Adoption meeting set for Sunday at library

Juneau Empire (AK)

Author: ANN CHANDONNET

A Washington state adoption agency bringing children to the United States from countries such as China will conduct an information meeting from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday at the city library downtown.

Adoption Advocates International of Port Angeles, Wash., will offer general information about the need and opportunities for potential adoptive families.

Merrily Ripley, executive director of the group, visited Juneau several years ago. She scheduled another visit this month because of renewed interest from local residents.

"In the last six months, we have had interest from about six families in Juneau and Ketchikan," Ripley said. "We are licensed in Alaska, and we have a social worker in Juneau who can do home studies."

There are "infinite numbers" of children available for adoption in places such as China, Ethiopia, Thailand, Vietnam and Romania, Ripley said. She will bring with her copies of a video of some of the available children, as well as still photos and brief biographies of about 60 others.

The process of adoption through AAI takes six months to a year, depending on the country, Ripley said, and costs $7,000 to $15,000, including travel. She is about to escort a baby boy from Romania to Chicago; that adoption took five months - a remarkably short time, she said.

Most of the adoptable children are the offspring of unmarried mothers, "living in countries where raising a child as a single parent is not an option," Ripley said. However, most of the children from Ethiopia are true orphans because both parents have died of tuberculosis, malaria or poverty.

Children older than 3 are usually placed quickly after applications for them are completed. However, families who desire an infant, six to 12 months old, should expect a longer wait and to fill out an extensive dossier.

Ripley has worked professionally in foreign adoption for 25 years. She and her husband created their home around their convictions and adopted 18 children. The youngest is now 23.

"Many of them came to us as older children," Ripley said.

Sixteen years ago, Ripley became disenchanted with the large organization of which she'd been a founding director, the Washington-Alaska Adoptive Parents Association. She went out on her own to found AAI.

"We're smaller and more personal and more personable," Ripley said. "We like to know families well and take them through the whole process." So far in 1999, AAI has placed 115 children across the United States, and expects to place about 10 more before 2000.

To reach Adoption Advocates International, call (360) 452-4777, or e-mail merrily@adoptionadvocates.org.