Why not adopt from here...

So this post has been brewing awhile. It's not easy to write, or articulate my thoughts on this. I'm afraid I'm going to come off sounding self righteous, or judgemental.
But darn it, if it doesn't just keep coming up. We started being asked why not adopt from the USA when we announced we were adopting from a foreign country. When the story aired on the local news, among the first comments was one berating us for not adopting from here. When the local paper ran the story, same result. The Russian child being sent back has brought it back up. It's been joked about on late night tv. Why not adopt from here? Why are US parents adopting from overseas when there are kids here that need homes. We should take care of our own children. There are hungry children here. There are abused children here. There is a need here. This was the nicest way people communicated their opinion. There were harsher comments that aren't worth repeating.
And while I can't read people's minds, and I'm making an assumption, it seems that this thought process comes from a place that believes that US born children are more worthy than a child born outside our borders. Now- I am NO way implying that those driven to adopt from the US feel this way. These comments didn't come from adoptive parents. Any adoptive parent I have met understands that where your children come from is a deeply personal decision, and not to be judged lightly.
So here is the answer to this question that was posed in many different ways during our adoption.
-We feel ALL children have the same worth. Regardless of the country of birth. Regardless of how pretty they look in the pictures. While the US does tend to place value on American made, we believe children are God-made and EVERY child deserves a loving home.
-We are patriotic. We love the USA. We know how richly blessed we are JUST because we were born here. We love that our country has a system in place to provide food for the hungry children, safe water to drink, free education, safe homes for the abused, and families for those whose birth families are unable to care for them.
-Our hearts were pulled to Haiti. Where clean water is a luxury. Where education is expensive and out of reach for most. Where one meal a day is a blessing. Where children die daily for lack of basic necessities, like food.

With the situation happening with the Russian boy being sent back, I've heard this opinion more and more. Well, if she adopted in the US, this wouldn't have happened. Well, this is why people need to adopt our starving, abused children. And people should, who have been called by God. But the percentage of starving children is VERY small in the USA. In fact, walking into most low income schools it appears that the children could miss a few meals and it be okay. That is because they are given breakfast and lunch, FREE, paid for by the government, five days a week. In the summer there are free lunch programs. They are provided a protein, a starch, and at least one fruit or vegetable and milk. There is Food Stamps, WIC, and Food Shares all working to insure that families are fed. The cases of starving children is a result of neglectful parenting, not lack of resources. When a child starves to death in the USA, we are grieved that it happened. When a child dies of starvation in Haiti, it is accepted as a sad reality of life.

And the government provides an agency whose sole responsibility it is to protect children. When a child is abused in the USA, they are removed from their home and protected. When a child is abused in Haiti, they are just abused. When we hear of a child made a slave by extended family, we fight to make it right. In Haiti, child servitude is a culturally accepted practice.

And so while my heart breaks for those children put through the system, for it is a broken one, our hearts were called to bring a family to children who there was no system to protect them. Just being born on US soil affords you so much opportunity. Clean water, government subsidized food, free education, and the right to define who you are. Don't believe me, go visit a third world country with a class system. And tell me that a birth certificate from here isn't a blessing.

So to those who believe that we should have adopted from here. That internationally adoption should only happen after ALL our children in the USA are taken care of. I say to you, call DHS and get busy. Because every child has the right to have a loving family. EVERY child. Ours happen to be from Haiti, because we chose to be obedient to where God was leading us.