One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

In my last update, I told you that Ethiopia had chosen two agencies to work with all of us families who are stuck in this process. There were about 40 of us families all together. Ethiopia basically ended up splitting our cases in half and assigning us each to an agency. We are thankful to say that we are now moving forward with America World Adoption. They are an excellent agency with a stunning reputation.

It has taken both of the agencies some time to perform their own investigations (again assuring the orphan status of each child) and to get a good grasp of where each child's paperwork stands. At the end of last week and into this week, most of us were given updates about the paperwork status.

To be honest, because we were matched with Oliver all the way back in December, I had anticipated receiving the news that we were just a few documents short of being ready for the next step. From the time of referral, a number of documents are beginning to be gathered for the child to prepare them for international adoption. These documents include everything from clearances for international adoption from MOWCYA (Ethiopia's Ministry of Women, Children and Youth Affairs) to birth certificates, police reports, etc. When all of those necessary documents are gathered, then you are about ready to be submitted for the PAIR (Pre-Adoption Immigration Review) process and to be submitted to wait for a court date. It can take a number of months for US Immigration to be satisfied with all of your documents for PAIR. They often issue an RFE (Request for Evidence) to try to gain more sufficient proofs of the child's ability to come to America. Because the PAIR process is relatively new, it's not exactly streamlined. US Immigration does not always ask for the same documents. Really, anything is fair game. They can basically drag things out as long as they want to. Then, it also takes a number of months to be issued a court date for us to be able to come on our first trip to Ethiopia. In essence, more waiting.

Last Friday, our adoption coordinator with AWAA called us with our update. I took the call, hopefully expecting to hear that we were just about ready to be submitted for PAIR. However, as our coordinator began to speak, it became clear that we were in for yet another BIG holdup. She listed a couple of documents that had been gathered since December (really only a tiny handful of the needed documents). She then proceeded to tell me that we are missing something very important--the clearances for international adoption from MOWCYA. You must have these clearances in order to move forward. Basically, these clearances start at the local level and then work their way up to the national level. So you gain your first clearance from city, then court, then region and so on--when you pass one level, you move on up to the next. There are five levels all together. From our coordinator's understanding, Oliver does not have any of these clearances yet. Since December, his request for clearance has just been sitting on someone's desk in a remote area of Ethiopia. It generally takes some prompting before the document is signed and moved on to the next level...where it takes some more prompting.

She continued on to tell us that these clearances usually come through eventually, but there is really no way to know how long it will take to get them. It could take a month to get them or maybe even up to a year. Our case cannot move forward until we have those clearances. For this reason, many good agencies do not even refer children to families until these clearances are obtained. Nevertheless, here we are.

The other big issue at hand is Oliver's location. Right now, he is at an orphanage in a remote village--many hours outside of the city. We are completely unable to communicate with this orphanage. MOWCYA has given approval for him to be moved from that orphanage into our new agency's care center in Addis Ababa, the capital city. However, it is still somewhat up to that orphanage director if he will allow Oliver to be moved. Please pray with us that this orphanage director will be gracious in allowing the move. If he is able to be in the capital city, we could get regular updates on his health and development as well as pictures. We would also have the ability to send care packages to him. Having not heard anything about his health or seen any pictures since January, I am particularly anxious to see how he is doing. He was only 3 months old in January. Now he is about 7 months old. The months are slipping by, and we are no further on his adoption process today than we were on the day of his referral.

We were also given the fee schedule from our new agency. Before this all happened, God had graciously provided almost all of the funds needed to complete our adoption. We had actually paid out about half of them to our old agency. Now, the new agency requires just about the same fees. This week, we are required to pay them the first half. The rest of the payments will be spread throughout the months to come as we reach the next milestones.

My update today is really more like a list of prayer requests. The undetermined wait time makes this difficult. Please pray that God will move in hearts to dig out his paperwork from the stack and to sign his clearances (moving through all 5 levels). Please pray that Oliver will be allowed to move to the AWAA care center in Addis in a timely manner. Please pray that God will continue to provide the finances to bring our son safely home.  We covet your prayers. Thank you.

Some of you have asked how you could give financially. We do not personally handle the finances. We have partnered with Lifesong for Orphans, and they care for all of our donations and personal adoption finances. They are able to offer tax deductible receipts. You are able to give to them online or via mail. You can find instructions on how to give on our "Joining Us" page.