Reuniting

Just under a year ago, Pepperdine hosted an international conference focusing on the ethics and advisability of Inter-Country Adoption (ICA).  This topic had hit my radar screen in late 2011, just before my family moved to Uganda in January of 2012 for six months.  A close friend introduced me to an American family who had been denied legal guardianship over an orphan girl badly in need of a family.  After meeting with the family and learning their plight, I became involved in the appeal in the case through consulting with the Ugandan attorney representing them.  This involvement, in turn, crossed my paths with a British man living in Uganda who, along with his lovely wife, poured their heart and soul into securing Ugandan families for Ugandan kids in orphanages, mostly through reuniting the kids with their extended families and economically empowering the families to take care of these kids.

While the appeal was ultimately successful, my numerous conversations with the American family, the Ugandan attorney, and the Brit opened my eyes to the deep complexity of ICA I had never realized lurked beneath the surface.  The intensity of commitment of the American families, usuaully driven by an abiding conviction that God was directing their efforts to provide a home to institutionalized kids, was humbling an inspirational.  No less humbling and inspirational, however, was the intense commitment, driven by an abiding, faith-filled conviction that the availability of ICA directly led to documentable horrible decisions by Ugandans, including the falsification of death certificates, the coercion of young mothers to abandon their babies to orphanages involved in ICA so the children could have a better (Western) life, and the outright sale of children to those who could get the kids adopted to Western families.

No one on either side of this heart-breaking debate seems to dispute that both really good and really bad things are happening in the ICA realm.  The quibble is with percentages of each outcome.  This debate led me to suggest and assist in organizing the ICA conference in February of 2012.  Among the dozens of participants in this conference were (i) the Ugandan attorney representing the American family in the appeal, and (ii) the Brit with whom I had become quite friendly.  Both stayed with us in Malibu during the conference.

On Friday, I had a chance to reunite with each of them, though separately.  I had breakfast with the Brit and his lovely wife and so admire the dedication they have to intra-country solutions to the orphan challenges faced in Uganda.  They receive intense and personal criticism from all quarters, some of whom see them as a roadblock to ICA, while others complain about their openness to ICA in appropriate cases.  Yet they are here working tirelessly, day and night, on behalf of the lonely children of Uganda.

My visit with the Ugandan attorney was mostly social, but he also offered some words of advice for me to pass along about a family’s situation I became aware of just recently.

I also had a chance to meet up with one of the judges who recently visited Pepperdine, who has recently been reassigned from the Anti-Corruption Division of the High Court to the Family Division.  Several of our students have interned for her in the past, and she expressed a desire to have a student intern with her at the Family court this summer.

Following my meeting with her, Susan Vincent (Pepperdine Nootbaar Fellow) and I met with representatives of the Uganda Christian Lawyers’ Fraternity, Uganda Christian University, and Aaron (Sixty Feet legal intern) to discuss the next iterations of J-FASTER – the juvenile justice program that is moving kids through the judicial system at much more palatable rates than in the recent past.  Pepperdine is blessed to work with such dedicated and competent partners in our quest to serve the imprisoned juveniles of Uganda.

On Friday evening, Susan, Aaron, and I had dinner to with two Americans working for the U.S. State Department.  One of them lives here in Uganda and spends his days training Ugandan police officers in investigative techniques, and the other oversees from Washington, D.C. numerous projects around the world designed to promote the rule of law.  I had met a couple times before with the one living in Uganda, and they were eager to receive an update on our work on juvenile justice and plea bargaining.  We also sketched out some tentative plans to work a little more collaboratively in the future.

I spent a good portion of Saturday with Sixty Feet folks.  As I have written about previously, Sixty Feet is an Atlanta-based non-profit doing transformative work on behalf of imprisoned juveniles and abandoned children in Uganda, providing medical aid, counseling, material needs, and whatever else is needed.  They also have generously funded the financial costs associated with J-FASTER.  Each time I meet with them, I learn of additional projects they have undertaken to improve the lives of these kids who are so needy in so many ways.  A team from North Dakota had just landed the night before and was gearing up to spend the week doing much-needed repairs and construction projects in the remand home and prison in the Kampala area.  It is inspiring to see working people dedicate their own hard-earned money and God-given talents half-way around the world to assist those in need.

Saturday evening was spent with my closest friend in Uganda, Justice K, and his family.  I learn so much about Ugandan culture and life from Justice K each time we are together.  He is great man among great men and women in Uganda’s judiciary and is an excellent liaison for the Pepperdine program.  We had the chance to dream bigger dreams about the assistance Pepperdine can provide to the judiciary in the short- and long-term future.

Justice K and his law professor wife, Winnie, are expecting #3 in just over a month