We live on a working beef and crop farm in the Midwest where we farm several hundred acres. We have been in our home for 17 years, this month. Which makes this the only home all but one of our children have lived in, since birth, placement for adoption, or foster care. Our super dad is a hunter and has shared his love of hunting over the years will all of our sons. They are all lifetime members of the NRA, members of Pheasants Forever, Whitetails Forever, and all have had firearms safety training. (Yes, we keep gunlocks on our guns and they are stored in our Fort Knox safe.) Every year, Pheasants Forever has a youth day, with shooting competitions, prizes, and trophies. Every year the competition is a boys’ day out with dad and helps to build their self-esteem.

Yes, it is official: there will be no new adoptions from Guatemala to foreign countries this year. Those children whose adoption processes were grandfathered under the old adoption system will hopefully finally come home in the near future. They and their parents have been dragged through an ever changing and unreliable bureaucracy fraught with political infighting.

But if you are among those that had hopes of adopting from Guatemala in the near future, that is not going to happen – the National Council for Adoption in Guatemala has made sure of that. They are now only responding to adoption applications from Guatemalan families, and to date there have been 158. Apparently there are only 70 children who have been deemed adoptable. Last year, over 5000 children were adopted outside of Guatemala.

Although it is the most common form of adoption in the United States, very rarely do I run into other adoptive stepparents like myself. When we moved and I found out that neighbors of ours were an adoptive stepfamily just like ours, where it was the stepmother whom adopted, I was thrilled to finally find someone that I could chat with about being an adoptive stepparent. Sadly, we learned very shortly after moving in that the family was in great trouble, and sure enough the mom packed up and moved out.

There were two boys, the one that they had together she took with her, the one that she had adopted, she left behind. At first she came a few times to let the boys play together, drop one off, or maybe take the other with her, but within a few short months visits had stopped altogether.

She had found someone new, filed for divorce, and moved away. She no longer contacts the child whom she had adopted, supposedly loved, cared for and raised. She went from being mom to being nothing, with no goodbye; no anything.

Mom's House, Dad's House: Making Two Homes for Your Child author: Isolina Ricci asin: 0684830787

This week  we aren’t the only ones with a great giveaway. Over on  Tricia’s website, "Sisterly Shenanigans," there is a Christmas in June Gigantic Giveaway. To enter you need only make a donation to an orphanage in San Andres, Guatemala. This orphanage is home to children ages 4-16; these children will never be available for adoption. Tricia wants to give them a great Christmas next December so is going to fly down and personally organize the party, using the money from the donations to purchase gifts.

And over on the  “Busy Mommy” website, there is the “Spring into Summer Giveaway,”  where you can win some great prizes – check it out. 

 Image Credit: Flickr commons

The prime minister of Burma refuses to allow countries who want to give aid to the victims of the cyclone to have any say in the distribution of said aid. He recently stated that

international aid was welcome, “provided that there are no strings attached.”

 

Such arrogance and blatant corruption is at the price of human life. What foreign country would be foolish enough to give money to a corrupt regime that would probably use it for everything but what it was targeted for?

Reports of meager or no distribution of food by the government, as well as troops discouraging and monitoring food distributed by Burmese citizens wanting to help their fellow countrymen and women is now everyday news.  The poorest of the population are the hardest hit, and the government doesn’t care, or maybe there is an agenda.

The prime minister of Burma refuses to allow countries who want to give aid to the victims of the cyclone to have any say in the distribution of said aid. He recently stated that

international aid was welcome, “provided that there are no strings attached.”

 

Such arrogance and blatant corruption is at the price of human life. What foreign country would be foolish enough to give money to a corrupt regime that would probably use it for everything but what it was targeted for?

Reports of meager or no distribution of food by the government, as well as troops discouraging and monitoring food distributed by Burmese citizens wanting to help their fellow countrymen and women is now everyday news.  The poorest of the population are the hardest hit, and the government doesn’t care, or maybe there is an agenda.

We are still seeing a bunch of new visitors who want to know about Myanmar children and Myanmar adoption. They are finding us via google.com. So this update is for the searchers and others who care.

LisaS reported in a recent post that children from Myanmar (formerly Burma) cannot be adopted. The UN is estimating that 100,000 Burmese may have died due to Cyclone Nargis and the aftermath. Or maybe the figure is 127,990 Myanmar dead and growing. And according to Aljazeera:

The National Council For Adoption put out a press release yesterday announcing that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is helping it launch a campaign to recruit more foster parents in the United States. The program is called " Families For All" and Wal-Mart is supporting it with a $75,000 donation.

So, being the kind of person who likes to put numbers in context, I started looking for some context for that number.

Wal-Mart is, according to Forbes, the 16th-largest company in the world, with annual sales that last year topped $378 billion. Last year, the Wal-Mart Foundation gave $296 million to charities in the U.S. and says that Wal-Mart employees and customers contributed another $106 million. (The foundation has a program to match hours spent in volunteering with a contribution to the volunteer's charity.) That, plus Wal-Mart's international giving put its total philanthropy for 2007 at $470 million.