Roberts said he hopes his congregation at Park Cities Baptist Church will connect with Haitian orphanages, send supplies and set up a system where members can adopt children.

PCBC, more Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) vultures, like their criminal counterparts in Idaho.

A search for them on the sbc.net website also brings up “Park Cities Ethiopian”, which is just a mailing address. http://www.sbc.net/churchsearch/church.asp?ID=8211-75225

Wonder why.

For me, all this is nightmarish and it is happening all around the world even as we focus on the situation in Haiti. When I first heard the Haitian PM’s comment that the arrest of the American Baptists was a distraction, I did not agree with him as regards the situation in Haiti. I was thinking about all the other babies all around the world being extracted to satisfy a demand which is seldom questioned. And while we focus on the murkiness of international adoption we are distracted from sustained thought about the fact that the very countries from which these “rescuers” arrive are the same countries which are helping to create broken societies all over the world by starting and supporting wars, by international profiteering – by using according to Faithless [http://tinyurl.com/yduowgt], the weapons of mass destruction of wicked minds, greed, racism, fear, misinformation and tolerating only inaction by quashing societies’ rights to self-determination.

Mike Roberts, there, is a “Christian” and having been raised as one myself I have personal experience of the delirium that can blind us to the obvious. First of all I am having great difficulty with these grand, much publicized gestures that go against the admonitions outlined for Christians in Matthew, Chap. 6, verses 1-6. [http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=47] I once asked another Christian couple why they had made the decision to adopt a child from another hot supplier of bodies at the moment. The answer was a stunning, “Why not?” couched in triumphalist religious/messianic hogwash and concluding with the usual attempt to deflect – By the way, what’s in YOUR spiritual wallet? I am not fooled by any of it. I can spot shoppers from three miles off.

But back to the Texan who wants to outsource child procurement over the backs of the local sources. Here is what the Texas Child and Family Service Review has to say about the profile by Race/Ethnicity of the children in need of rescue right there in Texas:

Source: 1/24/08 – CFSR Statewide Assessment Adobe pdf
URL: http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Documents/Child_Protection/pdf/2008-01-24_CFSR_Statewide_Assessment.pdf
p. 18

Data Profile by Race/Ethnicity
Disproportionality is the over representation of a particular race or ethnicity in a particular program or system. In Texas, a higher percentage of African-American children are removed from their homes, although data indicates African-American parents do not abuse their children any more that any other race or culture. A lower percentage of African-American children are successfully reunited with their families, and a higher percentage age out of foster care without an adoptive family or other permanent placement.

Disproportionality also exists for Native American children, although they represent a much smaller population than African-American children. The causes of disproportionality are complex and cross many social systems. The child welfare system plays a pivotal role in the solution, because it addresses the family as a whole and has the potential to prevent future disparate outcomes for African-Americans. By working in tandem with local, regional, state, and national agencies in education, juvenile justice, and health, the child welfare community seeks to identify common issues and barriers to equal access to community services for all Texans.

Data from 2007 shows African-American children in Texas were almost twice as likely as Anglo or Hispanic children to be reported as victims of child abuse or neglect. Even after adjusting for the higher number of African-American children reported as victims, the number of African-American children that were the subject of substantiated reports of abuse and neglect was also disproportionately high, as was the number of children removed from their families. In Texas, even when other factors (such as poverty or family structure) are taken into account, African American children spend significantly more time in foster care or other substitute care, are less likely to be reunified with their families, and wait longer for adoption than Anglo or Hispanic children.

And according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:
URL: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/waiting2006.htm

The 2006 figure for Children in Public Foster Care in Texas Waiting to be Adopted: FY 1999 thru FY 2006 rev. March 2008
was 12,191.

12,191 children are on your doorstep.

I have no reason to believe that they have all found homes or that many more have not since joined the “platoons”.

Finally, to put faces to some of the statistics, I direct readers to search the database of the TEXAS Adoption Resource Exchange without specifying any parameters in order to retrieve the largest return. Just click search. These are some of the very real human beings in Texas still awaiting adoption.

URL: http://tare.dfps.state.tx.us/search/ReportForm.jsp

Peace.