Choosing an Agency

I'm not very motivated to write about things we've already done with adoption, especially this part because it was annoying. When choosing an agency, we looked around online at websites, yahoo groups, and talked with people about Ethiopia adoption programs. We considered how long they've been working in Ethiopia, how long their process is, how much their program costs, how professional they are, and what their reputation is with people who have adopted through them.

After looking into a number of them, we chose CHSFS, based in Minnesota, because they seemed like a clean machine as far as getting you through the process. They had worked in Ethiopia for a number of years and had quite a predictable course to follow. So, we eagerly sent off our application with them and began work on our homestudy. After sending in our application, I started to see stuff posted on yahoo boards about spanking being an issue with some agencies. Some require you to sign a statement saying you will never use spanking or slapping hands or any form of 'corporal punishment.' (On a side note, before we began adoption, I thought that 'corporal punishment' was something for people on death row in prisons or maybe extra special terrorists. I didn't know it included slapping a hand or a swat on the butt). Anyway, this caught my attention because Joseph and I do believe Biblical parenting includes using spanking as a form of discipline. I called our agency to make sure they did not have any hard line position on it. They assured me that they did not, and that they would just want to talk with Joseph and I about it, to make sure we weren't going to be abusive.

Over a month later we sent in our homestudy to be approved by CHSFS. As expected, someone called us about the one sentence in our homestudy, "Joseph and Heidi believe there are situations where corporal punishment is appropriate." This needs a separate post, so look for more later, but after our exchanges about spanking, CHSFS said they would not work with us anymore.

So, we were back where we started in September - looking for an agency. We were wary of signing up with a small Christian agency, based on some bad reports and unprofessionalism we knew about. Then we found America World Adoption. We were immediately impressed that they had a good website. After doing some research on yahoo groups again, we found nothing but good things about them. We also checked their website carefully for spanking and were relieved when we found they absolutely believe in Biblical parenting. We were further encouraged that Joseph's sister is friends with the woman going to Ethiopia to set up a transition home for AWA. All of these seemed like a go ahead and we sent in our application in December. We've been quite happy with them so far and look forward to continuing to work with them.

Lesson learned - when choosing an agency make sure you agree with their basic assumptions of what makes a good parent.