Burden of Proof

(Repost)
My intent for Carrington's blog was never to write about an organization and bullying within the adoption community. It was created to share our Princess' story and to hopefully advocate for other children to find families.  Our family 100% supports and believes in adoption! What an amazing way for families to share their love and for children to receive that love.  But, I also never thought this kind of activity would take place in a community that was centered around orphans. God has His purpose for our family's journey. I am not saying I always understand it or even really am joyful about the events, but I will say that I see His hand in this.

This constant battle with Andrea Roberts and Reece's Rainbow over the grants is such a waste of not only valuable time but valuable efforts as well.  Andrea Roberts was caught trying to obtain information about our family illegally from USCIS.  She tried to have an officer there give information for which she (Andrea) did not have signed consent.  STRIKE 1

Then she continues with wanting me to give extra information not required of other families. STRIKE 2

Now RR spent ridiculous time and money (which has come from what fund I wonder?) to go so far as to contact my social worker's HR department for which she works at as her primary employment to leave a message, not saying "please have her call us" but instead left details about our family and our adoption. This was a message.  Why did the secretary of this company need or even want to know about our family or our adoption. BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY.  RR then continued with sending a letter to my social worker at her place of employment feeling the need to notify her that our family may be illegally using her name to write a letter of approval saying we can  adopt our children.  And that they don't know why we would have this letter sent when RR has a specific form to be used and why she didn't use it.  First of all, my sw did sign and turn in their form after an email stating we didn't originally use that form bc it was a preapproval form and since we already had home study complete we just had our social worker send a note saying she approved us.  The letter goes on to say that RR feels the need to tell my sw that we had a "failed" adoption and never paid that money back.  Once again, is RR an agency or a ministry?! Unlike some people in the adoption world, our home study has complete disclosure of our adoption history not to mention the fact that my social worker has been involved with our family's adoptions for a few years.  Once again time rr has not bothered to go through the right channels that a 501c3 organization, NOT AGENCY, should. They reassured me of my information remaining confidential yet I can name specific instances in which it has not.

1. RR team contacting facilitators in Ukraine to try and locate which one we were using and to tell that person to contact serge to discuss our family's adoption 
2. Andrea Roberts contacting USCIS to try and obtain information about our family's adoption without having our permission to do so.
3. Contacting HR dept of our sw's place of employment and leaving detailed information with a secretary.
4. Other families contacting me to share the fact that Andrea Roberts has talked about our family and our information to them.

This is wrong. This is childish bullying. RR then concluded that letter with a statement which said they are not trying to stop our family's adoption.  STRIKE 3

Legal counsel has shared with us that these actions of an organization which operates under a 501c3 status are not acceptable and that we are not to release any more of the information which has no bearing on our children's status as orphans who are legally listed as able to be adopted.  

Furthermore, our status as being approved by USCIS in no way dictates that we need to prove our suitability as approved adoptive parents. Yes, there is  bit over $25,000 in grants that have been lovingly donated and raised for the children we are in process of adopting. We have submitted paperwork for those grants which will be used for the adoption of our son and two daughters.  We are thankful for such organizations as Grace Haven and Life2Orphans for helping us learn about our children, their birth information, location, and current status. There is no mistake who our children are nor the fact that our facilitator has indeed correctly submitted our petition for the children who are known as Nolan, Paige, and Lauren on the website of Reece's  Rainbow. 

Now that those issues have been cleared there is no legal reason the grant funds for our children shall not be disbursed prior to our departure to Ukraine as verified once agin by legal counsel.  Truly if RR does desire to uphold their obligation to the orphans than they should do so by disbursing the children's grants upon our travel date verification and not by their own private agenda. Their obligation is to help children and families find each other, not determine which family must jump through which hoops depending on what Andrea Roberts feels.  They should be using funds from their organization in a better manner than sending overnight mail to social workers to report slanderous allegations. 

Our family is adopting our three children and look forward to completing this process this summer!