43 Days in IBESR for file 43.

Today makes day 43 days in IBESR, entering in as file # 43.

 A report yesterday stated that in March the IBESR plans to meet with crèches for 3 days in March and until that time will not be referring  children for matching or scheduling birth parent interviews.

Know some people now marking the 1 year mark in IBESR waiting to match.

Praying for patience. Praying for the mountains of paperwork to move!!

Praising the Lord for protection and guidance.

We also heard this week that one family who had pre-matched with a non-sibling set were told by IBESR that they can only match with one of the children as non-sibling adoptions will not be allowed in the same process.

We thank the Lord for protecting us from being in a similar situation.

When we started the process we were open to adopting non-siblings and knew that our crèche did not often have sibling sets available to adopt.

Then we looked and asked around for a agency willing to travel to Haiti to perform our home study. During our study while we talked about siblings we did not realize that our approval would be for siblings only.

Because of being open to non-siblings we wrote back asking about this restriction and learned that the agency would not make any exceptions.

Believing that the Lord controls our lives and had led us to this agency we remained at peace that He would either send siblings to the crèche or open a door for us if His plan included non-siblings.

Because of our advancing ages we feel the Lord wants us to get our children at the same time.

We praise Him that we did not travel down that path only to find out that the new procedures would not allow it.

Prayers:

• Praying for the IBESR meeting with the crèches so that referrals and parent interviews can start.
• Praying for the staff to focus on their work despite the Carnival season and holidays.
• Praying for our children and their family.
• Praying that the Lord will continue to prepare us for our children.
• Praying for the time table and needed steps.
• Praying for those stuck and loosing hope.
• Praising the Lord for His guidance, wisdom and protection in situations when we don't even realize the dangers.

Transition to Hague.

A bit late for Valentine's but heart shaped. 

“Joint Council extends it congratulations to Haiti on achieving what few developing countries have; an uninterrupted transition to the Hague Convention. We also applaud both DOS and USCIS for their positive approach and efforts regarding Haiti’s transition to Convention adoptions.

Again, our congratulations to Haiti for this unprecedented achievement.”

This means that the meeting went well and the USA will not put adoptions on hold from Haiti.

Many agencies sent out the good news yesterday, reporting that the U.S. government 'expects to confirm the Haitian Adoption Authority as compliant with Hague adoption standards'. 

So after April 1st a different form will need to be filed for parents adopting from Haiti.

Also at this meeting they announced that the U.S. worked with the Haitian officials to create a plan for the transitional cases that are currently in process.

 That would be us as we received our I-600A approval last fall.

The last part of the announcement was that the U.S. Department of State, USCIS and the Haitian adoption authorities formed a working group to 'evaluate and improve their working relationship'.

All sounds good and the intentions of blocking child trafficking, improving adoptions and hopefully speeding up the process are good goals but it remains to be seen how things will work.

IBESR reportedly has over 460 'old process' charts waiting to move. They will now have 'transitional cases' like ours and after April 1st, Hague process charts. Lots to keep straight.

Prayers:

• Thankful for the process without a shutdown.
• Praying about our referral. Some guess it will be 6-8 months on average for a referral.
• Praying for IBESR staff. 
• Praying for our children. Heard reports from Port and Cap areas about chicken pox in a couple of crèches/orphanages. 

Prayers during IBESR wait.

Our dossier now sits in the hands of someone in IBESR and we received our number, [43]!

Now someone from that office will read our dossier and hopefully our children will pop into their mind and they will make a recommendation, also known as a referral. [See below-then apparently a meeting with our crèche director and the crèche director where the children live along with IBESR staff]

Assuming agreement between all parties, our agency in Haiti would communicate with our USA agency who will then contact us with the information about our potential children.

At some time a clock starts because within a two week time frame we need to agree to the referral or decline [not real sure when the clock starts?].

Declining means we wait for a second referral. Accepting means we agree to adopt the children offered and then will start to talk about dates for the two week bonding visit.

A few changes with the new process as we understand them, mean that during the bonding time a social worker will observe our interactions with the children and write a report up. The parents no longer need to travel to court as this report replaces that step in the process.

A time of mixed emotions as the excitement builds toward 'meeting' our children for the first time balanced with the knowledge that other families have waited over to a year for a referral as well as the fear that our referral may not be children that we would be comfortable accepting and we may need to decline the referral.

Last week agents from the USA met with IBESR staff to review the new procedures for the April 1st decision about being Hauge compliant. I have not seen anything yet about how it went.

A Haitian lawyer who works closely with IBESR wrote on Facebook yesterday that IBESR plans to work 'to sign and release some 460 dossiers in the next weeks'.  Do not know if this will slow new process people or not.

On a agency blog who visited IBESR in January they note that the head attorney told them that regular referrals should start in February.

While the IBESR needs to approve the referrals/matches they plan to work closely with the crèche directors who know the families and the children being matched. So sounds like the directors will met with the IBESR folks before a referral is made assuring better matches.

His staff reportedly would have an inventory of dossiers completed by Jan. 16th to start setting up meetings with the crèche directors.

Keep praying!

• IBESR staff as they process many dossiers both old and new process. Work efficiently [we hear that the support staff visit/chat and spend a lot of time on Facebook during work hours]. Work carefully so no mistakes. Health. 
• Crèche directors and IBESR working closely together for referrals and matches. 
• For our specific referral and match [again hoping for a younger boy and girl [OK with stable special needs] but open to the Lord's will]
• Two week time frame? That we will have enough time to pray, ask questions and respond. [Hear of one family's referral arriving more than two weeks after IBESR referred-no one yet knows how this works]