(Repost)
So many people reached out/commented regarding my post about no longer being held back by fear. As promised those comments will remain between you and myself but I will say that through your comments and stories I realized that there is a paralyzing need for standards to be upheld and for those who knowingly violate them to answer for the actions they have chosen!!!! I say "chosen" because we are all human and many of us make honest mistakes; I am one of those who makes mistakes daily. The differences for some though is that their actions are not mistakes but rather they are choices and they do not learn from their actions.
Last year during the 6 month long battle our family endured for our boys, Kelten and Teagan, there was this nagging feeling that what was happening was not by chance. How is it our status at USCIS was known to "others" when in fact not one person was given that information by my husband or myself? Brian and I (like so many others I am learning) sacrificed everything we had to fight for our boys, to show we did NOT give our daughter up for adoption, that we did NOT intentionally withhold information. In fact, we asked, no we begged, for Jenna Howard, our social worker, to please come verify that those anonymous allegations were false. We hired the best attorney to present our case to USCIS. She was confident that we were going to be able to overturn the initial decision. But somehow, "anonymous" phone calls kept making their way to USCIS and others regarding our ability to parent. At the same time, our status was being discussed on chat groups such as those amongst Bulgarian families as well as RR groups. Not to mention the private messages on FB. Even I know that just because something is labeled as private does not at all mean it is private.
As my journey continues towards becoming the person God has called me to I realize just how much I am bound by so many things but fear was never meant to be one of them. We are all bound to things such as honesty, ethics, morals, and faith according to God's word. Well, in the secular world as well there are things to which people are bound to. Again we see ethics, honesty, confidentiality being discussed in offices and board rooms across this land of ours. In the adoption realm, confidentiality is a HUGE factor for everyone involved. If you stop and think about it for a moment, adoptive families are literally laying themselves open and without any protection when they release their home study to their agency and facilitator. Every piece of identifying and private information is right there.
So many people reached out/commented regarding my post about no longer being held back by fear. As promised those comments will remain between you and myself but I will say that through your comments and stories I realized that there is a paralyzing need for standards to be upheld and for those who knowingly violate them to answer for the actions they have chosen!!!! I say "chosen" because we are all human and many of us make honest mistakes; I am one of those who makes mistakes daily. The differences for some though is that their actions are not mistakes but rather they are choices and they do not learn from their actions.
Last year during the 6 month long battle our family endured for our boys, Kelten and Teagan, there was this nagging feeling that what was happening was not by chance. How is it our status at USCIS was known to "others" when in fact not one person was given that information by my husband or myself? Brian and I (like so many others I am learning) sacrificed everything we had to fight for our boys, to show we did NOT give our daughter up for adoption, that we did NOT intentionally withhold information. In fact, we asked, no we begged, for Jenna Howard, our social worker, to please come verify that those anonymous allegations were false. We hired the best attorney to present our case to USCIS. She was confident that we were going to be able to overturn the initial decision. But somehow, "anonymous" phone calls kept making their way to USCIS and others regarding our ability to parent. At the same time, our status was being discussed on chat groups such as those amongst Bulgarian families as well as RR groups. Not to mention the private messages on FB. Even I know that just because something is labeled as private does not at all mean it is private.
As my journey continues towards becoming the person God has called me to I realize just how much I am bound by so many things but fear was never meant to be one of them. We are all bound to things such as honesty, ethics, morals, and faith according to God's word. Well, in the secular world as well there are things to which people are bound to. Again we see ethics, honesty, confidentiality being discussed in offices and board rooms across this land of ours. In the adoption realm, confidentiality is a HUGE factor for everyone involved. If you stop and think about it for a moment, adoptive families are literally laying themselves open and without any protection when they release their home study to their agency and facilitator. Every piece of identifying and private information is right there.
TRUST
CONFIDENTIALITY
HONESTY
These 3 words in essence are just synonyms of each other. For our family, each one of those things were violated during our Bulgarian adoption. Pieces of information being shared about our family were being shared by Shelley Bedford and Amanda Unroe and Toni. I know because I have seen. Again, what about our status at USCIS? How was that so known to people?
I now know how.
I know because it has once again happened. Once again information about our family was being sought after without our permission. This information was being sought after by Andrea Roberts, the founder of Reece's Rainbow. We are of course proceeding with our adoption of 3 beautiful children from Ukraine which means we have filed an I600A with USCIS. We also have been made aware that our children have grants which were donated towards them-OUR CHILDREN- by many people. The required paperwork was filled out by my husband and I. There was however, a few things we did not agree to and those were giving any additional information to RR that was not required by other families and we did NOT agree to let anyone associated with RR talk to anyone about our adoption. Certainly it was not needed by RR because they are not an adoption agency but rather a ministry whose goal is to find families for orphans all over the world. So since we did not give permission than not one person from RR should be discussing our adoption with anyone, right? WRONG!! Last week I received another email from Michelle Zoromski telling me that if we did not fill out the paperwork completely that our grant money will not be released to us. I called my officer at USCIS to speak with her about this.
It was then I discovered that Andrea Roberts had illegally called USCIS to speak with my officer about her opinion that she questioned our ability to adopt and whether or not we could even be adopting since our I800A had been denied. She also wanted to know what our financial status was and if we met the requirements of USCIS.
First of all, we had already completed an adoption recently and second of all what in the world was she doing calling our officer to speak about our adoption when she was NEVER given permission? Oh wait, let's back up because I also am once again wondering how does she even know who my officer is. I certainly have not told anyone. Through my conversation with my officer I was able to see that once Andrea was not able to get one piece of information about our family nor our adoption is when that email was sent to me. It is here that I will most happily say that our officer at USCIS not only upheld her oath for confidentiality but this officer exercised complete ethical actions by not releasing one single bit of information as she did not have permission to do so. This is not the first time this has happened nor are we the only family this has happened to. At first this was a gut feeling that was embedded deep within me but last week it was made into a sick reality for our family.
Where is the ethics of this ministry? And who is Andrea to decide that a family is fit to adopt or not? That is the role of the social worker who performs the home study and USCIS not her. I have struggled with whether or not to share this information but once I wrote of no longer being bound by fear I also knew that I must share the truth about the lack of ethics being displayed here. We are called by God to adopt these children. NOT by Andrea Roberts nor Michelle Zoromski or anyone else with any organization. We have met the necessary requirements as put forth by our government and our social worker to proceed with our adoption. Whether or not Andrea likes us or thinks we are a threat to her ministry does not give her or anyone the right to act as if they are God. I am pretty sure He can take care of things Himself without her help. Yes, I am quite irate that someone who started a ministry with the beautiful goal of helping orphans find forever families would be getting a complex that she was above the rules. Again, there are mistakes and then there are choices. She is making choices to derail the adoptions of so many children and she will need to answer for the choices and actions she has taken. This needs to stop as well.
Andrea has no idea what our family is like on a daily basis much less even taken the time to come to our home and spend significant time with us. I do not judge anyone for which children they parent or choose not to parent; how many children they choose to parent or whether they parent any children at all. Our family is just like so many of you out there. We get up, eat, get dressed, go about our day and our tasks. We have good days that are filled with laughter and smiles and we also have days that tears are shed and sometimes temper tantrums are displayed on the living room floor. Days in which our children make so much progress and then days where it seems our children have slipped in their progression. Days in which the house is in order and other days in which it looks like a tsunami hit ( please don't come on those days bc I don't know if my door will even open). JUST LIKE YOU ALL. We are parents who love each of our children at home, in Heaven, and across the ocean.
I will answer to God about my life here on Earth. That is enough for me and for my husband. We teach our children to try their very best and to stand up for what is right. Right now our oldest daughter is the only one aware of what is happening but one day when my other children reach a point in their lives where they will have to choose ethics over being richer or bigger or more popular I will share with them the story of just how their own mommy and daddy were faced with such a decision and how our choice to stand up for what was right, not what was easy or most popular is not only what brought their siblings home but also what God wanted all along!! This has not been easy in any way!! It has involved emotions that have literally left us spent but we feel that we have walked the road God has wanted us to and we know that He will equip us with whatever we will need. In fact, He already has!!
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