I will just be honest. I am discouraged. Have been for awhile. So discouraged, in fact, that I have been completely uninspired to post on the blog.
Thinking too much and too often about W and his sweet, sweet face is downright depressing. Thinking that he is wondering..."Why on earth have these people from American who I am told will be my parents have never come to Haiti to meet me?"
Me thinking, "Oh sweet boy, I would come to you in HEARTBEAT, if only...if only the adoption process allowed us to do so...if only IBESR had informed our agency that they have approved our dossier...if only IBESR had given us the official match to W so we could officially adopt HIM...if only we had been invited to travel to Haiti for the official 2 week socialization visit so the IBESR social worker could observe and interview us and recommend we receive official IBESR approval to adopt this particular child...if only...if only...
I could/should share the most recent updates we have received about W from the creche.
I could/should post some (highly edited) photos to show his response to his last care package.
I could/should show you photos of the most recent care package that is on its way to Haiti--via a sweet family that is finally going to pick up their girls after such a long wait (woohoo!).
I could also post about all the continuing changes in Haiti adoptions.
But honestly, its a Whole Lot of Nothin'.
Rumors and misinformation, along with some accurate information trickling out slowly, but only to some. Who the heck knows what is happening over there? Only God knows, truly. IBESR (Haitian social services, in charge of processing all the adoptive parents' dossiers and matching them with children)...well, they keep changing how they do things and so much is unconfirmed and different creche (orphanage) directors get conflicting information. Sigh.
We think IBESR now has their brand new Children's Court set up to process adoption cases.
We think they have processed a few "test cases", meaning they approved a few families and gave them official referrals (matched to children) and have had gone before the new judge.
We think IBESR is (or has) hiring additional staff for Children's Court because they have so many hundreds of cases they probably need more help.
We think IBESR's fees will be increasing, but don't know how much or when or how that will affect our case.
We think that any day now IBESR will no longer take "match suggestions" from creche directors; that they (ibesr) will exclusively make matches of a child to a family. (In other words, instead of the creche director who knows the children that live at her creche and knows the families she is working with (well, as much as you can know a family through a home study, questionnaires, emails, etc.) matching kids to families, IBESR will look at the files of all the available children in Haiti and look at the files of all the approved families in the Haiti program and then make a match.)
Pray, friends, pray. Eric and I are in this for the long haul. But it is hard...oh so hard.
And pray especially for W. We fear he could be discouraged, doubtful, hopeless. Pray for God to be the lifter of his head and give him everlasting peace and hope!
