I'm often asked why we have chosen to adopt a child from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). And to be truly honest, all I can say is that this is where we have felt God calling us to adopt. I hadn't even heard of the DRC until a few months ago, when I found out a friend from high school was adopting from there. Since then, we have done a lot of research about the country and believe that this is where our little one will be or is waiting for us.
The DRC is the second largest country in Africa. It's population is about 73 million people. The official language is French. The Second Congo War has been going on since 1998 and over 5 million people have died. The prevalence of rape and other sexual violence has been described as some of the worst in the world. The DRC has the second-highest rate of infant mortality in the world.
I know that there are children in other counties (even here in the United States) that need caring homes, but after learning about this country, we just feel led to get a child out of there as soon as we can. The future of a child living in the DRC isn't good. There is very little hope there and if we can offer a little hope to one innocent child, why wouldn't we?
We are currently
patiently waiting for our homestudy to be completed so we can submit it to our adoption agency in Denver. We are hoping to get our dossier information started this week as well. I haven't been able to get in contact with our adoption agency in the past week, so I really don't know where we stand. For those of you who don't know what a dossier is, here is the definition from Wikipedia:
A dossier is a collection of papers or other sources, containing detailed information about a particular person or subject, together with a synopsis of their content. This information gets sent to DRC and then hopefully we will receive a referral of a child. We have specified that we would like a child between the ages of 6-18 months of either gender.
I have been thinking and praying a lot recently of our adopted child. Here is a little note from me to them.
Dear Little One,
I think about you daily and wonder what you look like. My heart aches for you even though I've never met you and you may not even be born yet. I pray that God will keep you safe until your daddy and I can come and rescue you. There is no greater place to be than under the protection of our Lord and Savior. So during this time, I must trust that He will protect you and bring me peace until you are in my arms.
Love,
Mommy
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27
