daughter from danang

i'm on good terms with netflix again. had it not been for their suggestion i may never have seen this movie, but while folding laundry today i had to privilege of watching "daughter from danang".

its a documentary film that follows a vietnamese adoptee's return visit to vietnam to "meet" her birth mother. she was part of operation babylift at the end of the vietnam war when thousands of babies were airlifted out of vietnam and placed for adoption around the world. her mother feared her life would be in danger because of her mixed race (her father was an american solider) so she choose to place her in the care of a family abroad. watching these mothers breaking down in tears while gripping their children before letting them walk onto a plane broke my heart. and i was frustrated that they felt this was the best choice that was to be made.

while i completely believe that adoption can be the best decision for some, adoption has become a business in some countries. the film makes note that some parents were being pressured into sending their children away. my only hope was that in the moment these adoption caseworkers truly believed this was what was best for the children. there was an element of uncertainty: once the war ended some were unsure what would happen to them and believed their lives were in danger while others wondered if they could actually care for their children.

the film takes you along for the journey of heidi returning to the land that had once been home. she experiences seeing her mother for the first time in 22 years, coming back home to where she had once lived, and meeting relatives she could have never imagined. while visiting heidi experiences highs and lows as she tries to understand who she is as well as who her birth family is to her. i have mixed feelings about how it ends. adoption is complicated and can leave many mixed emotions.

you should watch it and then tell me what you think.

Isabel 2012

"If that happened one night in America, it would be on the cover of Newsweek." - Jason Russell, Invisible Children


saturday night one of my students little sisters was taken from her room, she has been missing since. naturally this is a big deal and makes me physically ill thinking about it. this is precisely the point my wife pointed out, that was made in the viral kony 2012 film, a child's life is immeasurably valuable no matter where they are born, yet in the u.s. this event gets national attention. nancy grace says that isabel's school administrators should be suspect, there's a winning opinion.

please pray for isabel and her family, lets fight tirelessly to bring her home and always remember the value of every child's life...no matter where they were born.

bumps along the road

our journey has been longer than we anticipated when we began. when we sent in our application in november the timeline from application to bringing your child home was 9-24 months. now the wait times are extended to include 6-12 months in between completed homestudy and referral and then an additional 12 months before you travel. and while i knew from the beginning that the only guarantee in adoption is that you will wait, each passing day is still hard.

today our little girl is 18 months old.

when we were matched with her back in july she was 9 months old. i had always thought she would be home by the time she was 18 months. don't ask why, just one of those silly things you think you know about your adoption (that you have no control over).

we've made progress, but received a letter requesting more information to process our i600.
just when i thought we were moving forward we hit a bump.

each day i try to rest in His promises as i gaze at her picture. soon my love, soon.