NightLight Inc. Agency

The photos below are just a preview.  There is so much more to come!

Transracial adoption is an issue to be addressed in any adoption. Adopting an embryo transracially can force a couple to consider a new and very different comfort zone.

Most families do not consider a transracial adoption of embryos because they will be experiencing a pregnancy and giving birth to a child. This experience is as close to having biological children as any adoption can be. The initial reaction of most is that the children we give birth to should look like us or at least be the same race or combination thereof as the parents. Embryo adoption is unusual enough, and to ask families to consider a transracial adoption may cause a pause. A very long pause. A family’s capacity could be stretched; yet, for some, transracial adoption could be the very right decision.

First, embryo adoption as with all adoptions is not to create children for couples. As with all adoption, it is a means to allow children to grow in a loving family. Second, some embryos, as with some orphans, wait longer for a family because of their race/ethnicity. Unlike other children, they are faceless and nameless. Their cute little faces do not have the chance to say, “Yes, I look different from you, but I sure am adorable.” These embryos, like all orphans, need a family to love them.

Even for families who more than eagerly would adopt across racial lines, the idea of delivering a baby outside of their race would cause too much concern of what the experience would be like and the reaction of others. Continue reading »

We are so thankful for the news we received the morning of July 1 from Kenneth at Heart of a Child Uganda.  The commissioner at the Ministry of Gender in Uganda has written our approval letter to operate our baby home as a fully licensed baby’s home in Uganda.  We are currently awaiting the minister’s signature on that letter, but we have been given the verbal go ahead to begin accepting more babies into our home.  Praise the Lord!

Up to this point, we have been operating on a very meager budget: rent, utilities, one nanny, and one baby.  We want to thank all of you who have sent financial donations to our Uganda program.  We hope to update you with photos of our progress very soon.

Now is the time that we will need to move ahead fully with funding for the baby’s home.  If you would like to make a donation to our Uganda baby’s home, you can do that from our website. It is estimated that we will need approximately $4,000-$5,000 to operate the baby’s home monthly.  As of today’s e-mail, we only have one committed monthly supporter.  Please prayerfully consider what God would have you do to care for orphans.

We are also putting together materials for anyone who would like to present this ministry opportunity to their church. (For more information regarding these materials, please contact us.)

We appreciate your prayers also as we move forward with our adoption program and our mission trip in October.  Our board has chosen this year’s adoptive families, and they are in the process of gathering paperwork and completing home studies so they will be ready to accept the child that God has chosen for their families.  (These first families are adopting through our Uganda program without paying any program fees to Nightlight.)

Our mission trip is planned for October, and we are currently accepting applications.  If you would like further information about this trip, please contact our mission team leader Chelsea Gosnell at chelseag@nightlight.org.

Thank you again for all your prayers and support.

(You can donate here.)

In Christ,
Lisa Prather, LMSW

We had a great time at our Adoption Reunion Picnic in Greenville, SC, back on June 19. Here are a few photos from the event.

[Show as slideshow]

The attached article by Elizabeth Bartholet of Harvard Law School is an excellent summary of the current state of international adoptions.  It is well worth your while to take a few minutes to read it and understand the obstacles that Nightlight is facing and the reason for the extreme fluctuations in international adoptions over the past 10 years.

According to UNICEF, before the earthquake hit Haiti, there were 380,000 orphans—some living in orphanages—most others living on the streets. Many children could not even get into orphanages, as often there was little room and resources to provide for them, until a sponsoring adoptive family could be found. That number may have now tripled to one million. Because of the great crisis, the first order of business is to meet the physical needs of the children. The next is to care for the orphans who were orphans before the earthquake and then to reunite those newly orphaned children with relatives if at all possible. This needs to be done quickly—find a relative or find a home for a child. Children grow quickly. They need families while they are children.

To do less for orphans is to be reminded of what happens when we turn our backs on those who need our help as shown in Voyage of Damned,  a movie based on the 1939 real life story of a ship carrying 937 Jews from Germany to Havana, Cuba. These Jews knew that with the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany they needed to escape. However, the journey to Cuba was propaganda for the Germans, and the Jews were not permitted to step onto the shores of Cuba. Cuba had recently changed its immigration laws, and only those who had more than tourist visas could finally go ashore. Only 22 of the 937 had the proper immigration documents. The ship then tried to enter the US in Florida, but the Coast Guard stopped them. We all know what happened from there for those on the ship. Later, a Nazi official said that when the whole world had refused to take in Jews as refugees, no country could blame Germany for what happened to the Jews.

Writing together about adoption and the horrors of Nazi Germany may seem like an overstated link. Yet, when certain children cannot enter the US because their government does not have a strong enough infrastructure to produce a proper birth certificate or because a few people actually bribed officials to move the adoption paperwork along faster, thus causing a closure of the adoption program, then the end result is that children will be left behind in orphanages to suffer and often times die. Certainly most of these children will not die because of deliberate and calculated measures, as taken by the Nazis, but because of neglect. Those children who do survive often suffer the horrors of being trafficked as modern day slaves—being forced to work in sub-human conditions or to enter into child prostitution. For the children who do get to live in an orphanage and “graduate” their fate is also dismal: most will turn to a life of alcoholism, drug abuse, prostitution, and crime if they are not the one in ten orphans who eventually commits suicide.

So in essence we have put babies and children on the boat to find a home, but have had to turn them back because their documentation does not meet our or their country’s standards

Others would argue that even if all the children had the right documentation, we Americans could not possibly adopt the 147 million orphans worldwide—thus the implication that just because we cannot adopt all of them, we should not adopt any of them and other measures should be taken to care for them. Continue reading »

Greetings!

It has been an exciting year for Nightlight Christian Adoptions of South Carolina. As you know in April of 2009 Carolina Hope was acquired by Nightlight of California. This transition has been relatively a smooth and successful partnership for all involved. We have really enjoyed working with the California and Colorado staff and are very excited about the new adoption programs we have to offer. Continue reading »

Click on the card to see our 2009 Family Photo Album.