You may have heard that Russia banned Americans from adopting their children. We are saddened by this turn of events, and especially sad for all those children who could have had homes in the U.S. For us, it was a simple right turn in the process. We are really grateful not to have been further along in the process, and God even saved us the $800 we were about to spend on psychological evaluations. There are almost no downsides to switching to Ethiopia and there are lots of positives, including:

• Only 2 trips to Ethiopia vs. the 3 trips to Russia.
• It’s cheaper. This has some to do with the number of trips as well as the relatively simpler process.
• The chances of the child having fetal alcohol syndrome are almost nil. This is the only thing I was really concerned about with Russia. I know God provides all we need when He gives us hard stuff to deal with, but it was still a concern for me and I’m glad that it’s not an issue anymore.
• The kids are less “institutionalized” in Ethiopia and tend to come from families where a parent or both parents die. From what we’ve read, kids from Ethiopia tend to do pretty well because they come more from family settings.
• He’ll be older! Buckner only does adoptions for kids older than 4 years for some reason. We were hoping for a much younger child from Russia, specifically to avoid heavy impacts of institutionalization, but we are perfectly happy to get an older child too. This also means no diapers!!
• We’ll have more opportunities to talk about adoption and our reasons for adopting. A Russian child would have probably blended into our family pretty well, but a child from Africa will cause lots of questions from random strangers.

The waiting period at this point will probably be at least a year, but it really depends on what kids come into the Buckner transitional home in Addis Ababa.

Resting in God’s sovereignty…