Friday, July 17, 2009

~taking action~

*update at the bottom of the page*

Loss is powerful. It seems to have a butterfly effect...touching so many more then just those directly involved.

All week I have been reading about Imagine adoption's bankruptcy. I have read countless blogs, families who are of the 500 clients who have been thrown into a sea of chaos and uncertainty. Families who have put their hearts and souls into the adoption process...their children...their future. Who have spent thousands of dollars and even more hours waiting for their referrals, waiting to pass court, waiting to travel and pick up their children.

We had planned to go through Imagine when we begin the process of adopting our future children. This is one of the rare moments when I am thankful that we haven't begun yet.

I have also spent the week writing letters, signing petitions....praying.

Taking a pro-active approach is so important. Please write your MLA, your MP, the Minister of Immigration and Deb Matthews, the Ontario Minister for Children and Families. Here is a copy of the letter I sent. Feel free to cut and paste portions or all of it.

I am writing to you from my home in the south Cariboo, and I am urgently requesting your support with respect to the dozens upon dozens of families currently in turmoil (financially and emotionally) due to the recent bankruptcy filing of Imagine Adoptions.

I am writing as a mother of 4 who had planned to begin our Ethiopian Adoption through Imagine in the next year. I know there are families who have “passed court” and were awaiting travel notice to pick up their children… and who’ve now been told their children are in limbo, in Canadian transition homes in Addis Ababa wherein their financial accounts have been frozen and they may not be fed or taken care of to the standard of care they deserve. I know of a local (Okanagan)family in which the mother-to-be is now en route to her daughters in Addis Ababa to make sure they are cared for until the fiasco can be sorted out and the citizenship papers finalized. Meanwhile, her husband and father-to-be remains at home trying to provide the financial means to bring this adoption to a close… all the while worrying about his wife being a single mother in a foreign, third-world country. Also many families who have invested thousands of dollars and are in the process of waiting for their referral. This is heartbreaking for these families. International adoption tests our patience and will at the best of times. But there is a huge need here...143,000,000 orphans world wide. These families have gone through the struggles, emotional ups and downs...and now this.


I am urging you to please help expedite the citizenship legalities so these families can bring their beautiful children home. And for the families who never got to the “court” stage, I am urging financial help. They have invested tens of thousands of dollars, and years, into their dreams of building a family, and are now empty-armed.

Also, please take the time to read through this petition and sign it if you support it.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/SaveOurDreamofAdoptingInternatio/index.html

Here is a link to my friend Justine's blog. She has written in great detail about what is going on.

1 comment:

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

I'm so sorry, Jenn. It absolutely rends my heart, and I know how completely your own heart has been wrapped up in the following of these families stories. And now, to have the joy of that turned to sorrow - I want to weep.