Art Journal Page: Why We Chose International

Artsy Journal Templates 3
Sorrow by Tracie Stroud Designs

Since starting our adoption journey, I’ve been asked several times why we chose international adoption over domestic adoption. Sometimes it's friends asking this question (in earnest) and sometimes it's skeptics. I can get very....hmmm, passionate about this question. I want to say, "A child is a child no matter where they are!"

I decided to make a digital Art Journal page about how we chose international adoption. I always like to Art Journal about things I'm passionate about. It helps me to get my emotions down on paper. I'm not much of a writer so I think that the creative process of making the Art Journal page really adds to the emotions I'm trying convey in my writing.

Here is the journaling from my page:

How We Chose International Adoption:

When we started our adoption journey we researched….we researched a lot, but mostly focused on domestic adoption. We even signed up to go to a Domestic Adoption Seminar. Through our research, we found that there are actually more people waiting to adopt domestically than internationally. There are also more restrictions put on families who already have bio-children. Regardless, we were still going to go to the seminar. The seminar was about 3 hours away. We made arrangements for a babysitter and even reserved a hotel room….we might as well make a nice getaway out of it! The week before the seminar we found out that something fell through with the domestic part of the seminar, and they were going to have an international agency there instead. We already had the babysitter and the hotel, why not!? Well, of course, after going we became very open to international adoption. Honestly, we just wanted to give an orphaned child a home and a family. Through this turn of events (which we believe was totally God ordained), we started our journey to adopt from China.

I love my husband’s saying when we discuss this question, “Where do your borders lie?” Personally, my love for orphaned children does not stop at the United States border but extends to all corners of the world.

That is our story. I'm sure everyone's stories are different. 

Here are some statistics we found during our research. It is heartbreaking.

-There are over 400,000 children in the United States living without families in temporary foster homes. 115,000 of these children are eligible for adoption.

-Around the world, there are 153 million orphans. 17,900,000 of those orphans have lost BOTH of their parents and are living in orphanages or on the streets.

No matter how you look at it all of these children need a home...no matter where they are.
There is definitely much more I could say on the matter but I'll stop there.

-Liz

P.S. If you want to read a little bit more about domestic vs. international adoption I think this blog post is very informative.