Forgotten

Now here's the post that will probably make you all think I'm completely loony! I've been able to have a long, honest conversation with our adoption agency, and they were very forthright. They confessed that Micah's case had been forgotten. Overlooked. "Not on the radar" to use one of their phrases. And it made me happy. Yes, happy. (This is where you start to think I'm loony, right?) The way I look at it is: Every person, every organization makes mistakes. It doesn't do any good to go moping around, nursing feelings of anger/ resentment/ helplessness... The fact that they have taken responsibility for their mistakes increases my trust in them ten fold. It was a great relief to hear them say, "We're sorry. There has just been one crisis after another, and Micah's case just wasn't on the radar. No one paid attention to the fact that his adoption had been taking way too long, and he got lost in the shuffle." I said, "That's exactly what we felt like! Like we weren't 'on the radar'." And they said, "Well, your assessment of the situation was correct." Evidently there is one other family whose case had been forgotten as well, and the two of us are top priority.

If you're thinking, "How can a case just be forgotten like this?" let me share a little bit with you about what has been going on behind the scenes in Liberia. Remember, illiteracy is more than 80%, so the pool of potential Liberian "paperwork pushers" is small to begin with. Education in Liberia is in shambles, so I don't imagine that even the most qualified have had access to computer training, organizational training, etc. like we do here in America. It sounds like there's no tracking system whatsoever. For example, we've been asking when the Liberian staff submitted for Micah's passport. There's no Excel Spreadsheet they can open and look to see when that happened. It would mean plowing through untold amounts of paper to see if there was a date written on it somewhere. And remember, too, that African culture doesn't have a sense of times and dates, and tracking them, like we do! They often don't even track or celebrate Birthdays! It is common for adoptive families to find out their child is a year older than they were told after having a Physician examine their development here in the states. And it is common for adoptive families to just pick a date on the calendar, and use it to celebrate their child's Birthday. Anyway... Acres of Hope has a special interest in helping special needs children, which is one of the things we love about our agency. There were several situations this summer where getting a special needs child to the U.S. immediately was a life or death medical emergency. And then the new Consular came on the scene, and caused all kinds of upheaval, so that took the full attention and energy of the Liberian staff. Related to that, some families have had extended stays in Liberia, working with the Acres Staff and meeting repeatedly with the Consular (remember, there are only a few meetings available with her each week). And now one of the crucial Liberian staff members has resigned. In the midst of crisis after crisis, there were adoptions going through, of both special needs kids and "healthy" kids, but there were no resources to be monitoring every case. I get the idea that if the paperwork for one case or another rose to the surface, it got dealt with. In random fashion. That's a big part of why we've had so many families "leap frog" us.

You know, we may never know what this delay has meant. Maybe it has meant life for special needs kids who were prioritized while Micah's paperwork sat buried on a desk somewhere. Maybe the timing was necessary to line us up to meet somebody we're supposed to meet when we're there, or see something God needs us to see. Who knows? Don't get me wrong... I do have not-so-nice feelings swirling in my head about being forgotten, but dwelling on those feelings would be fruitless. So I'm not going to!

We expect to hear in the next couple days about a tentative travel time. We probably still won't be able to book tickets yet, but it will still be nice to have something on the calendar! The agency said to me, "You're probably looking at November or December for travel." I replied, "November sounds good!" ;0) I'll keep you posted!