Sad Sad Sad

Well, we knew it was coming and here it is. The US State Department issued an "Ethiopia Adoption Alert" earlier this week. To sum it up things are drastically going to slow down.

Read the message HERE.

According to the State Department, Ethiopia's new policy calls for its Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs (this is the agency that approves adoptions) to process no more than five adoption cases per day - about 10 percent of the caseload it had been handling. They were handling 40-50 per day. This is not agency specific, or US specific, this means they will see FIVE adoption court cases per day from the entire world.

Here are some numbers:
-2,513 Ethiopian children were adopted by Americans in the 2010 fiscal year, second only to China as a source country
-In all more than 4,000 Ethiopian children were adopted by foreigners last year, with the US being the largest destination

This new policy will result in thousands of Ethiopian children languishing for longer periods in institutions struggling to provide adequate services for them. In all, the impoverished country has an estimated 5 million orphans and homeless children. I really believe the government of Ethiopia wants to improve the process and they care for the children of their country. We are praying that they come up with a solution that will ultimately help these children.

Where does this leave us? With a BIG headache.

Let us rest in His plan.