Taiwan News: Infant with HIV awaiting adoption

I came across this article about a five-month-old boy in Taiwan awaiting adoption – he’s an HIV-carrier.  I was a little surprised by the part of the article where it says it takes two to three years to the complete international adoption process. . .really?  As I understand it, the process once a child is matched should only take about six months.  Perhaps the orphanage is taking into consideration the child’s special needs and the time it will take to find a family:

“As the center is aware that it will be difficult to get Heibao adopted in Taiwan because of the prejudices about AIDS and adoption harbored by many Taiwanese, it has decided to put the infant on a waiting list for adoption by people from abroad, even though it knows that adoption procedures usually take at least two to three years before a baby can be adopted and travel to his or her new home overseas, Chiu said. Despite being HIV-positive, Heibao is presently healthy and developing normally on a daily drug cocktail therapy, Chiu added.” – Read the full article at eTaiwanNews.com, March 27, 2009

Dead Women Walking

Jennifer Su's book, "Dead Women Walking"

I just finished reading Dead Women Walking, a book by Jennifer Su. She is a missionary with the Overseas Missionary Fellowship in Taiwan. Su offers a startling and heartbreaking look at the lives of three Taiwanese women and their families. The stories are true; however, many names of the people in the book have been changed, except for those of the missionaries and pastors.

What surprised me most was the physical and sexual abuse these women endured. It broke my heart to hear the abuse the women suffered, some of it starting when they were young. As I was reading, I wondered why, as adults, they didn’t just leave and go get help. But I realized it was often more complicated than that: the women often feared losing custody of their children; they feared their husband’s anger (and the consequences) if he caught them trying to leave; they also feared the shame a separation or divorce would bring on their extended family.

The stories are compelling, yet painful. Praise God that all three women now have found hope and eternal life by accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior! As they learned about God’s grace through his Word, they were eventually able to leave behind ancestor and idol worship. One of the women battled demon possession throughout her life – but through prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit, she is finally free of all the evil spirits that haunted her.

Since the early 1990s, Taiwan has taken steps to protect women and children from abuse through legislation and increased public awareness, as I learned by visiting the Garden of Hope Foundation’s website. The Garden of Hope served as a temporary home for one of the women in this book. I hope and pray the women and children of Taiwan who are in abusive relationships can get the help and support they need.

This book has given me a greater understanding of Taiwanese culture. While these personal stories are difficult and heartbreaking, it is worth reading this book to see God’s transforming power in the lives of these women who, as the author states, “seemed beyond hope”.

Happy New Year!

Hope all of your resolutions are off to a great start! We will be officially starting ours tomorrow, as we stretched our Christmas celebrations into the New Year so we could spend time with all of our family. We started the holidays with colds and ear infections, but we are all healthy again for the new year.

I’ve been following another family’s blog as they are traveling in Taiwan. Greg Adkins and his wife are also hoping to adopt from Taiwan, and traveled there this week to spend some time at an orphanage in Taipei. They took a cooking class to learn about Taiwanese cooking – that is something I would love to do if we have time when we travel.

On the adoption front, we were scheduled to meet with our social worker the week before Christmas for our home study update but we postponed it until this coming week. We went to the police department last week for fingerprinting and we will be spending part of this weekend filling out paperwork required for our home study. Our state recently amended its law on home studies to allow the report to be valid for 36 months, rather than only one year. Hopefully there will not be a need to update our home study again before our adoption is complete.

Waiting, An Update on our Adoption

We received an update on our wait from our agency this week.  It looks like another year of waiting.  This is the first time I have felt really discouraged since we started this journey.  I had hoped at two years we would have a referral and just be waiting to travel - but this latest update puts us waiting well beyond the two-year mark just to be matched with a child.  I am thankful that God has a plan for our family and He has already chosen the child who will someday join our family – my hope is that we will meet our child much sooner than we expect.

Hannah Claire is almost home!

A family with our agency just received news they will be traveling soon to bring their baby girl home from Taiwan.  I have followed the Journey to Hannah Claire since we started our adoption, and I am so excited to see that Sarah and Kevin have received news of a final ruling.  Go on over to their blog and congratulate them – they’ve waited so long for their little one and I know this Christmas will be extra special for their family.