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]