The Need For Speed

By Laura Davis

When Kurt and Alison Noyce saw their son for the first time, he stood outside alone amid a plethora of colorful wet clothing hung out to dry. All the other orphans were napping, but he had stayed up because he knew his new parents were coming to get him. Three-year-old Jemburu wore the Red Sox shirt they had sent him.

As soon as little Jemburu spotted his new mom and dad, he ran full speed toward them—and then straight past them, says Alison Noyce with a laugh. Finally, she scooped him up and hugged him tight.

“He kept leaning back to look at us…reaching for Kurt and then back for me,” Noyce says. “He wouldn’t let us interact with any other children. A little girl came over and wanted to hold my hand and I thought he was going to punch her. When we came home, he’d say, ‘Don’t look at my mom, look at your own mom’ in the grocery store. It took several months for him to let his guard down.”

Noyce and her husband have adopted two boys from Ethiopia—Mikias was almost 5 years old when they brought him home, and Jemburu was nearly 4.

“When I first took [Mikias] to the supermarket I thought he was going to pass out!” says Noyce. “He was throwing himself on the produce. I think it was a survival mechanism.”

“I think they were desperate to have this life,” Noyce says.

Four million children, just like Jemburu and Mikias, are orphaned in Ethiopia—around 12 percent of the total child population, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). These children face a host of challenges from the moment they are born. UNICEF reports that malnutrition is the cause of over half of all deaths among children 5 years old and under in Ethiopia, and the number of continually malnourished children remains considerably high despite aid efforts. Easily-treatable illnesses such as dehydration and diarrhea are responsible for roughly 20 percent of deaths in children under the age of 5. And the AIDS epidemic in Africa has hit Ethiopia hard. UNICEF states that half of a million Ethiopian orphans have lost one or both parents to the disease; 120,000 of them are living with HIV themselves.

Jody Britton is the mother of three biological children and one adopted child named Malachi; and she is in the process of adopting a second child. Britton and her husband finally brought Malachi home from Ethiopia when he was just over a year old. He had been found abandoned with no clue as to how old he was or what happened to his family. Judging by his teeth, those at the orphanage guessed he was around 7 months old when found, says Britton.

As more and more people learn about orphans in Ethiopia and the poverty levels they face, the number of Ethiopian adoptions continues to rise. According to the U.S. Department of State, Americans adopted over 2,500 children from Ethiopia last year. That is a 5000 percent increase in just over 10 years. But that number may drop significantly this year because of some legal changes.

To handle the flow, the Ethiopian Ministry of Women’s, Children’s and Youth Affairs (MOWCYA) was established to review each adoption case after the match with prospective adoptive parents, and after the final court’s approval for a new birth certificate and passport for the child.

Cory Barron, director of Children’s Hope International adoption agency, says because the number of adoptions has grown considerably, MOWCYA “didn’t have the resources to do the volume they had coming in—so they limited the number.”

This past March, when officials at MOWCYA announced they would process no more than five adoptions per day, they claimed they were doing so to improve screening methods and to extend their resources to children in need.

As a result, the Joint Council on International Services projected delays in the adoption process amounting to one or more years.

Hollen Frazier, the executive director of All God’s Children International adoption agency, says she hasn’t seen the process slow down that drastically, but waiting periods have increased.

Frazier says it is not yet clear how these changes will affect everyone involved. Families adopting through All God’s Children International this year have experienced between 18 and 24 months for the process to be completed from start to finish. But Frazier says the agency is preparing families to expect longer even though they haven’t seen an extreme delay.

“With the changes, we’ve added an entire year to the process at this time,” Frazier says.

Shortly after MOWCYA’s announcement and in lieu of growing concerns over ethical practices, officials from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services went to Ethiopia to evaluate the Ethiopian adoptions program. While they acknowledge that a single review of the program cannot give definitive results, they concluded that the majority of Ethiopian children adopted by U.S. citizens do, indeed, meet the definitions of orphan and are approved as such. In the briefing issued on April 6, officials at USCIS confirmed that they support the continuation of the inter-country adoption program in Ethiopia and agreed to keep sharpening analysis of each case that comes through the U.S. Embassy in efforts to help MOWCYA’s defense against corruption.

And it seems the Ethiopian government is continuing to make changes on behalf of those efforts. On Aug. 3, the U.S. State Department confirmed the closure of several orphanages in Ethiopia because their practices were not up to MOWCYA standards.

Director Frazier says she “cringes” when she hears news reports of adoption process delays. She says just recently they received a child who had been abandoned shortly after birth and left alone under a tree between two rocks. “The need is huge,” she says.

“There are still orphans in Ethiopia,” says Frazier. ”Any time you say you’re going to just slow the process, that’s not a child-centered approach. To keep them even a day longer—you see that options get minimized and orphans suffer for it.”

With solid processes and requirements in place, along with little proof of fraudulent activity, it may be time to shift the focus toward the other needs of the children—such as proper nutrition, medical care, education, and a sense of belonging. Needs that can be met by waiting families.

Adoption Ministry YWAM-Ethiopia operates four different orphanages in Ethiopia and works with different adoption agencies to place children with families.

Administrator Becky Burns says while her agency welcomes careful scrutiny and concern over ethical adoption processes, children coming from Ethiopia—even the babies— have severe attachment and bonding issues.

“Our main priority is to get them placed,” Burns says.

Noyce, also a popular blogger, can attest to the bonding issues her own sons have from their orphan years. “Some of the children who have been neglected and shut away are so damaged and it’s heartbreaking,” she says.

“Jemberu often makes statements to me that he knows are not true,” She writes on her blog. “Most of them start with variations of…’Remember when I was a baby..’ My response goes something like, ‘Honey, you know I wasn't your Mumma when you were a baby’. Which leads him to say, 'Just pretend'. Then we imagine what he was like together.”

Sometimes bureaucratic decisions leave little leeway for negotiations, but there are other ways families and those interested in Ethiopian adoptions can influence wait times.

Director Barron says other variables—such as requests for a specific age or gender-- affect wait-times as well. “Parents who are more specific wait longer typically,” Barron says. “If a family is open to any child, the waiting periods go down.”

Britton describes her experience when she went to Ethiopia to get Malachi. “I saw firsthand the older kids that had no hope,” Britton says. “You would walk in and have every child pulling and tugging at you calling you mom and dad hoping that you’d pick them.”

In fact, babies are the most likely to get adopted. According to the Adoption Institute, 46 percent of children adopted are less than one year old, and 90 percent of children adopted are under the age of 5. This means that every passing moment lowers the odds of adoption for a waiting orphan.

As an adoptive mother, Noyce advises other child-seeking parents to broaden their criteria for orphans as much as possible.

“People should be open to those waiting,” Noyce says. “Don’t limit yourself. Consider children who are already waiting for families.”

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Do you have a desire to adopt? Why or why not?

Not To Be Taken Lightly

by Laura Davis

As she headed out the door on her way to a concert that night, Rachel Conner, 14, got a call from her classmate’s mother. Conner knew her friend was sick, but everyone thought her 65-pound weight had something to do with a digestive disorder. As it turns out, she was suffering from anorexia nervosa.

“I was shocked,” Conner says. For the duration of their middle school years, Conner says her friend often called herself “too fat” and didn’t eat much when they were together. After learning of the disorder, the doctor put her friend through therapy to help her gain more weight.

In the following months, Conner occasionally asked her friend about it. “Every time we talk about it she says she isn’t doing it to herself,” Conner says. “It makes me really sad.”

The second time, her classmate’s father called. Less than a year had gone by, and her friend was back in the hospital—weighing below 70 pounds once again.

With the first day of school just around the corner, many teenage girls are anticipating how they will fix their hair, what outfit they will wear, and how they’ll cover up that zit that just keeps coming back. There is an unspoken rule in the air—one that begs each girl to do whatever it takes to have the “perfect image” as Conner and her peers call it.

The Pressure

Lauren Hunter, an incoming freshman at Standley Lake High School in Westminster, Colo., says out of all the expectations facing teenage girls today, “being skinny” is the biggest one.

Hunter’s best friend and classmate, Hannah Lynch, agrees.

By promoting everything from hair straighteners to mascara for longer eyelashes, “Everything in society breaks down everything original and sort of pushes you in a direction that will make you more attractive,” says 14-year-old Lynch. “As a community of girls, we strive to seem flawless…to be the main attraction.”

“Girls expect it from themselves when they see it everywhere,” Hunter says. “It’s all about acceptance.”

And it’s true that teenage girls do see it everywhere. According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD), nearly 70 percent of girls between the ages of 10-18 say their view of the ideal body shape is largely influenced by magazine pictures. However, the typical body image portrayed in the media naturally occurs in only five percent of American females.

High school freshman Cassandra Garcia says she believes fashion trends and expectations are set by celebrities featured in magazines.

“Skinny jeans are totally in, I think it’s because a lot of celebrities wear them,” Garcia says. “It makes us want to look like them even though they’re airbrushed.”

But it’s not just magazines that influence appearance standards for teenage girls. Hunter and her friends list other factors, such as boys, music, television, and even parents’ expectations that help form their perspectives of the perfect image.

Flatirons Community Church Youth Leader, Paul Andrews, has 28 years of experience working with teenagers and four daughters of his own. Although the pressure facing freshman girls is new to them, Andrews says the demand to look beautiful has always been there.

“Women are always judged first based on their appearance because men are naturally wired to see that first,” Andrews says. “And women deep down have an incredible desire to be cherished and loved by men. So the fastest way to get that is to dress or look the part.”

But because of the technology teenagers have access to these days, the problem is getting worse, Andrews says.

“They are being pounded on a daily basis… at home with 300 channels, even on their cell phones,” says Andrews. “It’s everywhere. There’s a constant feeling of inadequacy and how they don’t measure up. They are constantly reminded of what they are lacking.”

The Effects

Appearance pressures facing high school freshmen today can be devastating.

Khampiane Keoeonexay, a teacher at The Manning School in Golden, Colo. describes some of the ways these expectations affect her students and how some of the girls handle them.

“It makes their priorities shift—school falls by the wayside and boys become priority,” Keoeonexay says. “Cutting, bulimia, anorexia—I see that with girls as young as middle school, as well as being withdrawn and depressed.”

In fact, the ANAD states that “over one-half of teenage girls use unhealthy weight control behaviors such as skipping meals, fasting, smoking cigarettes, vomiting, and taking laxatives.”

Youth Leader Andrews says one of the major differences he observes in teenagers entering high school is the change in priorities.

“Friends’ opinions begin to hold more weight than anyone else’s,” Andrews says.

He says he believes there is combination of factors involved. In middle school, pressures exist; but students are still closely tied to their parents. Upon entering high school however, students naturally begin to break away from their parents, Andrews says. Combine their independence with the pressure to be well-liked, and some girls begin to “sacrifice who they are.”

Lynch’s father, Michael, says he observes ways in which his daughter faces these pressures and how she handles it.

“I’ve seen her in different situations when she’s going to be out with friends,” Michael Lynch says. “She takes extra care in preparation. Just going to the mall she feels she has to be something more. I’ve also seen her with her parents alone and she has been depressed, feeling like she’s not accepted [or] beautiful enough.”

Watching his youngest daughter enter high school, Michael Lynch says he feels as though it’s a losing battle because, as parents, it seems “sometimes our voice is discounted because society has such a louder voice.”

The Solution

Teacher Keoeonexay says what’s important is “making sure they know there are more important things out there than being thin.”

“Kids need to build their self-esteem with better friends or events that inspire them,” Keoeonexay says.

14-year-old Conner says her parents and music help her remember what’s true about herself when she feels down.

“The music I listen to is rather self-empowering,” Conner says. “And my parents are really supportive. They compliment me and tell me I look beautiful. I don’t go a day without my dad saying, ‘You look so pretty.’”

Youth Leader Andrews advises parents with children going to high school this year to make sure they have other adult leaders in their lives to help reinforce what’s important.

“The more you hear the truth, the more you’re able to combat the lies.” Andrews says.

Hannah Lynch recommends that teenage girls look for the things about themselves they love. And if they can’t find any, she says they should talk to a trusted friend.

“You can find so many things wrong about yourself,” Lynch says. “But almost anyone else sitting there can come up with five more good things back at you.”

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