Sierra Leone

During 2002, we were approached by some friends who were working with a lady expecting twins, and considering placing them for adoption. This did not happen, but got us thinking about having twins, and we started looking around.

Around the same time, we noticed on our agency’s site some information about twins in Sierra Leone needing to be placed in a home. We contacted Georgia again and expressed our interest, and expected a quick, smooth process. Several children had already been placed through the program, and things seemed to be doing well.

We started the tedious paperwork process again, using a new agency for our homestudy, Christian Adoption Services. These were good people to work with, and did their work efficiently and in good order.

In the beginning of 2003, we learned that the children in Sierra Leone were going to be housed in a new orphanage facility, and needed several things to get started. We posted a couple articles on our website from Georgia asking for assistance to that effect. Over the next couple years we were amazed at how many people commented on those postings asking for information about starting orphanages, or for aid in efforts elsewhere! But we never did hear of anybody offering to help . . .

Throughout 2003 and into 2004 we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Delay after delay kept cropping up. In April Georgia traveled to Freetown and visited the children and facility, and sent us an updated picture. However, at the same time, we were hearing of issues with other adoptions through Sierra Leone that were encountering problems with fraud. Since our particular situation seemed to have been verified bonafide, we thought it was just other agencies / people involved.
In September 2004 we learned otherwise; we were told by the American Consulate in Freetown that our intended children were not indeed orphans. An elaborate hoax had been uncovered by the authorities, and our adoption could not proceed.

We were devastated and extremely disappointed that Sennah and Mayeteh had been used as pawns for greedy people. We tried to find out if there were any way to adopt in any case, or perhaps some other children, but the door had shut. Our agency offered to transfer our efforts into their China adoption program, but that wasn’t what we were looking for.

Especially after our first adoption, we believed that we should adopt a group of siblings – twins would be special, but not necessary. When adopting from China, the adoptive parents have no choice in the children, and sibling groups are extremely rare. It would also take at least a year before we’d have a child home, which was longer than we wanted. We also were out of resources financially, so decided to check into domestic adoption.

Sennah and Mayeteh were part of our family, at least in our hearts, for almost two years, and we won’t forget them.

November 2002 - October 2004