March numbers

Our OFFICIAL March numbers are: 36 for a girl and 24 for a boy. Our UNoffiical numbers for this week are 31 for a girl and 20 for a boy. The referrals don't get put on the official list until our agency receives the completed paperwork. We hope things continue to progress forward. It is getting more and more exciting as those numbers drop.

Praising God

We received a very encouraging update from our agency yesterday. Thanks to each and every one of you that has been praying for the situation in Ethiopia. Even with encouraging news, we ask you to continue to pray for all of those involved as this is a very trying time. We have seen God's Hand totally at work through the past week. The bottom line is that God wants these children to be placed into loving homes. No courts will stop what is His will!! Below you will find the update we received from our agency. Thanks again for all of your support!! We really appreciate it! As you can tell, the prayers are working! :)

Ethiopia Program Update

Hello Families,

Happy St. Patricks' Day! We hope this email finds you well and finding rest in God’s peace and plans for your family and your Ethiopia adoption journey!

As you know, over the past week AGCI has been working in collaboration with Joint Council, other licensed Adoption Service Providers in Ethiopia and the US Department of State to get clarity on the proposed changes instigated by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs that would have drastically reduced the number of adoptions processed by their office.

We have spent the entirety of this week and last connecting with our own Foreign Staff, participating in caucus calls led by Joint Council and the US Department of State, and independently collaborating with other Adoption Service Providers to get clear and accurate information concerning this matter. Your grace and patience has been so appreciated during this time! What we know as facts are:

• MOWA posted a notice indicating as of March 10th they would be reducing the number of adoptions processed through their office to 5 cases a day.
• Within days of this announcement, the director of MOWA and several other staff members from the ministry have been terminated.

Today we want to update you on the feedback we received yesterday from our foreign staff in Ethiopia, which was confirmed in a discussion with our adoption colleagues in a Joint Council caucus call later in the day.

At this time, all Foreign Staff on the ground in Ethiopia are reporting that MOWA has completed their staffing changes and are now currently working at full capacity to complete those adoption cases currently re-scheduled or assigned a court appointment through the courts of Addis Ababa. Our staff believe this to be around 800 cases they are working at full force to complete with no restrictions on the number of cases processed each day. This is great news! We are thrilled to hear these drastic changes do not seem to be going into full effect.

We are also pleased to report that for new cases moving forward; it appears the original changes proposed by MOWA will not be implemented to the degree of 5 cases a day. At this time it is unknown whether or not MOWA will issue a formal statement regarding how they will process cases in the future, but from all discussions it will not be a drastic decrease from before. Through the continued work, meetings, and advocacy of many Foreign Staff members in Ethiopia, it appears any future changes within the case processing for MOWA will avoid sweeping and disproportionate alterations to the number of cases processed each day. Rather, the hope is that MOWA, Joint Council, Adoption Service Providers, the US Department of State and other NGO organizations can come together to support the government of Ethiopia in strengthening the process for ethical adoptions to continue while also improving the general social structures to assist with family preservation in Ethiopia. This plan was acknowledged in the recent posting by the US State Department this morning at http://adoption.state.gov/news/ethiopia.html. We understand the US Department of State cannot issue a formal statement without MOWA issuing a retraction. Based on the information we are receiving, MOWA is concentrating on processing the current adoptions and the new staff is not focused on numbers, but doing their jobs.

AGCI and our trusted colleagues look forward to collaborating to ensure adoptions move forward with the highest level of transparency possible. It is our commitment to carefully, ethically, and mindfully complete the adoption process on every level for orphaned children. Our hope is that as we do this in collaboration with other licensed agencies, we can also help to eliminate future concerns by MOWA and continue to build trust between their office and the adoption community at large.

Despite all this talk and discussion about proposed changes, we want to share with you some highlights from just the past two weeks in our program. Even in the midst of all these proposed changes we have seen things move in positive directions:

• 7 children were referred to their forever families (wait time for a referral for our most recently placed families was approximately 10 months for an infant boy and for an infant girl)
• 9 families and children were issued their first official court date
• 3 families and children were approved at a rescheduled court appointment
• 1 family and child was approved on their first scheduled court appointment
• 9 families and 10 children were cleared by the US Embassy and invited to travel to Ethiopia to complete their final immigration visa appointment and bring their children.
• 2 children have returned home with their forever families.

As you can see from above, our attention over the past week and this week has been not only on gathering information on this issue but also on processing adoptions for many of the children at Hannah’s Hope. We will be calling each of you to check in for your monthly updates, paperwork calls, and to connect with those of you who are already referred and in the court process. For those of you in the paperwork process, Julie Salwasser will also be continuing to step in to provide support and answer questions. Thank you for your ongoing patience!

We want to encourage you all and to share that Ethiopia is still an active adoption program! We are so blessed to be looking back at all these wonderful moments and see God’s hand at work in the stories and lives of these children He loves. Thank you for your continued passion and dedication. We look forward to all the wonderful moments yet to come as we continue to serve in Ethiopia!

A rough day

Today started off with warm fuzzies. I hope it is okay that I post this, but I'm not mentioning names so I should be okay. ;) There is a couple that got their Embassy appointments. (this is the court date that allows them to bring their child home) Needless to say, this couple was so super happy to finally be able to bring their little one home. However, the mom was supposed to be the Matron of Honor at her sister's wedding. She was going to miss the wedding due to this Embassy appointment. Wow....bittersweet!! For some reason, their Embassy day got changed by one day so that she could be in the wedding and then go and get her munchkin! :)  God moved mountains!! We need to remember that God is bigger than ANY of the things we are facing on this journey. What a great way to start the day. Within 2 hours, I had read an update from the Joint Council. It was a letter written by a lady to President Clinton requesting his help to advocate for these orphans as the adoption program in Ethiopia was brought to a HALT! What/?!?! Did she mean to say that? Did they know more than we did? Oh my!! In a matter of 2 hours I went from feeling good with this mountain that had been moved to this news of the possibility of the Ethiopian program being shut down. Wow! Nothing can explain the emotions we deal with on this journey. The emotions are heightened much more with the uncertainity of the future of our children. We have all heard of numerous countries being shut down to adoptions after "troubles" so this wouldn't surprise me if it did happen. As of now....there are still meetings being held. People are still fighting to get those orphans home to loving families. We hope and pray that things continue to progress forward. This certainly is not easy on the heart strings. Some day we will hold our little one and all of these stresses will melt away. God is bigger than all of this.

Update from our agency

Ethiopia Update: March 14, 2011

Latest MOWA Update Good Afternoon Families, We hope you all are well and entering into this new week  with strength and endurance. Today we wanted to pass  along the link to a brief update from Joint Council regarding speculation that MOWA will be reconsidering their policy to allow for 20 cases to be processed each day through their  office instead of just 5 cases as initially proposed. You can  read more about this update by visiting the Joint Council website. Almaz, our in country director, has also shared with us news of these proposed alterations to MOWA's case processing. However, in accordance with Joint Council's statement today, we do not yet have confirmation on this rumor from the governning bodies in Ethiopia responsible for these decisions. As always, we will continue to keep you updated as we learn more and decipher the facts of the situation. In the meantime, we ask for your continued prayers as the advocacy for the children of Ethiopia continues and we look forward with hope to the days and weeks ahead!

Processing all of the chaos

The past week has been a whirlwind of emotions from cutting court appointments by 90% to families receiving court appointments as well as referrals. International adoption certainly is a roller coaster of emotions and this week proved that. Wow!!
I thought I'd sit down and share a bit more in detail about things. Needless to say, the news of cutting the court appointmens was devastating!!! We have been on the wait list for 7 and 1/2 months. In that time we have moved from 86 to 33 (unofficially) for a girl and from 53-22 (unofficially for a boy) This is with 40-50 court appointments a day. If they cut back to 5 per day how long could this process actual take us? I was very upset. If this was going to take us YEARS yet, then maybe we shouldn't be doing it. Keep in mind our girls are already 13 and 9. I was in mourning. I couldn't believe that God had brought us this far only to make it not possible. We were thinking/hoping/praying that we might be matched up by July "ish" and home close to Christmas. Now we are going to be really delayed. It was hard to not let this consume our days. After all, this child that we had hoped for and dreamed of was delayed on getting home. So very sad. After talking with a friend, she said to me, "Maybe God wanted it to be like this." That hit me like a brick!! Maybe!!! After all, God was in control. He was the one to place adoption into our hearts. He was the one that kept showing us time and time again that this was meant to be. Hmmm....Time to step back, take a deep breath, and pray!! God didn't bring us this far to leave us. Now that I'm thinking rationally, we can press forward. Our faith waivered for a bit, but now we are confident that this is still the path that God has chosen for us.

Thursday someone posted on our list serve about contacting their local Congress people. She wasn't sure if it would help, but what could it hurt? This was our kid we needed to fight for!! So--Thursday I contaced 2 of our 3 Congress people with the 3rd one being contacted on Friday. By Friday afternoon, I had emails from all of the offices. One of the offices even called me back. The guy that called was also adopting fom Ethiopia. Crazy enough we both got on the waitlist within a week of each other. I've sent lots of emails and posted lots on Facebook in regards to the big petition that was circulating. They wanted 250,000 names by Monday. That is a lot. Well..last I checked it was up to 30,000 and was slowly down greatly. Hopefully it will make an impact. Time will tell. If you haven't signed it, the link is: http://www.orphanpetition.org/. Please pass it along!

Things are still really up in the air in regards to the cutting of court appointments. The cut went into effect on March 10. Meetings are still being held to try to find a solution to this problem. Our agency, All God's Children International has been AMAZING!! They keep us in the loop. They do not report anything to us until it is factual. In these times of uncertainity it is comforting to work with such an amazing agency. The wait with them might be a bit longer, but they are the best so it is well worth it!!! They truly have the best interest of the children on the front burner. What a comfort that is to know.

I will post the latest update that we received from our agency. It doesn't say much b/c things are so up in the air. There is a big meeting on Monday in Ethiopia. We know this battle is just at the beginning. However, don't tell all of these moms that they can't have their babies. That sounds like a war! HA!  :) This is a huge obstacle to overcome. Yet our God is bigger than this! He wants to give fathers to the fatherless. He won't leave the orphans, He will come for them. We know it will be okay. It might not be easy, but it will work out. We know once we get that little bundle in our arms, all of this will melt away. Until then...please, please pray for all people involved with this situation on all levels from the precious children that might have to stay in orphanages longer, for the adoptive parents, for the courts, and for all of those acting on the behalf of the children. Thank you for riding this roller coaster with us. We do apprecite it. Keep praying!!!

Ethiopia Update: March 11, 2011

US Department of State Ethiopia Adoptions Conference Call Update Good morning families! What a week this has been for all of us! Thank you so much for your commitment to getting the word out about the petition for the children of Ethiopia these past few days! We are hopeful that the voices of these precious children will be heard. As we had shared in previous communications, there was a conference call that we participated in this morning with the US Department of State to discuss the changes the  Ministry of Women’s, Children’s and Youth Affairs (MOWA) announced. Not all Adoption Service Providers (ASPs) were able to join the call due to the number of adoptive parents on  the line. According to Joint Council, it was understood that this conference call would be geared towards informing ASPs  specifically about these changes and how the US government  would react. Unfortunately, the call ended early and several ASPs were not able to address more detailed questions geared towards the ramifications of these changes for the program as a whole. While we admire adoptive families’ desires to be a part of these discussions, we are looking forward to opportunities to connect more exclusively and  candidly as a professional network with the US Department of State and Joint Council as they learn about these details in the coming weeks. This will allow us to better communicate  with you factual information about how this impacts your family’s  adoption more specifically while also being mindful of Ethiopian adoptions as a whole. Again, though, as evidenced by the feedback  in this call by the US Department of State, at this time there is little to no information that is being disclosed. Here is what we did learn: ~Although this change has been supposedly confirmed to have gone into effect on March 10, 2011, there is no information available on what the process could look like moving forward, what cases it impacts, and if and for how long it will remain in effect. ~It was mentioned that cases already registered with the Ethiopian court could possibly experience up to an estimated 12 month delay.  It was made very clear by the US Department of State that this was dependent on a number of factors, all of which are yet to be determined, i.e. how many cases are registered, what cases  this change will impact, if this changecontinues to be in effect, etc. ~There is a vast amount of rumors going around related to this change, and none of them are able to be confirmed at this point. ~The head of MOWA has been terminated, effective next week,  for unknown reasons. ~We are hearing that there will be meetings between the  US Department of State, US Embassy, MOWA, network of  ASP Foreign Service Providers, and Ethiopian government offices during the next week. We believe these meetings will begin on Monday, March 14th; however, there is no way to know if there will be concrete solutions that develop. At this point, we are all still in a waiting stage to see how this change will be implemented. We have greatly appreciated your prayers and understanding as we have all tried to grasp this announcement. As we continue  to pursue a better understanding, we encourage you  to be wary of rumors that you hear about this change and know that we will continue to keep you up to date on the information we receive. Along with being updated  through our office, you can also continue to  stay informed by monitoring Joint Council’s website at http://www.jointcouncil.org/. We continue to do our best in addressing your questions and concerns as quickly as possible and appreciate your patience. Our primary goal remains to facilitate the progress of your  adoptions,which continues to show movement on a daily basis.  Despite all of this uncertainty, we hope you go into this  weekend feeling hopeful and staying focused on preparing your hearts for the road ahead.

Some good encouragement

Joel 2:12-14
12 That is why the Lord says,
      “Turn to me now, while there is time.
   Give me your hearts.
      Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning.
 13 Don’t tear your clothing in your grief,
      but tear your hearts instead.”
   Return to the Lord your God,
      for he is merciful and compassionate,
   slow to get angry and filled wi...th unfailing love.
      He is eager to relent and not punish.
 14 Who knows? Perhaps he will give you a reprieve,
      sending you a blessing instead of this curse.
   Perhaps you will be able to offer grain and wine
      to the Lord your God as before.



"Bend in the Road" ~ Helen Steiner Rice
Sometimes we come to life's crossroads
And we view what we think is the end.
But God has a much wider vision
And he knows that it's only a bend-

The road will go on and get smoother
And after we've stopped for a rest,
The path that lies hidden beyond us
Is often the path that is best.

So rest and relax and grow stronger,
Let go and let God share your load
And have faith in a brighter tomorrow-
You've just come to a bend in the road.

The latest on the happenings with the Ethiopian courts

March 9 was designated as a National Day of Prayer for the situation in the Ethiopian courts. We know people around the world have been praying. At this time, there are 18,595 people have signed the petition to be sent to MOWA. Our agency would really like this number to be 250,000 by Saturday. I've been emailing and posting on Facebook. It only takes about 3 minutes and it is sooo important. Amidst all of these trials and upheaval, our AGCI family had some exciting surprises. 5 families were given court days in May. There was one little girl referred and a pair of siblings. It is great to hear some good news in all of this chaos. Keep praying!! Also, we had a hopeful message from our agency. Thanks so much for your support!!! We need all of you to help us. God is bigger than this. We have to keep fighting for our babies. :)

Post from Tom DiFilipo, Executive Director of JCICS

Date March 9, 2011

Regarding Ethiopia

Dear Colleagues,
In only 24-hours, over 11,000 concerned individuals have joined our Emergency Campaign for Ethiopian Children by signing our petition. We extend our thanks to all of our members who have supported this initiative by signing the petition and distributing the campaign information.

Today, we have continued our communication with the Ethiopian Government and respectfully brought the outpouring of concern to them. We believe that there may have been positive developments and will provide further updates as information is confirmed.

PRAYERS NEEDED URGENTLY!!!!!!

There have been some rumors going around as far as the courts in Ethiopia. We are getting more information in regards to all of the possible changes. They are planning to cut court appointments by 90%.  Now they have 40-50 court appointments a day and this new change would have them do 5 court appointments a day total...for all agencies. Prayers are needed sooo badly right now. Lots of orphans. Lots of families wanting to adopt those little ones. Sounds like a win/win situation. I'm pasting a copy of the letter we received from our agency. Thanks so much to all of you that are praying. March 9th is a going to be a day filled with prayer to change the hearts and minds of the Ethiopian courts. God can move mountains. Let's see it happen!!!

Help Us Advocate For Ethiopian Orphans

An Important Update The Ethiopian Ministry of Women's Affairs (MOWA) has announced a proposal to decrease the number of adoptions they will process and approve—even by as much as 90%. They are planning to accomplish this decrease by limiting the number of approved cases to only 5 per working day. This change is currently set to begin on March 10, 2011. Please know that no one fully understands this proposal yet. Our staff, led by Almaz in Ethiopia, are still sorting out what this could mean for each of the children and families that we work with. These children are their passion and they are working on the front lines in this advocacy. Also, this is not limited to AGCI. This will impact every agency and the families that each serve. This means that all agencies are working together in their advocacy making a very strong force that is working on the behalf of children and families. Currently, all agency staff are waiting for the Director of MOWA to return to Ethiopia. Once she returns they will have a chance to sit down and talk over the implications of this proposal. To attempt to counteract this proposal, the Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) has put a “Call to Action” in place. This sort of international advocacy is what JCICS does, and they do it well. We are strongly encouraging you to read their post below and follow the suggested steps. You can also share this with your family, friends, Facebook friends and church to do the same. It is so important that we are all united in this effort! We are all advocates in our own circles of influence—and it is good to partner with you in this! Thank you again for all that you are doing at this time. You are all valued and important in this process of promoting and preserving the best interest of children in Ethiopia and around the world. God Bless, Hollen Frazier Executive Director

JCICS Call to Action March 8, 2011 Joint Council: Emergency Campaign for Ethiopian Children What You Can Do: 1) Sign the petition to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi – and pass it on! 2) Have you adopted from Ethiopia? Please send us up to 3 photos and 50 words or less with what you would like the Ministry to know about your child – we’ll compile the information and send a book to the Ministry of Woman’s Affairs. Send your photos and stories to advocate@jointcouncil.org by Sunday, March 12, 2011 to be included. Please note that sending photos and stories gives Joint Council unrestricted right to use the information you provide. 3) Share…Please send this Call to Action to family members, other adoptive parents, and everyone you know! Post, forward and share your adoption stories via Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Make sure you include us in your posts so we can all hear your stories! Here’s links to our pages: Facebook, Twitter and our our blog. 4) Stay informed: Get up-to-date information regarding the situation in Ethiopia by signing up to receive information from us: click here to do so, make sure you choose “country and issues specific information” and “Ethiopia.” And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and our our blog. 5) Help ensure our advocacy can continue: Joint Council is a non-profit and receives no government funding. Please join us in ensuring more children live in safe, permanent and loving families. Donate today!