Last month marked the half-year anniversary since Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake. Aside from the small uptick in coverage at the milestone, the eyes of the world have largely turned elsewhere: oil leaks, soccer matches, November elections. Of course, this was all but inevitable. The 24-hour news cycle is fueled by “new,” and tales of ongoing struggle, grinding poverty, and a less-than-hoped-for rebuilding are anything but new.

There’s certainly good reason for frustration at the reality every news programmer knows all too well: news consumers rarely remain interested in other people’s tragedy for more than a few months, at most. Such is human nature, as much a testimony to evil in our world as Haiti’s earthquake itself. The truth is, if we tried to sustain concern for every tragedy we’ve ever seen on TV, we’d melt like cheese on a stovetop. So, as the media’s conveyor belt of heartbreaking stories rolls on, we are left making uneasy peace with an emotional journey that looks like an EKG: long stretches of numbed apathy spiked by occasional moments of empathetic sorrow. Is this really the best way to live?

Read the full article on Cardus online.

Yesterday’s NY Times article on U.S. adoptions from Haiti was a mixed bag.  (My letter to the editor of the NY Times is below).  The article did raise many of the complex and difficult issues that come with inter-country adoption, including a number that adoption advocates of every stripe must take very seriously.

Ultimately, however, the reporting missed the bigger story.   First, it missed the fact that the expedited adoption process following Haiti’s earthquake was very narrowly focused; it was no “adoption bonanza” as the article irresponsibly claimed, but rather a narrowly targeted process that helped only children that were in the adoption process before the earthquake.

Second, it missed the fact that with very few exceptions, Haiti’s orphans face the direst of circumstances.  Even those with an orphanage roof over their heads (including children with living relatives that are unable or unwilling to take them in) often know hunger, disease and abuse intimately.   Several prior blog posts note the consequences when adoptions are stymied (including here and here).  And it is certainly worth noting that while inter-country adoption often comes with difficult moral dilemmas, other attempts to care for orphans are frequently rife with far worse problems.  Shortcomings in both inter-country adoption and in-country care should be addressed and solved, not used as an excuse to stymie either effort in favor of the other.

Most significantly, the article missed the biggest story of all:  hundreds of children no longer live on the streets or in orphanages as a result of the expedited adoption process following Haiti’s quake.  Instead, the author selected from vast hours of interviews a handful of anecdotes and carefully-chosen quotes to emphasize potential pitfalls of inter-country adoption.  In a well-meant attempt to explore important (and sometimes overlooked) issues, the article ultimately failed to tell the full story.

A letter to the editor of the NY Times is below:

__________________________________________

Editor,

Your article, After Haiti Quake, the Chaos of U.S. Adoptions, smartly highlights the complexities of inter-country adoption.  Sadly, its emphasis, anecdotes and innuendoes were decisively those of the critic, underscoring potential flaws while missing the far more important reality.

Here’s the central fact:  tens of thousands of children will grow up in institutions and on Haiti’s streets if not adopted.  While orphanages are sometimes the only way to provide mass care temporarily, they are simply no substitute for a loving family.

Many Haitian orphans have relatives willing to care for them but for financial need, and every effort should be made to support such solutions.  Meanwhile, orphans without local options should not be kept from loving families abroad by the fact that adoption—like every solution to complex human needs—carries challenges.  It is time to reject the false choice between in-country care and inter-country adoption.  Compassion demands a commitment to both.

Jedd Medefind, President

Christian Alliance for Orphan

Today marks the six month anniversary of Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake.   Aside from the small uptick of coverage surrounding the 6-month milestone, the eyes of the world havelargely  turned elsewhere:  to oil leaks, soccer matches and November elections.   Of course, this was all but inevitable.  The 24-hour news cycle is fueled by “new,” and a tale of ongoing struggle, grinding poverty, and a less-than-hoped-for rebuilding is anything but new.

There’s certainly a place for frustration at the reality that guides news programmers:  most consumers of news can sustain concern for tragedy for no more than a few months at most.  But, of course, that is the world we live in, as much a testimony to the Fall as the earthquake itself.  Equally significant, if we tried to sustain concern for every tragedy we’ve ever seen, we’d likely break down in paralyzed sorrow.

So what do we do with that?   Here are just a few thoughts:

1)       Do what we can. Prayer requires no news cameras, and it is a commitment any believer can make to a tragedy—for months, years and even more.

2)      Support the ongoing work. Many Christian Alliance for Orphans member organizations served in Haiti long before the earthquake and are now as hard at work as ever.  Buck the give-when-an-issue-is-fresh trend and support their ongoing work.

3)      Be reminded. As news outlets mark the six month anniversary with stories on Haiti, take a moment to renew concern with a window into what is happening now: from The Independent’s story of Wideleine Fils Amie, to CNN’s report on an adopted Haitian orphan to ABC News coverage from this weekend.

4)      Focus on your calling. Feeling obligated to address every need we’ve seen can paralyze us, finally dissolving into a blend of apathy and low-grade guilt.    I’m pretty sure that’s not how God would have us respond.  Rather, in each moment He invites us to focus on a single task He’s set before us:  the broken individual we encounter on the Jericho road.  Yes, we often can give prayers and financial support to a broad range of needs.  But ultimately, to truly love our neighbor requires focus on particular needs in particular places.   If that’s Haiti for you, pour yourself into it with abandon, joining with others who share your calling.  But if you sense it’s elsewhere, let Haiti remind you that there is a higher calling for our abilities than just feathering our own nests.  Our gifts, our strengths, our money, our time, our creativity, our passion are needed for Kingdom work.

Summit VI is just days away, and energy and enthusiasm for the conference is running in high gear.  Meanwhile, the featured article today from Christianity Today’s highlights orphan care and adoption vis-a-vis recent events in Haiti.

The article tags Summit as a key part of the Christian orphan movement, carrying a great quote from Dr. Russell Moore on the commitment of believers to adoption and orphan care:

“There’s more momentum than I’ve ever seen,” Moore said. “We are at the beginning stages of a wave of momentum not just toward adoption but orphan care of various kinds. The church is beginning to have its conscience awakened when it comes to the orphan crisis.”

April’s edition of Christian Today contains an important editorial on international adoption and the biblical call to care for the fatherless.  Significantly, the editorial holds together two elements that are sometimes falsely presented as being at odds with each other:  support of in-country orphan care efforts, alongside strong affirmation of inter-country adoption for children that otherwise would grow up on the streets or in institutions.

The article pulls no punches in condemning unnecessary barriers to adoption:

The political and cultural barriers [erected by governments to make adoptions very difficult] stem from warped ideas about what is in a poor child’s best interest. It isn’t in the best interest of abandoned children to grow up destitute and barely literate, regardless of the imagined cultural benefit of remaining in their home country. Haiti itself is a vivid example of injustice. The government tolerates a modern form of child slavery by allowing 225,000 children ages 6-14 to work as restavecs (unpaid, indentured domestics).  Adoption, domestic or inter-country, should not be looked down upon as inferior at best or as a last resort.

If the article were to be extended, two small additions would be helpful.  First, given the natural inclination many people have towards seeing orphanages as the solution for kids that can’t be adopted, it’d be helpful to make clear that orphanages should be viewed most of the time as temporary, last-resort solutions.  Children need consistent, personal love and nurture that rarely can be provided in an institutions.   Solutions that are as close to a home environment as possible, ideally via adoption, are most often far preferable to an orphanage.

Second, given the confusion over orphan statistics, it’d be helpful to clarify that current estimates of the number of orphans in the world (whether the numbers the U.N. provides or the 210 million referenced by the article) include children that have lost only one parent.   Thus, the vast majority of these orphans—while often facing great difficulties and in need of help—are not in need of adoption.   Adoption, both in-country and inter-country, is vitally important in situations where children have no parent or relatives that can care for them.   But that portion of the overall orphan statistics is relatively small.  (For a fuller discussion of this topic, see here.)

Coming from a voice with the gravitas of Christianity Today, this article represents a very important affirmation of the Biblical call to “care for orphans in their distress”—via adoption as well as other means.

CNN is preparing to air a potent documentary on orphans in Haiti early next month.   The special, titled Rescued, will share the journey of Haitian orphans through the eyes of two children, also telling the story of American missionaries who’ve given their lives to serving Haiti’s orphans.  The stories and imagery are sure to stir much emotion, as well as much discussion, when it airs on May 8.   The documentary project began long before Haiti’s earthquake, filmed by Alliance Member organization Discover the Journey, which helps tell the stories of orphans worldwide through excellent cinematography.  You can see the CNN trailer here, and remarkable clips of Haitian orphans talking about the earthquake that devastated their country here.   You’ll also be able to see a fuller preview of the documentary during an optional dinner discussion on Friday evening at Summit VI, where one of the filmmakers involved in the project will show clips and lead discussion around the themes raised in the film.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced they will conclude their Special Humanitarian Parole Program for Haitian Orphans on April 14, 2010.  This special provision allowed for expedited immigration for children that had been determined to be orphans and officially matched with an adoptive family prior to Haiti’s earthquake.  To date, more than 1,000 children have come to the U.S. under these special provisions in the past 2 ½ months, and several hundred more cases are currently under consideration.  (Approximately 14 percent of applications for humanitarian parole were deemed ineligible, primarily due to inadequate documentation.)

Adoptive families that are currently in process or have already applied for the Humanitarian Parole program by midnight on the 14^th will still be considered for humanitarian parole.  After the 14^th, all adoptions will need to go through the normal adoption process, including application for an I-600 visa.  Also of note, CIS has now resumed its normal adoption process as well, and has begun accepting applications for I-600 visas for children that would not have been eligible for the special Humanitarian parole.

See below for the official US CIS press release on this issue.

Special Humanitarian Parole Program for Haitian Orphan

Final Opportunity to Request Consideration

Introduction

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will stop accepting new requests for parole under the Special Humanitarian Parole Program for Haitian Orphans effective April 13, 2010, because the Haitian government has requested that the United States bring the program to a close.  While USCIS believes that the vast majority of requests for special parole have already been submitted, any remaining prospective adoptive parents or adoptive parents will have until April 14, 2010, to submit a request under the special program.

Background

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established the special parole policy and process as part of the overall U.S. government response to the January 12, earthquake.  The policy and process was designed to address the circumstances of a specific group of vulnerable Haitian children:

• those who either had full and final adoptions completed by United States citizen parents before the earthquake or,
• who were far enough along in the adoption process that both the governments of Haiti and the United States could verify the identity and eligibility of the children for adoption, and the United States government could confirm the suitability of the adoptive parents.

To date, more than 1,000 Haitian orphans have been approved for travel to the United States to join their adoptive families under this expedited process.  USCIS is in the process of considering several hundred more requests and anticipates that ultimately some 1,200 children will benefit from this program.

USCIS will process all requests for parole under the special program received at HaitianAdoptions@dhs.gov by April 14, 2010. USCIS is no longer accepting “walk-in” requests at the USCIS embassy in Port-au-Prince.

Initiating a Case

If initiating a case by sending an e-mail to the HaitianAdoptions@dhs.gov mailbox, please include in the subject line the last name of the prospective parent(s) and the name of the child to be adopted.

Please also provide the information below to help us process the case as expeditiously as possible:

• The name(s) and date(s) of birth of the adoptive parent(s);
• The name(s) and date(s) of birth of the orphaned child(ren);
• The address and contact information for the adoptive parent(s), the adoption service provider, if applicable, as well as the caregiver for the child(ren) in Haiti;
• A signed Form G-28 or privacy waiver if you wish USCIS to communicate about your humanitarian parole request with an attorney or other representative;

• A recent photo(s) of the child(ren); and,
• Documentation showing that the child was either:
  • Being adopted prior to January 12, 2010 and was legally confirmed as an orphan available for inter-country adoption by the government of Haiti through an adoption decree or custody grant to suitable U.S. citizen adoptive parents; or

• Identified by an adoption service provider or facilitator as eligible for inter-country adoption and matched to prospective American adoptive parents prior to January 12, 2010.

Please see the Fact Sheet on the Humanitarian Parole Policy for Certain Haitian Orphans for additional details on the evidence that supports a request for parole.  If you do not have all of the evidence necessary to establish eligibility for parole and are in the process of gathering that evidence, you may still submit a request to the e-mail box before the deadline, with an explanation of the evidence you are seeking to obtain.  You should also, at a minimum, provide the following information:

• Full name(s) and date(s) of birth of the Haitian child(ren);
• Full name(s) and date(s) of birth of the U.S. prospective adoptive parents;
• Contact information for the prospective adoptive parent(s).

-USCIS-

CBS News providing a compelling window into the needs of foster youth in Montgomery, AL.   Some may read into the coverage an unnecessarily attempt to pit inter-country adoption against domestic adoption.   Even so, it raises a critical point:  families that find themselves freshly stirred by Haiti to the possibility of taking in an orphan may ultimately discover that the need they are called to fill is closer to home.

The article relates that no children from the Brantwood Children’s Home in Montgomery, AL have been adopted in the past 4 years.  This is a tragedy.  But alongside this tragedy is hope that the CBS news crew may know nothing about.  In communities across the country, from Florida to Kentucky to Texas to Arkansas to Colorado, Christians are opening their homes as never before to welcome in foster children—via both foster care and adoption.   All of these church-centered efforts, led by members of the Christian Alliance for Orphans, will be highlighted at Summit VI…and the vision will continue to spread.

The needs—both across the sea and close to home—are tremendous.  The good news is that the Church is rising to respond!

Although a lengthy read, the following blog post paints a stark portrait of realities on the ground in Haiti, mingling anguish at the pain with reminders that we can act in meaningful ways on behalf of Haiti’s people.  It  was written by Dieula Previlon, the  International Initiatives Pastor at Irving Bible Church (IBC) and a native of Haiti.   IBC is a member of the Christian Alliance for Orphans, and Dieula recently returned from time in Port au Prince with the Haiti Orphan Relief Team.

Two news items—one via blog and the other a newspaper report—came on the same day recently.  It would seem that their jarring contents must be coming from different parts of the world.  But both come from Haiti.

From Paul Myhill’s blog:

“I need to tell you something,” the teary-eyed girl said to Campus Crusade’s country director for Haiti, Esperandieu Pierre, during his recent visit to one of the tented camps near a hospital in Port-au-Prince.

The nine year-old orphan had been raped by multiple men.

After taking her to the hospital, Esperandieu was told by the nurse that the rape of a child, especially an orphan, is now a “common event” that she sees daily…

On the same day as this post, an article in the Wall Street Journal began:

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—In the aftermath of the earthquake, scores of unaccompanied Haitian children are living in fetid tent camps here. A few miles away, Dixie Bickel, an American nurse, is having trouble filling dozens of empty beds at her tidy orphanage.

Haiti’s welfare agency stopped sending kids there on the advice of the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, Ms. Bickel says. The UN agency worries that many children have been temporarily displaced by the quake. Putting them in orphanages like Ms. Bickel’s could lead to adoptions overseas that separate them from family here …

What Can We Conclude?

The simple truth is that commitment to family reunification and other in-country efforts to care for orphans should not be viewed as contradictory to viewing inter-country adoption as the very best option for some children.  The tension between the two needs to be shown for what it is:  a false dichotomy.

Certainly, if there is a reasonable chance that a child could be reunited to with living parents, that option should be the first priority.   No child should be taken out of a country in the immediate aftermath of disaster, unless he or she was known to be an orphan before the disaster struck.  I have little doubt that Dixie Bickel shares this perspective as well.

In reality, however, the pretext of protecting children from human trafficking or other evils is actually locking them into situations that are tremendously unsafe.   It is time for the U.N. to stop presenting inter-country adoption and reunification as mutually exclusive activities.

Reunification efforts should be aggressive and thorough.  Meanwhile, efforts can also be initiated that will identify those children that truly have no options for being raised in a family locally.  Such children should not be relegated to life on the streets or in an orphanage simply because many—including myself—hope that someday there will be much better options for in-country care than now exist.  We should pursue that future doggedly.  But until every child can be part of a family in Haiti, we cannot allow pursuit of this dream to force a generation to grow up without one.