Having my sister here for a few days was wonderful. She spent a lot of time playing with Ella, and I enjoyed watching the two of them together. I love my family delighting in my little princess.

In between walks, playing in the park and all the other routines of the day, we had many discussions about adoption, particularly international adoption. My sister was interested in hearing about Guatemalan adoptions and the country of Guatemala itself.

I told her about the widespread poverty in Guatemala, the corruption in the political arena, and the devastating effect that the drug pipeline is having on the country. Equally important, I told her about the warm kind people of Guatemala and the physical beauty of the country itself. I shared my fears about adoption shutting down and my frustration with the politics that surround adoption yet rarely focus on the best interests of the children.

She was astounded that over 25,000 children have been adopted from Guatemala over the years. Frankly, that number is mind boggling to me as well. Each adopted child has a family and most often an extended family, but they touch the lives of more than just their family. They have contact with neighbors, classmates, people they meet in any number of formal and informal situations as well as their community at large.

Probably many of you have shared your knowledge of Guatemala with family members, who in turn share this information with their friends and colleagues. Slowly but surely more people become familiar with Guatemala and can even find it on the map.

When you examine the statistics on international adoption and realize that since 2002 over 20,000 children a year area have been adopted from abroad, you realize that there is hardly a person who hasn’t been touched by adoption through family or acquaintance.

Sharing our children’s heritage is often an inevitable part of raising them. We can’t nor should we ever ignore their birth countries and their heritage. The more we educate ourselves the more we have to give to our children and those around us. Our private world has grown to include another country – the country of our children’s birth.

My sister mulled all this information over and concluded that maybe international adoption will somehow lead to world peace. I am hopeful that being more informed about other cultures and countries will help eliminate the ignorance that often leads to fear and prejudice.

More Reading on the Subject:

Adoption Statistics

Guatemala Country Information

Celebrating Heritage