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My husband and I have been talking about adopting for the last several years. We both would love to adopt internationally and I really have a passion to adopt out of Rwanda. I grew up there as a missionary kid and love the country and the people. I think that my years there could really benifit the relationship I would have with an adopted child. I know that Rwanda just opened up to international adoptions. We are looking to adopt sometime in 2008 but for now I want to prepare myself and my family for the process. what do I need to know. what questions do I need to ask myself and my family. We have two sons right now. one is 3 1/2 and the other 4 months. what should I be doing to prepare them and myself for the future of an adoption. Any guidance anyone has about every aspect of international interracial adoptions from emotional to logistical to financial would be helpfull. I don't even know how to get started. I'd love to have another adoption mom who would come along side me and mentor me through this process.
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I don't have any experience with Rwanda adoptions (we are adopting from Ethiopia), but I found this information from the US Department of State:[url="http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/country/country_442.html"]http://travel.state.gov/family/adoption/country/country_442.html[/url]Good luck!
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Sure, I'm actually waiting on an email from friends of mine who have been missionaries there for over 20 years. If anyone knows more they do. They actually helped in one of the few adoptions that took place there. I could hear from them any day. i'll relate any info they give to the forum.
I would imagine you'll have a hard time finding an agency that will work with Rwanda, if they've only just opened for international adoptions. Assuming that's true... You'll need to find an adoption attorney in Rwanda. Your friends should be able to ask around and get you a decent reference. Whether you speak a common language with the attorney or not will be a major factor. From that point on, you pretty much do whatever the attorney tells you to do. Also on the Rwanda side...check with the U.S. Consulate in Rwanda and see if they have an adoption fact sheet. Mali has only one US adoption on record in the last 5 years, but even our embassy had a fact sheet on adoption. It was very informative and helped a lot with at least starting my dossier. The U.S. side, so far, has seemed to be fairly straightforward (I can hear the others laughing at me now). The USCIS website is really good, though there are a few things I've come across that need to be changed. Just remember that there are two governments to deal with, which means two sets of hoops to jump through! A good reference book for the basics is How to Adopt Internationally: A Guide for Agency-Directed and Independent Adoptions by Jean and Heino Erichsen. If you want a rough flow chart of what has to happen, let me know and I'll go into more detail for you. That having been said, there's not an actual child in my house yet, so everything I say is to be taken with a pound of salt. It's nice to have someone to feel your way through the dark with, though, because that's what I feel like every day. Good luck!
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