Adopting Haitian children can mean a long wait: Silverhill family enjoyed fast push through ‘tiny window of opportunity’

By Press-Register Correspondent

May 02, 2010, 8:01AM

The  Lewises.jpg  The  Lewises.jpg Bill Starling, Press-Register Staff Photographer—Chris and Natalie Lewis sit in February for a portrait with their 10 children at their home in Stapleton. The children are, from left, front row, Benjamin, Anna Belle, Aden; second row, Joshua, Jasmina, Samuel; and back row, Jorana, Isaac, Hopsanna and Lydia. STAPLETON, Ala. — Adopting a child from Haiti was difficult even before the devastating earthquake on Jan. 12.

Just ask Natalie Lewis, who adopted her first child, Benjamin, from Haiti in 2004.

Since then, the Stapleton mother with two children of her own and one domestically adopted child welcomed six more Haitian orphans into her home. Her brood of five boys and five girls range in age from age 3 to 17.

“For my husband, Chris, and I, we just knew that God had called us to adopt,” said Natalie Lewis, who was shocked during her first trip to Haiti in 1998 by the desperate conditions in which the children there lived.

“There were so many street kids, so many orphans, we just knew we had to do something. We knew we had children in Haiti. We just had to find them.”

Finding them was one thing. Bringing them home was another.

That process has been painfully slow for the Lewis family due to stringent adoption regulations between the United States and Haiti. On average, it takes families three years to complete the adoption process, and the Lewises would travel to Haiti to meet their prospective children only to have to say goodbye to them again.

“I have had to hear about first steps, first words and losing baby teeth over the phone,” said Natalie Lewis, who is the stateside coordinator for Lashbrook Family Ministries, which operates Grace Children’s Adoption Home in Port-de-Paix, Haiti.

That’s why Natalie Lewis was so amazed when her friend, Angie Lipscomb of Silverhill, was able to bring home three very young children from Haiti about a month after starting her adoption request.

Lipscomb and her husband, Gordon, ventured to Haiti a week after the earthquake to help out at the adoption home along with Lewis who was there in the hopes of bringing home four daughters she had been trying to adopt for 3 ½ years.

“When they traveled with me the week after the earthquake, I in no way believed they were going to bring home those babies,” Natalie Lewis said. “They were a brand new adoption. So when the Department of Homeland Security said they were going to grant them humanitarian parole, I knew it was a miracle. I was in shock over it.”

The Lipscomb babies also are some of the youngest to ever be approved for adoption in Haiti, Natalie Lewis said. “To bring home twin babies from Haiti who are just 3 months old and their 2-year-old brother is unheard of in Haiti,” Lewis said.

Soon after the earthquake, a freeze was placed on all Haitian adoptions. That freeze was lifted April 9 for adoptions of children orphaned before the earthquake. Currently, the Haitian government is not allowing adoptions of children orphaned since the disaster.

“It was a tiny little open window of opportunity and they let her come through with those babies,” she said.

Natalie Lewis said the quick adoption was uplifting to see.

“It was such a blessing to see her children handed to her because that is the way it should be,” she said. “It kind of restored something for me. Even now, it is awesome to see. The kids have grown and look so healthy when they were so sickly in Haiti. Angie has been given such a gift.”

For more information about Lashbrook Family Ministries or Haitian adoptions, visit www.lfmintl.com or send an e-mail to adoptionhome@lfmintl.com.

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