we can afford to feed them," Flage said at the time. "If everyone would take that approach, we wouldn't have a crisis. It isn't any more complicated than that."

But more than a year later - after a five-day visit to a Haitian orphanage, accepting the title of "mommy" from two girls and calculating the long odds against her - Flage said God has closed the door on the adoptions.

"I love those girls," she said. "But how can I help them if I can't bring them home? That's where we're at."

[From:  Hopeful parents find many roadblocks to adopting Haitian orphans, April 10, 2011 ]

The article continues with more flag raising warning:

At the height of the catastrophe in January, more than 600 relief flights a day landed at the Port-au-Prince airport.

Thousands of doctors and nurses, more than $12 million in medical supplies and about $140 million in food arrived in the Caribbean nation, according to reports from USAID, the federal government's relief agency.

In all, international donors pledged more that $9.9 billion in current and future relief.

But soon Haiti began battling familiar problems, and the media's attention turned to a succession of natural disasters - a powerful earthquake in Chile, epic floods in Pakistan, an erupting volcano over Iceland.

Haitians complained the aid was flowing into the pockets of the powerful, jobs were scarce and crime was returning to the streets. Two of the nation's infamous former leaders returned from exile - Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier - stoking fears of a return to despotic rule.

In October, a cholera epidemic sprinted through the nation's homeless camps, killing an estimated 1,700. The next month, five people were killed in rioting after a November presidential election was canceled because of widespread ballot tampering.

In many ways, conditions in Haiti are as austere as ever.

More than 1 million people displaced by the earthquake still live in tents and shantytowns. And nearly all of the nation's estimated 380,000 orphans still await adoption.

John Leininger, a retired San Antonio-area optometrist and founder of Harvest International, has been sponsoring medical relief missions to Haiti for more than 30 years. He said the future for many children is bleaker than ever.

"If it's possible to imagine, things have gotten worse," he said. "Many of these orphanages are very full, and they have cutoffs, and they're just refusing to take more kids."

Yes, things HAVE gotten worse.  The price for an "orphan" has gone up in value, making the demand for more that much more of a priority for those with misguided intentions under the false impression that more adoptions will solve the orphanage over-population (underfunded/understaffed) problem that is growing all over Adoptionland.  Still, behold the level of strong adamant denial:

She was greeted by swarming children, a cacophony of Creole and the rancid smell of trash baking in the sun.

In some ways, she had been here before.

In February 2009, Flage and her husband, Brian, a manager for an electricity company, adopted 7-month-old twins from Ethiopia. They had never met the children - Joshua and Glory - before flying to Africa to bring them home. They also have a 7-year-old biological daughter, Katie.

The experience, Flage said, helped demystify the notion of adopting from Haiti.

The couple prayed over 17 pages of children's photos one night. The next morning, her husband came to Flage with pictures of two girls - 14-year-old Mirlange and her 10-year-old sister, Midrene.

He said, "These are the only two I can really imagine in our family."

She was convinced.

"I dreamed about those two girls the whole night before," Flage said. "Out of 17 pages of pictures, we both knew these were ours."

Flage arrived at the orphanage overlooking a Port-au-Prince suburb about two months later.

She walked from room to room, smiling, searching for faces that matched photos of her girls.

Mirlange, the 14-year-old, met her first. They embraced, tears leaking down their faces.

Minutes later, Midrene crawled into Flage's lap. They mostly sat in silence - a language barrier between them.

"Oh sweet baby," she said, stroking the child's back, "how am I going to fill you up?"

Over the next few days, Flage threaded friendship bracelets, sang church hymns and got to know the girls.

Midrene was the needy one, following her from room to room and tugging at her arms to be held. Mirlange was more distant, quiet, often looking down or away when spoken to.

Jean Fritz Nicolas, the orphanage's director, said the girls were found wandering the streets in a nearby town about two years ago. He said they were abandoned by their mother, but he doesn't know about the father.

"Whether their parents are alive or not," he said, "they're orphans."

He said orphans often feel alone after adoption - isolated by language and an unfamiliar culture - but at least they have a chance in the United States.

Flage was resolute, sitting at a dining room table at the orphanage as Midrene braided her hair.

"We're definitely not being naive," she said. "We know they're not just going to give us a big hug and everything is going to be normal. But we're also not scared because we know there are resources out there."

The alternative, she said, is unsettling.

"What are we supposed to say, 'It would be too hard for them to be in our family?' Let them not have a family? Really? I don't believe that," she said.

The arrogance blows my mind.  Especially if one has never been in a situation where your plea for help is not being understood (it's being misinterpreted) by another who seems to think one's body language tells the entire story.

Here's my final red-flag, because it shows how lie upon lie builds, so those who profit most from charity and God's Name can be found laughing, as they go to the bank or store, and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of agency funds on personal expenses such as trips, clothes and renovations to their home.

Flage and others argued that the U.S. government's humanitarian parole program should be extended to children who were not matched to prospective parents before the earthquake.

Child welfare agencies - the United Nations Children's Fund, Save the Children and World Vision - took the opposite view, asking for a moratorium on new adoptions.

They cited fears that child trafficking to the Dominican Republic - for labor, sex trade or indentured servitude - might increase. They also recounted stories from other natural disasters, such as the 2004 Indonesian tsunami, where children were separated from their parents in the chaos and later discovered in orphanages.

UNICEF has registered 5,088 orphans since the earthquake in Haiti and reunited 1,300 children with their families.

"In the situation we have here now, when the adoption systems are weakened, there will be those who wish to exploit those systems for the wrong reasons," said Edward Carwardine, a spokesman for UNICEF.

"We're not talking about the family in Dallas who wants to do the right thing for these kids, but others, who have much worse intentions."

'AGONY'

Adoptions are technically ongoing in Haiti, but the scale of the destruction and ensuing political chaos have paralyzed the system.

Many government buildings containing vital paperwork - birth and death records - were destroyed in the earthquake. To process an adoption, family members must sign papers relinquishing custody.

Rebecca Hackworth, who coordinates Haitian adoptions for Dillon International, said it's a needle-in-a-haystack ordeal. Investigators are sent into villages, from home to home, searching for family members.

"The process is called agony," she said. "You go to the last known community and you just start asking. And you must remember, these are poor people who don't have cellphone numbers."

She said Haitian adoption law is also frustratingly strict.

Prospective parents must be at least 35 and married for at least 10 years without children of their own. Waivers are frequently granted, but each one must be signed by the president of Haiti.

"When most people find out what's involved, and how long it's going to take to do an adoption in Haiti, they just give up," Hackworth said.

"There are countries like Ethiopia that would be faster, and that's what happens in international adoption - people are looking for a program that doesn't take too long."

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Not a single child has been adopted from the Haiti Children's Rescue Mission since Flage returned to the United States last spring.

She said Mirlange and Midrene's birth mother would need to be found before an adoption could go forward, but she's not hopeful that will ever happen.

"I couldn't do it alone, and I couldn't get a referral," she said. "I don't know anybody down there. I still think their mother is alive, but I wouldn't begin to known where to track her down."

The Flages volunteered to pay for the girls' schooling, but so far, the orphanage hasn't been able to arrange transportation.

Flage said she doesn't regret the trip to Haiti.

"I would have gone and I would have loved on those girls," she said, "but I wouldn't have wanted them to be told I was bringing them home, because that's devastating."

I truly wonder which is the lesser of two evils/sins?  A (surrogate) mother's choice to prevent future hardship, (as Flage has unintentionally become... the girls' surrogate mother-figure and financial benefactor); coupled with a call for living family members, so a pre-existing family can be preserved, OR an act that requires far more than just one person to inflict pain and loss upon others (through "legal" separation and a variety of dastardly deeds) all so money and praise and God Points (?!?)  can be "earned".

Actually, I don't wonder, I already know... I just more saw the signs to a better plan are not necessarily where the determined and focused and "inspired" are looking.  After all, how many have heard the phrase, "God works in mysterious ways"?

In any case, I had two very close, very religious friends who found-out they were pregnant. Both were very fearful of the wrath that may result from their choice, as the choice was centered around an 'unwanted' (out of wedlock) pregnancy.  Both knew marriage to a person outside their faith would be an enormous problem.  Both knew about a dark-side to the adoption-story... not just because they knew some details from/about me, through my own testimony and examples.  My story only added to the information they had, as witnessed by themselves, through other people.

Their choice to overlook The Adoption Option was made not in haste or desperation, but with love, and deliberate thought and consideration.

In their minds, terminating their unplanned pregnancy meant the unborn child would not have to suffer from or with the consequences that come with knowing A) one parent was not strong enough to stay, and make things better (for the sake of the child)  B) with adoption, there comes it's own loss and grief, which is the natural consequence that results when one lies any and all facts (about the child or the mother/father) become manufactured, hidden or fabricated, just so "God's Plan" (and The Orphan Crusade) can be revealed to the world.

The Higher Power I know/pray to would not want lies and fraud to be done in His, or His Family's name.  I have no doubt in this core belief of mine.  However, I cannot say I don't hide certain truths... I do... for the sake of myself, and those I still fear and honor.