Some random thoughts on our nearly two year efforts

As mentioned in my very first post... we started nearly 2 years ago with the idea of adopting a teen from Minnesota. We didn't know where to start, so went with one of the largest adoption agencies associated with a "popular Minnesota religious organization". They were so slow! Everything was done in one month increments... fill out a form in February, take a class in May, meet to discuss some papers in June, visit our house in August, etc. Finally we received the "Home Study" document in December - and it was just a few pages restating what we had told them. It was full of factual, grammar and spelling errors - which I corrected for them. We spent nearly a year, and the State of Minnesota paid many thousands of dollars (in-State adoptions are free to MN residents), for what could have been done in a month. But we were finally ready!

We heard there were over 500 Minnesota kids waiting for adoption. With the completed Home Study in hand, we were finally allowed to see the full background of each child listed on mnadopt.org. However most of the kids that we were interested in were not actually available! They had been already adopted, matched with other families, or were deemed unadoptable for some reason. For example, Native American kids must usually be adopted by Native American families. Also, we were discouraged from adopting some kids because of their behavior problems - eventually eliminating all of the kids from our list.

I started to feel that we had entered a bureaucracy that exists primarily to self perpetuate. For example, the agency owns a large, very nice building in the Twin Cities. It has lots of offices, large conference rooms, small conference rooms, receptionist, computers, break rooms... all the facilities of Corporate America... with no children in sight. It appeared that our approved Home Study would take us nowhere slowly, while presumably hundreds of kids wait for families. I'm sure that at some point the agency people started their careers with good intentions, yet...

Then Kim came across the Star Tribune article about "Camp of Dreams" and "Friends of FANA MN". They are volunteers, Minnesota people who have previously adopted from FANA. They have guided us through the process of background checks, documents, medical papers, visas, travel, meeting Elena (the Director of FANA), and much more. With hundreds of MN families having completed the process successfully, we gained the confidence that this is a good path.

We still had to use an agency, about twice as fast as the first one - but still slow. The State does not pay the fees this time, and costs are high. We may get a Federal tax credit to offset some/most of this. The agency does not appear to do much to earn their fees, as we also have to pay separately for everything directly - like a lawyer here in Colombia, translation of documents, visas, doctor visits for the kids, etc. FANA receives nothing, nor do Friends of FANA MN. The US Government part of the process added about 2 months, which was less than most due to some help from a US Senator.

I want to emphasize that FANA, and Friends of FANA MN are the real deal. These are people who really care about children, and have dedicated their lives to helping them. Although we originally would have liked to help a MN child, that bureaucracy was impenetrable. I quickly came to appreciate that all children need a home, wherever they are from. They don't get to choose where they are born, or who their parents are. I wish that kids could be adopted in their home country, but few people want to adopt older kids. Although we knew nothing about Colombia, Patti had pointed us towards two wonderful teens that need a family. And that's exactly what we were searching for.

There are about 500 orphans in Minnesota, 5,000 in Colombia, plus many more around the world. I hope that someone reading my blog will reconsider their quest for material things and decide to "pay it forward", making their life's mission to help a child (or two) instead.