Will You Adopt Me?

Family and Friends,

We had an interesting turn of events the last couple of days. Francisco, a tiny little seventeen-year-old boy who looks about thirteen, had begun hanging around our house quite a bit. Lynn was getting to know him pretty well, and he is an interesting kid. He has taught himself Spanish, and he and Lynn would sit and talk using a mixture of English, Creole, and Spanish.


One day he asked Lynn, “Will you adopt me?” It actually took a long time to figure out what he was saying exactly, but finally we figured out that he wanted to join our family. We weren't quite sure how to feel when he said that, so we thought it best to find out about his family situation and why he would even think of asking such a thing.

This was a major coincidence, because we have been talking about what we should be doing now in order to adopt an orphan or two a couple of years from now. This is something we have been talking about since we were married, and it turns out in Haiti you have to be married over ten years and be 35 or older to adopt children. Both of those circumstances will occur about 18 months from now for us, so we figured it would be good to start talking/praying about it now and be ready when the time comes. But we never considered the possibility of adopting a teenager.

After asking a few questions we found out the problem behind the whole situation. Francisco's dad was electrocuted a few weeks ago when he touched a power line in Ti-Rivier.  He died instantly. We had heard about that tragic event but didn't really know anyone at that time who was connected to the victim. So after further investigation we discovered that Francisco has a mom and three sisters...two older and two younger.

So I went over to their house to investigate and see if he was living in abject poverty or what was going on exactly. They live across from the Episcopal church and near to our friend Adrian, on a beautiful little yard overlooking the ocean. They invited me into the house and showed me around. Judging by their physical belongings, it was easy to see that they were far from starving to death. They tried to talk to me about adopting Francisco, but my Creole wasn't strong enough to have that discussion at that time. They also wanted to know if I would help one of their daughters get into the US to work and make money to send home to the family. I told them I would return in a couple of days with Patchouko or Chelo to talk more.

Lynn and I talked about the whole situation before I returned and we agreed that it was a clear case of a family who was traumatized and not thinking clearly. Not only was the mother grieving the loss of her husband, but she was scared to death of an unknown future and coping with the situation by imagining all kinds of scenarios that might help, including adopting out her children to rich white people.

This morning I went back to their home with Patchouko. We told them we were sorry for their terrible loss and that we understood they are trying to figure out what their future will be like without Dad around. But we also encouraged them to look to God for strength and trust that He will provide. We assured them that the best option is not adopting out children or sending them off to the USA to work illegally. I made it clear that we would not be adopting Francisco. I'm not sure if they really agreed with us or not, but we ended the conversation by praying together.

This raises a lot of bigger questions that need to be addressed as well. For example, Patchouko told me that every Haitian family dreams of sending a kid or two to the United States or Canada. I told him I wish we could make Haiti a better place so that everyone would want to stay home with their family. He agreed but assured me that as things are now that is not realistic. Do you keep the family together and stay dirt poor, or do you send a couple away forever to have a slightly better life?

How do you help individuals or communities or even a whole country of people catch the vision to remain and work together to make life better for everyone? When everyone's dream is to get as far away as possible, can life here possibly ever improve? If parents are willing to give their children away, you know things are bad. Nevertheless we hold out hope that we can make a difference in this community over the long-term and help families stay together and have a good life in Christ.
 
Enjoy your adventure with Jesus today!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers