Humanatarian Parole Approval

Last night around 8pm we received a call from the State Department stating the girls had been approved for Humanatarian Parole. YEAH! One more step closer to bring them home.

What we know and what we do not know

We know that Holt is in Haiti and that our paperwork has been taken to the Embassy.

We know that the girls are OK and they will be going swimming at the hotel near the orphanage this weekend. This will help them get to know the staff that will be bring them to the U.S. so they feel comfortable traveling.

What we do not know: How long it will take to get the Prime Minister of Haiti to sign off on each childs file so that they can leave Haiti and what day they will be here.

Holt sent us pictures of the children today, I think they just wanted to reassure us the kids are OK. Here are a couple of the pictures they sent us.

We were excited to see Widline wearing the tinkerbell shirt we took her last month. The girls are in the front row on the right side. Widelene is in a pink dress standing next to Widline in pink shorts and white tinkerbell shirt.

The latest on bringing our girl's home

We received an email last night stating that 3 staff members from Holt are leaving for Atlanta on Monday and they should be in Haiti on Tuesday or Wednesday. We are so excited that they were able to move this quickly.

They also said that we will receive an update by email at the end of each day next week to let us know what is happening and the travel plans as soon as they have them.

Please pray for safe travel for these staff members and continued safety for Mansour, the workers in Haiti and all the children.

what we heard today

In consideration of the childrens safety, they will be sending staff to help at Holt Fontana and to help transfer the kids out of Haiti. So the way we understand it now it will still be a week or two before they get here. Although it is hard to wait we want the kids to be safe, so we will wait.
Please continue to pray.

What we know

We have forwarded all requested documents to our agency, to support us getting Humanitarian Parole for the girls. So now all we can do is wait and pray, that they get issued the parole and are in the U.S. soon. We are seeing some orphans starting to come into the U.S. so that is positive.
Tonya

Latest on the girls

From everything we are hearing we feel that the girls could be coming home soon. CNN news report with Dixie from GLA orphanage in Haiti stated that the Haitian President has signed an OK to release all orphans that had been relinquished prior to the quake and had been matched with a family to leave. So we should hear more soon on how this will be handled by the U.S.
Please continue to pray

What we are doing to bring the girls home

Today has been a busy day of emails, checking others blogs and registering our adoption process with varies authorities in hopes that they can help us.

I sent an email to Senator Tom Harkin and was impressed when a lady from his office called and talked to Steve with in a couple of hours. She asked him questions on our case and gave us her number incase we have questions in the future.

I registered our adoption at Askci@state.gov and with the Joint Council on International Children's Services.

We just keep praying that God has a plan in all of this and we will have the girls here with us soon. Please pray!
Tonya

News on Holt Fontana Village

Dear Adoptive Families,
We wanted to give you another quick update and will do so periodically as we find out more. Phone communication has not been possible yet. However, we did get a text message and also an email from Mansour this morning. He, the children and the staff at Holt Fontana are all OK.

We are thankful to God for that! He didn't mention anything about whether there had been any damage to the Holt Fontana Village structures, but we can update everyone on that later when we are able to find out more. Mansour was also able to speak with his wife on the phone yesterday, and she and their son are okay.

Holt will also be posting updates about this on our website- you can go to http://www.holtinternational.org/ and click on "blog". There will also be a link for anyone who wishes to make a donation towards meeting the need, although it may not be available until later today.

Steve and I are shaken, when we see the pictures on T.V. of the places we just saw and were at only 5 weeks ago are now laying in shambles. Please continue to pray for Haiti.

Everyone at the Orphanage is OK

Steve talked to Dan at Holt last night, and he said that they had received an email from a family that was down there, that everyone is OK at the Orphanage. We feel really blessed, but please continue to pray as we know that our Director's family lives in Port-Au-Prince. Will update more as soon as we hear more.
Tonya

Haiti 7.0 Earthquake

Wanted to update everyone as to what we know at this time. Received an email from Holt that they had spoken to Mansour the director before the earthquake but have been unable so far to reach him since it happened. The girls are around 50 miles outside of Port-Au-Prince.
Please pray for everyone in Haiti and we will update you when we know more.
Tonya

A little down today

Well anyone who has been following our adoption from Haiti understands that Haiti is not an easy country to adopt from, but the children are so worth it.

Having said that, there are times when I think I must be crazy to walk through this process but most of the time I know exactly why I am.

Today has been one of those days!

I should not look at the calendar but how do you avoid that? I see the 16th of the month is coming again soon and that made me sad, as on the 16th we will have had our paperwork in Haiti for 11 months. So for 11 months we have been waiting for the call that we are in IBESR.(for those of you not adopting from Haiti this is the first major legal step). This is not to say that nothing has been happening on the girls files. As all this time they have been working on the new requirements for the birth certificates, but does it have to take this long?

Also when we traveled to Haiti last month we got two processes completed that would of had to be done later so at that point we are ahead of the game.

I have been told you feel discouraged or want to give up right before your breakthrough. This makes me smile as I think hay maybe this means the call will be coming soon and that gives me hope again.

Please pray that the call will be soon.

Tonya

147 Million Orphans in the World

Read about an amazing young lady helping the orphans in Uganda. Read her story at kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com