[Pipercub]

I need advice. My daughter has been home and part of our family for a year and a half. She came home at 9 months old. Her foster family seemed to love her very deeply. The foster family was not as poor as many of the foster families I saw visiting the hotel. They dressed nicely. I would describe the foster mother as incredibly gracious. I have mailed her photos three times since we returned home. She borrowed a friends email account on one occassion and thanked me for the photos. Today, I came home (from vacation) and had a delivery from a Guatemalan delivery service (US service stationed out of Miami). Inside was a card from our duaghter's foster mother. After a few sentences about how she thinks about our daughter and enjoys the photos I have sent in the past (the last time was nearly 7 months ago), she advised that she is not able to work because she is very ill and would appreciate anything we might be able to do to help her purchase her medicine. Never in the two and a half years that I have known her (friendly acquaintence - nothing extremely close) has she asked for money.

I am by nature both cautious and very much one to think the best of people. Age and experience however has taught me to lean more towards the cautious tendency, as I know many people have been taken advantage of. A few things come to mind. I know it is highly unlikely that she is fostering any children for income since things have slowed down. Perhaps she is just needing income and not sick. However, perhaps she really is sick and needs medicine. (Her oldest daughter must be about 25 now, and her twin daughters are probably about 21 years old.) I do not feel any obligation to provide income for her. I would not however, feel badly about providing medication for a legitimate medical need. We're not extremely wealthy, but $40 or $50 a month would not be a burden either.

I have a friend who is a spanish speaking pastor that I'm going to have call her to get more specifics on the situation. My husband and I and our spanish speaking pastor friend are in the process of creating an orphanage in El Salvador (about 150 miles away). We also have contacts of Salvadoran doctors. After finding out what she states is her situation, I'm open to exploring an option for providing medicine or medical care instead of money.

Our agency closed their program down there, so I cannot approach them to try to verify her situation.

I know there are a few of you here who have been placed in the position of being asked for financial help from the families that cared for your children before you adopted them. I would like to keep a relationship with this woman because I would welcome the opportunity for our daughter to know about her. However, I also don't want to be a sucker and find out we provided money for a non existant need based on lies. I have no reason to suspect this is a lie. It's just my cautious side coming out. I am wondering if you could offer up any insight about how you might have verified the need and/or offered assistance. Any perspective you might be able to give me would be greatly appreciated.

<3
Piper