International Adoption Training

Today Brendon and I headed into town again for the 3rd day of adoption training. Today was focused on International Adoption.
I took these photos as we drove to show you that this last week of rain has already started to have an effect although only very slight. I do hope the countryside is transformed into the lovely green that I am now used to seeing through winter. We have had enough of the brown for now.
Back to the training. It was a very interesting day but had a very low end. We finished off by the social workers talking about each different country. There are only a limited number of countries that New Zealand is able to adopt from. Out of those countries most of them are very expensive. Thailand was our best option (price wise) and we found out today that there are not many children being adopted out of the country at the moment. Normally Thailand adopt 5 children every year to NZ. However this year and next there will be none. This is similar in a few of the countries. The main reason being that the country is making other plans to care for the orphans within the country. Adoption is becoming more common within the country (which is wonderful) and the governments are choosing fostering within the country over international adoption. The Philippines seem to have more children that do need adoption and the country specifically wants their children to go to Christian homes, but they have a lot of requirements including 7 psychological tests which obviously also cost a lot of money. So unless someone has it on their hearts to help us financially with that - it does not seem to be an option for us.
So although it is wonderful to know that there are not that many orphans needing international adoption in most of the countries - it was also a sad reality for most of us at the training - realizing that this is in actual fact not as big a need as we thought it was.
At least we know we have looked thoroughly into the different options available and will continue to pray that the Lord directs us through this whole process.
It is terribly sad for me to think of the thousands of orphans in South Africa that need homes. Unfortunately SA is not a part of the Hague Convention and so it's not an option through NZ Courts.