Bethany Christian Services, the largest Christian adoption agency in the United States, said it will soon end international adoptions and will instead focus on supporting children in their home communities.
In a blog post, Bethany Christian Services revealed that its international adoption accreditation will expire in 2021. After that, it will no longer accept new applications.
“Our decision to phase out international adoption is not a criticism of the program, but a reflection of our desire to serve children in their own communities,” wrote Kristi Gleason, the vice president for global services at Bethany Christian Services, in the Jan. 21 post.
“The future of adoption is working with local governments, churches, and social services professionals around the world to recruit and support local families for children and to develop and improve effective, safe in-country child welfare systems. Through these efforts, we served more children around the world in 2019 than we previously served in a single year.”
According to its website, Bethany assisted in 15,000 adoptions over the course of the last four decades. In the blog post, Gleason noted that international adoptions to the U.S. dropped from nearly 30,000 children in 2004 to just over 4,000 in 2018.
The dip in numbers is not due to a lack of evangelical interest, however.
“In the last decade, international adoption practices have dramatically changed around the world,” Gleason wrote. “Nations like Russia, Guatemala, and Ethiopia have closed their doors to international adoption altogether. Other countries have changed their laws and practices, making it nearly impossible to adopt children internationally. In some places where we once helped hundreds of children find loving homes, we now process fewer than a dozen adoptions each year.”
SOURCE: Christian Post, Leah MarieAnn Klett
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