Many people have graciously
inquired as to the status of our adoption process since the Russian government passed a law banning adoptions by Americans. Others may be wondering but are unsure how to ask, so I
thought I’d provide an update and thank you for your prayers and concern.
The first thing to say is that the
ban has indeed stopped the adoption process for us and hundreds of other
families. There are two main reasons
given for the adoption ban: 1) as a response to the US congress passing human
rights sanctions against some Russian officials, and 2) as a response to 20
reported cases of Russian adoptees being abused and/or neglected by their
adoptive parents. (There have been
approximately 60,000 Russian children adopted by Americans since 1991.) The law came into effect on January 1, and
since then only those families who had received a court-approved adoption
decree were able to finalize their adoptions.
These families had taken two trips, we had only taken one, when we met
the child and signed our official consent to adopt. Families in situation such as ours are
referred to as “pipeline cases.”
We have been in communication with
the Department of State, members of Congress, and human rights advocates in
hopes that an arrangement can be worked out, particularly for the “pipeline
cases,” however at this point there has been more potential than visible progress. We continue to hope and pray that an
agreement can be reached and that we will be able to finish our adoption. As you can imagine, this will take a good bit
of time, and the outcome is known only to our sovereign Lord (who, we are happy
to say, calls himself “father to the fatherless” Psalm 68:5) We are waiting and trusting him for guidance.
In the meantime we are grateful
that God has invited us into this adventure, difficult though it is, because we
have felt our hearts enlarged with compassion and our faith deepened and
stretched. We’ve learned that difficult
circumstances do not mean that God is absent, and that living for things that
matter can bring heartache. We are
growing in our reliance on God, our confidence in his goodness, and our
assurance that He also loves the little boy we love, even more deeply than we
do. We can trust Him.
