Tag Archives: Uganda

Adoption Failure

I’ve written about a number of adoption stories lately, many of them happy, heart-warming tales. But not every adoption story is so good. Adoption inherently involves some form of brokenness, so no matter what there’s already some heartache involved. But in some cases even that measure of hope that comes to a broken story is lost.

These stories suck. But I want to be honest that they happen. That’s pretty obvious after that whole putting a kid on a plane to Russia debacle, but sometimes we need less sensational and more real stories. I don’t want to imply that these cases are completely devoid of hope—I’m kind of an annoying idealist that way and believe hope can eventually come to the darkest situation. But in the midst of that darkness it can be pretty impossible to see the hope. I can only pray it’s there.

In Addition by Adoption I mentioned a family of six that had moved to Uganda to finalize their adoption. It was an incredible story. Unfortunately late last year the family moved back to the United States without their new addition. At the time they weren’t sharing any details, but earlier this month they broke their silence. The dad shared the details and his perspective here and the mom later added her perspective here.

The story, in a nutshell, is that they discovered the 5-year-old boy they were trying to adopt had been abusing their toddler-aged daughter. A history and pattern of abuse emerged, something that’s sadly not uncommon for institutionalized children. They had to make the painful decision to relinquish the child and ultimately chose to return to the United States.

Continue reading Adoption Failure

You Can Change the World: Moving to Uganda to Adopt

Francis holding a picture of his family.In 2005 the Palmer family of Tulsa, Okla. started the process to adopt Francis, an orphaned child in Uganda. In January the Palmers—all six of them—will be moving to Jinja, Uganda to unite their family under one roof and finalize their adoption of Francis.

It’s a crazy story, and it keeps getting crazier. In a nutshell, the Palmers were granted guardianship of Francis but fine print stipulated that they had to come back to Uganda in three years to finalize the adoption, essentially fostering him for three years. Since the U.S. won’t grant a visa under those circumstances, Francis is stuck in Uganda. So his family is coming to him.

How amazing. Stories like this bring tears to my eyes. Adam Palmer, the dad of the family, is a friend of mine (I interviewed him back in 2005 about his book Taming a Liger: Unexpected Spiritual Lessons from Napoleon Dynamite) and I’m so excited to watch their story continue. You can read a newspaper article about their story and follow the journey on their blog.