Adopting from Haiti and other poverty-stricken countries can be a difficult journey for some families because sometimes children simply pass away during the wait. Living in a developed country as we do, it can be easy to forget that infant death and even older child death is a frequent occurrence in other nations. We take for granted things like medical insurance, prescription plans, and access to quality healthcare, while for people in places like Haiti, these are incomprehensible luxuries. In the case of our friend’s son-to-be, it is supremely frustrating to know that he’s only two hours from people and resources that could take care of his medical needs, yet there is so much in the way of him being able to make this short journey. My heart aches for everyone involved.

This experience and others like it have made me determined to do something to help change this reality for developing nations. Right now, as we continue to add to our family and have small children at home, our “activism” can be take the shape of red iPods and t-shirts, giving our children a broad worldview through their education, and making our yearly donations to organizations such as Heifer, International. As our children age and begin to leave home, my husband and I hope to get more personally involved, making trips with cleft palate teams, donating more liberally to appropriate charitable organizations and joining and participating in groups that seek to make a difference for people in developing nations.

In the meantime, we’ll fast and pray for our friends’ sweet little boy and hold out hope that he’ll be able to make the earthly journey to his waiting parents. If he can’t, we’ll pray that our friends will be comforted and that they will be able to get the necessary approval to have him sealed to their family as families before them in similar circumstances have done.

Further reading:

My dear friend Wendy recently wrote about her family’s experience losing a child they were in the midst of adopting.