One day we will get our call

We continue to wait for a referral from the Haitian government. We have recently received some details that lead us to believe a referral is around the corner any day now and God has been pressing into me to expect this referral and prepare for it.   Just yesterday in the devotional book our church is currently reading, Draw the Circle, I read the devotional on Acts 10:3 which is "One day around 3 o'clock he had a vision".   And from that devotional I kept thinking about the referral call we are waiting to receive and that ONE DAY it will just come....it will just be there.   That ONE DAY could be today, tomorrow, maybe Friday...but it will come.

Things tend to slow down around Christmas in the IBESR (Haitian governing authority over adoptions).  If anything is going to happen this year it will happen this week.  After this week, most of the staff will be off for Christmas and the New Year.  So we are praying intensely that ONE DAY around 3 o'clock this week we will get news! I am prayerfully expecting to get a call this week, and this will be my Christmas miracle!  

Possible news....possibly?

Well, we believe we have possible news and it looks like things are really starting to gain speed on the Haiti adoption front.   Since February of this year we have been in a LONG wait, just waiting for news.  Many times we hear rumors of news and become very hopeful the rumor will turn into actual news for us, most of the time it hasn't.  However, we believe we may really have some positive news and movement soon...hopefully, as in tomorrow.   Unfortunately due to the some of the rules governing adoption we can't share actual details.  But what I will say is that we covet prayers tomorrow on October 23rd as we believe a big step in our adoption might be occurring.  Coincidentally, this is my birthday and I couldn't think of a better birthday gift then to get confirmation of a next step being completed in our adoption!  GODdly enough (did you see what I did there) every single BIG step in our adoption process has landed on one of our birthdays. I wish the adoption process could be more transparent and we could share all these steps that have occurred on birthdays, and some day when we are at the end of this we will be, but for now, I will just say that it would be so appropriate with our adoption for this big news to occur tomorrow.

We are so anxious to finally bring our sweet girl home and I am really feeling like we are entering the home stretch. Every time we do something fun as a family I find myself daydreaming and adding our 4th family member into the scene and imagining what it will look like when she is home.   Two years is such a long time to be anxiously dreaming and imagining this child in your life.  It also is an even longer time for her who is spending her every day waiting in a creche.  It breaks my heart to think of the years and years that she has spent outside the love and care of a family dedicated to her. But I/we trust in a GREAT Jesus who can restore all things and know that He will create good from all of this!

On another note, we have been so blessed to have two of our church families going through this adoption journey with us.   I think it is going to be huge for all of our kiddo's to have this connection to each other when they finally come home, as they are already family to each other and will have this bond that will forever connect them. One of these families is Josh and Kim Phanco, and they are literally running the race of adoption.   Josh is preparing to run a marathon and through this adventure is raising money to help fund their adoption.  You can read about it here Adoption is a Marathon .  International adoption is expensive, there really is no two ways around it.   But it also is an amazing opportunity for others to get involved in something that is greater, part of God's calling for us to care for the orphan.  If you feel called to help the orphan one of the many ways you can help is help another family in the financial cost of adoption.  If you feel led to help the Phanco's you can go to Eternal Family Program and donate to their adoption (add Josh and Kim Phanco as designated family).   I know for us the assistance of our friends and family in this adoption journey has made what was an unattainable goal become attainable and we are so grateful to those who have come along side us.

I hope to have another post very soon telling you we have news!  Stay tuned.......

News, news, news

We are celebrating that we are FINALLY hearing news today.   We don't have any news specific to our case, but we have news.   That may not sound like much, but to us this is HUGE.   I won't bog you down with over technical adoption language and details, but in very simple terms the stage we are at is called the referral stage. We, along with MANY other families, have been stuck in this stage and there has been NO movement for anybody in this stage since late 2013.  Basically all of these families are waiting for the IBESR (Haitian governing division over adoptions) to issue the referral of a child to them, which makes the child match official and also triggers the required 2 week bonding trip.  From that point, the usual average is about 6 months and the child comes home.  Ok, so whenever I tell people this they think 6 months is such a long time. And I do absolutely agree, but in a process that has already been a year and half with very little movement, 6 months seems like nothing and we will take it!  

I don't really know how many families like us are stuck in this stage; my semi educated guess would say probably 150 to 200 families are in this stage of waiting. We have been waiting since February of this year with basically no updates and no movement.  And while today's news is not specific to us and we aren't aware of any movement with our referral, we are celebrating as many creche blogs and our agency are reporting that IBESR has issued the first 3 family referral matches and IBESR is indicating there are many more to come soon and that they are hiring an additional 5 staff members and a new judge to assist with all this upcoming movement. This is so encouraging and I truly feel in my heart we will have our referral very soon.  I also feel overjoyed for the children and families of the first 3 matches.  

I can feel God working right now and can see the work He has been been doing in us recently to prepare us to enter into this next exciting stage.   When we decided to adopt we did not step into this without much prayer, education, and preparation.  It is a very popular misconception that families who are adopting are going to bring a child home who is grateful to join there new family and all the luxuries that American's have.  This is NOT the case.  When you think about an orphan, the fact that they are in that position means they have lost their biological parents by one circumstance or another, not only that, they have been through many tragic situations and have been living in a state of limbo without knowing where they belong or having any confidence that they belong to anyone or what their future holds.  Ed and I were just talking last night about how in our childhood we never once doubted we had a family, never once doubted that the place we called home would not be there, never once doubted that someone was caring for us, never once doubted we would have food, water and shelter, and we always took these basic needs for granted and were blessed with abundantly more.  An orphan child has spent much of their life with all of those doubts and have most likely at multiple times seen each one of those things played out, can you imagine???? It breaks my heart, actually destroys my heart to think of any child experiencing that.    So we know when our child does come home, that our job is to enter into that dark place of mourning with her, and to show her the most intentional love and have great compassion with her as she processes through all of her fears, anxieties, loss and all the many scars she has buried in her soul. The past few weeks I have been feeling more and more compelled to again dive back into learning more about this emotional process and arming myself with many tools on how to best walk through these deep wounds with our child.  We have been praying over our child's wounds and her heart.  The Amazon boxes with new books on this subject have been showing up regularly.  Now, that I have gotten this news, I can see God's work in reigniting this desire to be educated the past month as I know HE knows everything and the exact timing of our journey and is preparing us for what is next to come, and I believe He has confirmed to me that it is coming soon.

So, what is next?  Well, we wait, we wait for the next email or phone call from our agency saying it is time and that our referral has been made and we need to go to Haiti for our 2 week bonding trip.  We are so thankful for so many of you who have been faithful in praying with us over our adoption and family. I cannot tell you how encouraging the comments, notes, emails, and facebook post are when you let us know you are praying.   So for specific prayer request, we are praying first for the heart of both of our girls to be prepared for what is to come in our family, we are praying every night for the safety and care of our adopted daughter and for peace and confidence in her heart that she belongs to our family and she will come home. We are praying for our wisdom in how to parent our children and the challenging situations we know will come.  We are also praying mightily that our referral will come very soon....very, very soon!

We do have a few other ways you can step in and help this adoption if you would like to.  As we stated above, our next step will be our two week trip, which requires airfare and in country lodging at $110 a night. And then, Lord willing, 6 months after that will be round trip purchases of 2 more air tickets....but more importantly the purchase of a ONE way ticket from Haiti to USA......I get butterflies even thinking of that ticket!  We do all our flying through American Airlines, so if you by chance happen to have some extra AAdvantage miles you aren't planning to use or would like to donate we would love to have them (unfortunately, American does have a transfer fee they charge to do this).   But if you want to do this we would be SO appreciative and you can do so at    AAdvantage Point Sharing and our AAdvantage number is 5ELV526 .

Another option where you can help us with travel expenses, if you feel led, is you can donate (tax deductible) through our fundraising website at Lifesong Adoption Donations , just complete the online form and fill in "#4035" in  Family Account Number field and "Daniel Family" in family name fields.

Again, we are praying for BIG movement soon and feel like it is coming.    I hope we will be posting many more updates very soon.   It is funny, when I posted a quick announcement this morning another adoptive mom from Chances for Children posted a comment to me that was exactly my sentiments.  She said she hasn't been keeping up her blog lately as things have been so discouraging.   I have thought this so many times, so I am SO excited to be posting again and to feel as though this season of waiting and discouragement is near its end!

The Waiting Game

Here is a quick update on where we are at.    Our paperwork has been with the Haitian Government in the IBESR department since the beginning of February 2014.   This is the phase where they will issue us an official referral of our child.....it also is one of the longest steps in the adoption process. We were told that we should expect to be in this phase with relatively no news or updates for 6-8 months.  Of course we are praying daily for less than the expected time.....we also are being told to be flexible with our expectations as there are many cases where families get stuck in this step of the process for periods much longer than 8 months, ugh, I try not to let my mind go there.  

For about a two month period we were being told there was basically no activity in the IBESR with regards to issuing referrals.....that was discouraging news to hear.   However the past few weeks our hopes have once again been lifted as we are hearing that the IBESR is now starting to issue referrals again.   Literally every day I wake up I pray and hope and pray again that today will be the day we receive a phone call or an email telling us our referral has been issued.    Our adoption agency that would be making this call/email to us is on the East Coast- 3 hours ahead of us.   A crazy thing adoptive parents do (me) is wake up with anticipation every morning and the first thing I do before even getting out of bed is do a quick scan of my email to see if there is anything new in my inbox from American World Adoption (our agency).  It's crazy, I know, it just is a part of this.   And every night I pray over our future child in hopes that she knows she is loved and wanted and has a family and that she is being cared for and having all her needs met. In the meantime I try to do things that I think will be helpful for her when she gets home, like getting her room all set up for her and researching programs within the school system to help her transition home.  Claire likes to pick out toys for her that we set aside just for her to play with when she finally comes home.

So time keeps creeping by.  It is funny, I find myself thinking about how fast the year has gone by and amazed that my calendar already says June....and at the same time I think to myself how time seems to be crawling by and that I just wish the time would get here for our child to come home.

We are still holding on to our original goal of hoping our child would be home by Christmas of this year.  The chances of that goal being met are starting to look slimmer and slimmer, but I have strong faith that God has worked out the timing perfectly and that she will come home in HIS perfect timing.  In the meantime I put all my trust in Him to care for her as well as all my trust in the creche and each nanny, teacher, and nurse who is caring for her now.  

Why are blog post missing?

A quick post.   Since Haiti has become Hague there are quite a few new rules in place and it is possible that Haiti may be reviewing Ed and I's social media sites (i.e. Facebook, blog) as part of our approval process.   During this phase we are in we have to be extremely confidential about our process and where we are at.  We are not allowed to talk about our creche, or really much of anything. Therefore, you may notice some older post missing from our blog, and outside of our emotions we are experiencing, we will not be able to provide many updates on the blog until we are to our next phase in the adoption, which is the referral stage.   I am hoping this comes soon, which at that time I will repost everything and will again start regularly blogging.

Thank you for you to all of you who are following the blog.  And you can always email me at klisst@prodigy.net and I can give you an update there.

 

Silence

Silence, deafening silence.  That is the stage we are at in our adoption right now.   Our paperwork was officially submitted to the Haitian governing body of adoptions on February 4th.     Based on all the educated guesses, it is expected that we will have NO updates at all on our adoption for the next 6 to 9 months.   It is such a dramatic change from the steps we just finished where we were constantly doing something to move the adoption forward.  Now there is no busy work for us to be doing.  Instead, we are in a time of prayer; prayer for our daughter, prayer for our hearts to be knitted together despite the distance, prayer for trust in the process, prayer for files to be expedited, prayer to be surprised by our file processing faster than expected. 

We get the question so often of "Why does it take so long".  I don't really have an answer for that question, only my guesses as to why the process takes so long.  During this phase we are in all of our paperwork should be being reviewed by Haitian government to ensure we check all their boxes.  In addition, they are also ensuring that our girl is truly in fact an orphan and therefore adoptable.   Under the Haitian laws we or our agency are not allowed to be informed at all on how the process is moving along in our daughters file.   We are just waiting for a phone call that could be anywhere between 6 to 9 months away, and possibly +/- that time frame as well, where we are told our file has been approved and we have a pending official referral. At which time we will then immediately head down to Haiti for a 2 week socialization period which should then finalize the official referral of our child.  

So in the meantime we wait, sometimes patiently, sometimes not.  Some days are easy and we are just going through normal life, and some days feel so hard to be away and to know that there is still so much more that needs to happen before our family can finally come together.  

What I will say is we continue to feel so incredibly grateful for the support we receive.  We know and feel that our family and this adoption are continuously being supported in prayer.   So many of you regularly ask us how the process is going, where we are at, and other questions....which means so much to us as we feel you are asking because you do care.   We don't always have answers to the questions as with international adoptions sometimes you just have to trust the process and have to let go of the control of knowing the details of each step (which is hard for me), but we love when you ask.  

I/we are praying that we will be surprised by how fast our file is processed. There are cases that go much faster than expected, so we pray that our case too will be one of those that surprises everyone. 

Speak Up

Last Sunday night Ed and I attended the 2nd Annual Speak Up Fresno event.  The event is to raise awareness of orphans both locally and around the world and to Speak Up for those who can't speak up for themselves.   The most powerful video I have ever seen is the above Depraved Indifference video in January 2013 at the first Speak Up event (link above to video).  I remember watching this video clip in tears and thinking I can't just sit back and wait another day for someone else to stand up for the orphan and I knew God was calling on me personally to step forward and do something.  It was almost one year to the day I first saw this video and Ed and I decided that it was our time to stop just talking about adoption and to really step forward and do something.

It is amazing to think where we are at just one year later.  Just today we received our monthly update of our sweet girl.  I am so thankful at the time our creche takes to write such personal stories of our girl just for us....it is a treasure to find these stories waiting for us in our email.  I love hearing how proud our girl is to work on her English and how she is so determined in her learning and how her face beams when she finishes a letter to her parents.   Ed and I truly are amazed that God has allowed us in on this journey of adoption, because really it is one of the best journeys a person can be on!   Yes, it can get frustrating at times, and I know for sure there will be hard times as we walk through the grieving stages with our girl when she comes home....but man on man, it is also a truly amazing and blessed journey.  I have never felt more close to God and His greatness than I have throughout this walk.   Ed and I are often talking about how this journey has really allowed us to see the love that other people have in their hearts and how there are so many truly good people out there who want to help those who can't speak up for themselves, like the orphans. 

We are getting closer.  As I said above, the adoption process can be frustrating.  The past month has been spent trying to locate lost documents and recreate new originals of lost documents and get them to Haiti as fast as we can.  Our file has finally been put back together again for lack of a better description.  We are waiting on one document to be legalized and we are praying that any day now we will receive the news that our file has been submitted.....we would love any extra prayers from you to specifically get our file into IBESR (Haitian Social Services basically).  

If you are feeling compelled to Speak Up  and do something for the orphan please send me an email or message and I would love to plug you into ways you can help.  It can be as easy as buying a piece of jewelry  which provides income opportunities for women in a country with over 80% unemployment so that they don't have to give up their children due to poverty (which I happen to have this jewelry with me right now and will deliver), it could be praying for a child, sponsoring a child, or higher levels of commitment in  considering foster care or adoption. Either way, I would love to talk about it with you if your interested. 

Proverbs 31: 8-9   

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
    for the rights of all who are destitute.
⁹ Speak up and judge fairly;
    defend the rights of the poor and needy."