Our guest blogger today is Bob Miller, executive director of not-for-profit Our Family Orphan
Communities, Inc. Their key project for developing nations, ETHANOL &
ORPHANS, is using the profits of an ethanol refinery to build medical
clinics and self-sustaining communities where street orphans are raised in
families with surrogate parents and grandparents. Learn more and provide
your support at: www.orphancommunities.org

[Parental] Language Proficiency in Older Child Cross-Cultural Adoption

When first agreeing to a volunteer trip to help a private orphanage in Mexico, I had no initial thought of repeating the experience, let alone of adopting any of the children we met. I did however yield to the opportunities for several repeat visits until, when the death of one of the owners of the orphanage meant it was about to be closed, my hardcore objectivity and control melted me into a pool of blubbering emotion.

Having gotten to know the 120 children, it was heartbreaking to see them being redistributed to other orphanages throughout the state, or being placed with known relatives (who in some cases were not even able to support themselves, let alone the children now being placed with them). While I was vulnerable, the older of two brothers whom I had learned to care about over the last year, approached me with the request that I adopt them.&nbsp