Feelin' Good!

I figured out through piecing together bits of information from other adopting parents from CHI that we may very likely be #1 on the list for a single girl 6 years old. We are on the list for the range 2-6 years old. As the age gets younger we are further down on the list, but as of a few months ago we were the first family on the list asking for a girl 6 years old. WOW! This news definitely brightened our spirits! There has been a lot of harsh news lately (last post). Any encouraging news helps!

We love all of your prayers and support!
-DMM

Please Read these articles!

http://m.christianpost.com/news/intl-adoptions-part-2-adoptive-parents-face-difficulty-with-us-embassy-in-ethiopia-68842
http://m.christianpost.com/news/intl-adoptions-part-1-missionary-waiting-4-years-to-bring-home-adopted-son-68146
http://m.christianpost.com/news/intl-adoptions-part-3-is-the-us-state-dept-opposed-to-inter-country-adoption--69783/

#41

We moved up a spot! A family in our agency that had been waiting 2.5 years received a referral this week for 6.5month old twins. Families waiting for siblings generally wait a long time, which they certainly did. How exciting for them. So we move up 1 spot! Woohoo! We would really love to see those referrals keep coming!

Have a great day!
DMM

Why the Wait????

Sorry for the long lapse in updates! I was waiting to hear from our Ethiopia program director when she returned from her trip. She returned last week and sent out a few updates about how her trip went.
She was surprised to find that the Ethiopian courts as well as some regional MOWCYA(Ministry of Women's, Children's, and Youth Affairs) groups were closed for meetings and training. I am assuming the training has something to do with new processes but there was no specifics about that in her update. They will be closed for 2-2.5 weeks. This does not affect referrals being given out but does affect people further in the process.
We were informed that Children's Hope is making progress in contracting with new orphanages, which was one of my hopes for her trip. CHI lost contracts with several orphanages last year do to orphanage closures. The more connections CHI has with orphanages the more quickly the referrals will come through. When referred children move to the transition home(place where they wait for their families to bring them home) then more orphans can be taken into the orphanages instead of being turned away.

Referrals (In her words)
There are children waiting to be referred in the orphanages that we work in.
For children who are abandoned, they must wait 4 months in order to give a birth
parent an opportunity to reclaim the child, or for a parent who has
relinquished, an opportunity is given as well for the relinquishing parent to
come back and claim their child; - with that being said however, the process for
international adoption can actually start after a 2 month wait if no one has
returned, however, an orphanage director can chose to wait the full 4 months
before processing a child.

Documentation on children being referred for adoption takes a while to obtain.
Some documents come from the officials in the zone where the child is from and
some from the region. Many entities have to sign their names to the necessary
documents. If an office is closed for a particular reason, i.e., meetings,
trainings, seminars, etc., which can be called at any time, some paperwork has
to wait until the individual returns to the office. It could be a couple of
days later, a week or two later or a couple of months later.

As you can see from the above information the adoption process has slowed down in many different areas. We previously thought it was mostly due to the MOWCYA only processing 5 cases per day. In reality, the U.S. Embassy's requests for information about the orphans has caused the most significant delays at this point.

Even with all of the unexpected glitches that have come down our path on our adoption journey, we are still full steam ahead. I admit there were moments of doubt, but we talked it through and know that all we really need is to find patience and trust that it is going to happen exactly when it should!

Thank you for your prayers!
Love,
DMM

No News

Not much to say right now. No referrals. However, we are very hopeful that our agency director's trip to Ethiopia yesterday will bring some news. Preferably good news! She will not return until Febuary 3rd. Hoping for good things in the mean time!

Love,
DMM

Priorities!

We have hit another dry spell for referrals. Last one was December 7th. It really affects the morale of the waiting families when we go for such a long time without hearing anything. In 2010 there were around 7-10 referrals per month. There have only been 8 referrals in the last 6 months. I think about the slower this process gets the more children are left without a place to go. The orphanages can only take so many children at a time. What happens when they are full? Do they have to turn children away? It is hard not to get frustrated when you know that the wait is all so that everyone has their i's dotted and t's crossed. It is important to be sure that the children are truly orphans. It is vital that children have a home, food, shelter, and a loving family. How do we make both things happen without causing the children any further hurt and heartache?

Please pray for everyone involved in this process: The children, adopting parents, agencies, orphanages of Ethiopia, Ethiopian government, U.S. Embassy, so that we may make the orphan children the top priority in this system.

Korah!

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day-Monday

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”--Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

Well said!

A Quote from an essay written by Brian Schoeni who adopted 3 daughters from China-
"It’s about taking something that in some ways is selfish – wanting to be a parent – and transforming it into something that affirms the best in humanity: the ability to love someone unconditionally, simply because I choose to."

Just Breath!

This week I was seeking answers.  I think it is probably because I was tired of telling all of our friends and family over the holidays that, "I don't know why it is taking so long."  I made a 2 phone calls and an email before I got the information that satisfied my brain (at least for the time being).  Often, I have heard myself and from others that they get vague answers to their(adopting families) questions.  It is very frustrating, but I also understand that the agency does not want to give families false hope.  I wasn't settling with vague answers this week.  Enough is enough!  So, I dug until I got some sense of what is going on in our agency, the orphanages they work with, the Ethiopian Court system, and the U.S. Embassy.  I got enough to sustain me for now.

So I will try to explain to the best of my ability.  One issue that families who are adopting older children are dealing with is a change in the culture of the region in which our agency has an orphanage.  They are seeing many families give up infants while keeping a child who is 3 years old to help out.  There has also been a shift in the age ranges that adopting families are requesting.  In the past when a child older than 2 years was referred to our agency they often went on a waiting list.  The orphanages knew this and tried not to refer this age because they didn't want the children to wait.  Now there are more families willing to adopt this age so there aren't waiting children anymore.  As a result our agency has let the orphanage directors know that there are families available for older children now.  Finally, the slow down in the entire process has come from the Ethiopian Courts asking for more documentation than ever, the U.S. Embassy making requests for documentation that the agencies can't anticipate, and the Ethiopian government actually deciding to slow down the process by allowing only so many approvals go out per day.

So with all that, we were told that instead of expecting the wait to be 0-3 months we should expect the wait to be 12 months.  Yikes!  All I have to say is at least we have a general idea and live our lives accordingly.  Thank goodness we have already put in half that time, because tomorrow we are officially 6 months on the waiting list.

That is it in a nutshell!

So, we are looking towards the summer for some action!  We appreciate everyone's concern and prayers.  Please keep them coming!

Love,

DMM & MTM