Complexities of Orphan Care

There's an orphanage near our house that we visit as often as we can.  Our friend, Angie works at the orphanage, so we love to see her and hang out with the kids.  Aaron's sweet mom was given a bunch of pillowcase dresses to send to us.  After what felt like a billion years in customs, the dresses finally arrived.   Without a doubt, we knew where those dresses would go.  I could not wait to see the girls wearing them.

But what about the boys?  It would have been majorly crappy to bring a bunch of dresses for the girls, but nothing for the boys.  The solution?  Silly Bands. 

 

All the girls got baths before they received their new dresses.

A new dress.  Doesn't matter who you are, where you live, or how old you are...a new dress just feels so darn good.

That smile.  The one that means, "I feel pretty."  That was one of my favorite moments.  I will remember it always.  That look.  The way they would sit, silently touching their new dress.  A little twirl.  A laugh.

Visiting an orphanage regularly is difficult.  I love being there.  I love the kids.  I love how much my kids love the children in the orphanage, how they ask to go back, how they know the kids by name. Those things equally bring me joy and yet a lot of sadness as I leave and hurt for how broken this world is.  The drive home is silent in the car.  I think we all feel it.  Each of us.  The weight of creation groaning for redemption.

Even in places where the children's basic needs are met, it's still difficult to see children without parents...without families...children who belong to no one.  No one is up worrying about them at night.  Their mother is not losing sleep over whether or not they are involved in enough extra-curricular activities.  They have never known a family game night or what it's like to pile up on a couch, limbs intertwined, to watch a movie in the place where they are dearly loved and fully at ease. This troubles me.  My soul aches and rages at the heavens.

Visiting these kids causes me to toss and turn in my bed.  Say honest, hard things to God that I'd never be bold enough to say here.  Words that God can take, but humans may not be able to hear.

Usually we go to the orphanage empty handed.  Just us.  The kids.  Holding hands with sweet little girls.  Playing soccer with the boys.  Watching Vanessa, one of the girls there, spank the pants off of our boys at the Silly Band game.  But this time we came with gifts, and it was a sweet time as we watched the kids that we know and love getting excited about a new dress, some plastic bands around their arms, and new, hand-made baby dolls.

This is me teaching all the little girls about the benefits of breastfeeding.  We played the "your baby is hungry game."  When the baby cries, we say "Bay bebe tete!" and stick those babies to our chests.  They thought it was funny.  I was thinking, "Never too early to start teaching that breast is best." Besides, I can hold my own in only one category when it comes to Creole.  Breastfeeding lingo.  This was the most I have ever been able to talk to the kids in their language.  I think we'll forever be bonded on a whole new level.  Or maybe they will just think I'm crazy.  Whatev.

Now that's a bath, huh?

I'm a little leery to write about orphans and orphanages in Haiti.  When I do so, I get a ton of emails about adoption.  "How can we help?"  "Can we adopt?"  "How long does it take?"  "Is there an orphanage we can support?"  I don't have time to respond to all the emails and even if I did I don't know the answers.  The answers I do know are hard to hear.  I try not to be a Debbie Downer, but the complexities surrounding orphan care are so typical and descriptive of Haiti.  Nothing is easy here.  Nothing.

There are a lot of orphans in Haiti, most of them not living in orphanages that keep them clean, fed, and loved.  The babies sit in cages.  Their lives are extremely sad.  And yet adopting from Haiti is a long, expensive, difficult process.  Anyone telling you anything differently is not telling you the truth.  Supporting orphanages here is also tricky.  Making sure you're connecting to an orphanage that is honest is difficult.  Most orphanages are over-crowded with disturbing ratios of children to caregivers.

Before adopting from an orphanage or financially supporting one, here are some important issues that we would want to talk-through and see proof (like with our own eyes) that these things were also important to the people running the orphanage.  Remember...this is just us...Aaron and me.  You are free to disagree.  We are not recommending any orphanages.  We don't feel comfortable doing that.  What we are offering are our own thoughts...the questions we would ask if we were in your shoes after living here and seeing some of this in person.

1. What is the ratio of children to nannies?  In baby rooms we like to see a 2:1 ratio (2 children to every 1 caregiver).  With the older kids, that number can be different, but with babies and toddlers, research suggests that those ratios help significantly with bonding issues once children are adopted into forever families.

2.  How does the orphanage handle teams?  Do they allow people to come in week after week to hold babies,  semi-attach to children, and say things like "Oh...I want this one.  I wish I could take you home." Is there a revolving door of visitors who are encouraged to care for the kids and attach to them, only to say good-bye 5-7 days later?

3.  Are the children's basic needs met?  Are the kids clean?  Are they fed well?  Are their diapers changed?

4.  What is the orphanage's protocol for taking new kids?  Do they take any kid, no questions asked?  Or is there some sort of system in place to identify the times when a mother does not want to give her baby away...she just needs some money...some help?  Most of Haiti's orphans are not true orphans.  They have parents.  We don't know the answers to any of these issues, but we know this concerns us enough that we would probably not adopt from an orphanage in Haiti that took babies without first trying to help, in some way, the mothers of this country.  In the very least, we would expect a birthmother to be very well educated about the decision she is making as she leaves her child at the orphanage.  As people who have adopted before, once the baby is home, having peace about the birth mother's decision to place her baby for adoption has been important to us.  We never wanted to feel like we were taking a baby away.  We wanted to know the mother was educated about her decision, offered options, and still chose to place her baby for adoption.  If we did not feel like our adoption agency did a top-notch job at educating our birthmom and supporting her, we would have a lot of nauseous, sleepless nights.

5. Do the people running the orphanage have any training in adoption related issues?  Do they know about RAD and have systems in place within their orphanage to address it and help children begin to heal?  A caution:  Anyone with a big heart can move to Haiti and start a children's home.  Anyone with some money and compassion can buy a house and fill it with kids.  That does not mean they have a clue about issues these children are facing, or the therapy, and safe-guards that should probably be in place to help restore these kids.  They may have big hearts, but haven't even read one book about adoption or issues adopted children face and the adoptive parents face.  And then there is always the sad truth that anyone with money and no compassion can move to Haiti and open an orphanage.  Not to be a jerk, but orphans can be big business...no matter what country you're considering.

6. What training does the orphanage or agency offer to families who are adopting?  Are they honest about what it's like to adopt a child who has been in an orphanage?  Do they try to prepare you, as best as they can, for the issues that will arise?  Do they discuss the regular, run-of-the-mill adoption issues?  Do they help you understand transracial adoption issues?  Do they try to prepare you for what it is like to adopt a child who has been in an orphanage?

7. Do the people running the orphanage do everything legally?  Just because the people running the orphanage are Christians does not mean that you can assume they are not paying bribes or doing things illegally to adopt kids out of this country.  If we ever sensed that something was not being done legally, we would run for our lives.  I'm not sure how it is that Christians biblically justify moving to Haiti, lying, and paying bribes in order to get what they want or adopt kids out of Haiti, but they do.  Some people will say that being a part of the corruption is the only way to get anything done in this country.  That is not true.  Please be careful.  And if you ever hear missionaries you support joke about breaking the rules here to get what they want will you remind them what Jesus says about corruption, liars, and oppressing the poor? 

If we were adopting from an orphanage in Haiti, those are the big things that we'd be looking for as we considered where to adopt.  If our church back home wanted to financially support an orphanage, we'd only suggest orphanages that were completely open to moving towards these goals (if they were not already meeting those requirements).   For example, maybe an orphanage does not have the money to hire enough nannies...but...they want to do that and would agree to do that if a church supported them.  Maybe they don't know anything about bonding issues, or how to rehabilitate children who have experienced great loss...but....they are willing and eager to receive training in these areas...that's what we'd be looking for before giving money to an orphanage here or encouraging others to do so.

So there's all the hard stuff...the honest things that Aaron and I would personally want in place before moving forward with an adoption (if we lived in the States and were wanting to adopt from here).  Those are the questions we'd ask...the things that would be important to us.

And yet the fact remains...there are kids in Haiti who are living in incredibly sad situations.  God commands us to care for them.  That's never easy.  Caring for the orphan is extremely multi-faceted.  Orphanages are only the tip of the iceberg.  The real issues lie deep...hidden...harder to see or put a finger on.  Dealing with the real issues surrounding orphan care means thinking through why there are so many orphans in this country to begin with.  The problems in Haiti are multi-faceted which means orphan care in this country must be multi-faceted.  In many ways, caring for the orphan in Haiti means caring for the families...the mothers who have no ability to keep their kids.  With that in mind, caring for the orphan could look like adopting, supporting an orphanage, or ministries like Heartline and the Apparent Project who are working to prevent children from becoming orphans.

These kids are real.  They need homes.  There are no easy answers.  The issues are complex.  Trying to figure out how to best care for the orphan may take a lot of time and may not be as convenient as throwing money or a mission team at the situation.  It will most definitely take some research.  It will take asking hard questions.  Caring for the orphan may not be easy or glamorous.  Ask any parent walking through the murky and turbulent waters with an adopted child who is dealing with loss, the inability to connect, abuse, and anger issues.  Yet being involved in what God declares important is always worth it.  Being invited, through orphan care, to be a part of redemption is a beautiful, life-changing, faith building journey.

It's not easy, but God has called us to jump in, do the dirty work, and care for the orphan.

Tom at God's Littlest Angels wrote a post recently about the requirements for adoption in Haiti.  If you are considering adoption, his information is helpful.