FacePalm Friday
Welcome to this week’s edition of FacePalm Friday.
This is where your hosts will list their top picks for this week’s FacePalm moment—something they learned or read about this week that caused the FacePalm to happen (you know, the expression of embarrassment, frustration, disbelief, shock, disgust or mixed humor as depicted in our Rally FacePalm smiley).
We invite you to add your FacePalm of the week to our comments. Go ahead and add a link, tell a personal story, or share something that triggered the FacePalm on the subject of child welfare or adoption.
(1) New Ghana Program NOT “reason to celebrate”
From the PR wing of Bethany Christian Services, One News Now
“”After they saw our foster care program in Ethiopia, we were invited by government officials to partner with them in order to work on inter-country adoption, foster care, domestic adoption and family reunification.” Their adoption program began this year.
Children available for adoption from Ghana may have a history of malnourishment, low birth weight, and/or have other undiagnosed medical needs.
As a pilot program, Batts says, “We’re working with the government and also through the churches to identify potential foster families, and we’re assisting with the provision of training to those foster families.” Government backing gives them credibility, too.
Because they partner with the local church, Bethany can get a better feel for the needs of the community. The church acts as both evangelist and disciple for those in the program, too. “Our staff in Ghana are all Christians, and that’s something that will continue. Many of the foster families will be Christians as we will find them through the Church.”
But they are NOT there to evangelize and proselytize. Sure!
“We have an office in Ghana, and they’re working directly with orphanages and the region to figure out which children could be reunified with their families, which ones could be placed in foster care/domestic adoption within Ghana, and which ones may be best placed in inter-country adoption.”
We will guess that the young girls will be deemed “best placed in inter-country adoption, ” right?
(2)Everyone thinks they are an adoption advocate. Now US APs are using PR statements for Ethiopia. http://www.prweb.com/releases/RuthAnnBox/02/prweb9210497.htm
(3) International Adoption will be FIRST for Bethany in Uganda
As always, this is how US agencies set up programs. They first get all of the young ,healthy kids out. And only THEN do they work on family preservation. Of course they can save the whole country, too!
Bethany steps into overwhelming orphan problem in Uganda
“Ethical ministries and orphan care programs are desperately needed to ensure that Uganda’s millions of children receive nourishment, care..” Ok, we agree with this part…but then
“and the hope of a Savior who loves them.
Enter Bethany Christian Services. A few months ago, Bethany launched a program in Uganda.
“We saw a need to develop more of a structured inter-country adoption program, as currently there are some ethical issues with completing Uganda adoptions,” explains Bethany’s Kim Batts. “So we want to come in and develop a better system.”
It’s difficult work. Weeks have gone by as the ministry works with the Ugandan government to get a better adoption system in place. “We are just processing our first case now,” says Batts.
Besides the time commitment, navigating the waters of values in a sometimes-corrupt system has been hard, as well. “I think that the biggest challenge we face is just ensuring everything is done in a very transparent, very ethical way,” says Batts.
Thankfully, Bethany is making headway. Batts says the ministry is working with an experienced law firm and has contracted a social service worker. They plan to move into foster care and domestic adoption later down the road, which will involve the local church in a significant way. “
They admit that there is corruption and that they JUST got a social worker on board but they already are processing a case! 
(4) Back to Basketball fundraisers. Now Babies of Destiny…
Students Play Ball to Help Ugandan Babies
“For every three-pointer, the teams make, sponsors donate money to the “Babies of Destiny” project in Kampala, Uganda”
“Babies of Destiny” rescues these children and takes them to the Destiny Village of Hope, where they receive care and become candidates for adoption.”
They “become” candidates for adoption. 
(5) Adoption mum ‘let down’ by law despite court order The article should be called how to 
on the adoption that you opened.
“It took over a year to prove my case and yet all of the law should have immediately validated our family status.
“I had to be evaluated over a year to prove I was a supportive parent and in the end I was highly praised.”
Of course, this is about your self-esteem and need of validation.
“A spokeswoman for Warwickshire Police said they had not taken action against the birth mother since there were no powers of arrest under the court order.
She added the birth mother’s actions had been investigated thoroughly, with officers deciding no harrassment offences had been committed.”
(6) South Florida Families Among Many Who Face Adoption Heartbreak
It is sad that someone has spent $90,000 and 28 trips. “”An influential Guatemalan attorney [I wonder who that would be?] helped the family win their case but Albert and Robin Sarkees from North Florida aren’t as lucky. They have made 28 trips to Guatemala and spent almost 90 thousand dollars in the hopes of bringing Micah home – a boy they met as a newborn. That was 4 and half years ago.”
Their story was also at http://guatemala900.org/wp/?p=1845 where it says “Narrator: In Micah’s case, says Robin, a birth mother was identified and even though in the beginning she said that she wanted the adoption to continue, she has recently disappeared. Today, the case is in the hands of a judge.”
Disturbing! “recently disappeared”?
Pair of stupid quotes
(1) “South Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen says families are being held as political pawns by some countries as the U.S. holds countries to a higher standard when it comes to adoptions.
“There’s no doubt that the Guatemalan government and the Vietnamese government want to send the US government a message that they feel discriminated against that they feel slighted and their using the pain of these American families to send a message to the state department as pawns to the state department to say approve us, find some waiver get us in this adoption program again and we’ll let these children go.”
(2)”Lehtinen says she doesn’t expect any fast resolution for these families or for the high number of Guatemalan adoptions to return to what they were in the foreseeable future.”
Guatemala and the US have no plans to go forward with new adoptions or is there something that you know that no one else does?
“The Sarkees’ say it’s a possibility Micah could eventually be adopted by a Guatemalan family. Other families just like theirs have recently been told their children are being adopted domestically. But they say that until that happens they’ll continue to fight to bring him home.”
ALL the children have that possibility as that is what Hague is for. WHY would anyone that is “for the children” want a child to WAIT for a family when one could be found in their home country.
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