5 for Hope: Update #1 from AGCI

Friday, January 12, 2007

Update #1 from AGCI

Dear Families,

I have great news to share with you. AGCI Guatemala has been fortunate enough to hire a full-time doctor for all of the children we care for. We are thrilled and I know you will be so happy with this new addition. His name is Dr. Castro and he has committed his time to us, which we can hardly believe because of the other opportunities he had to choose from. He was trained in England, has practiced medicine for many years, is also a writer, and already is making some positive strides for us in Guatemala in just one week. I can’t begin to tell you what a huge blessing this is for us and for you and your children. He wants to personally meet the families who travel to Guatemala and we hope to be able to do progress reports with Dr. Castro on the video as he shares about your child. Please rejoice with us! I have included some pictures of Dr. Castro and a few others of children at Hannah’s Hope.

It has been great talking with some of you this week. I know that Kim, SooJin and I anxiously awaited that update and were frantically trying to make calls to those of you whom we had updates for. Again, we will get information to you as we have it and we thank you for being a part of our program. I also want to let you know that I realize Kim was getting weekly updates to you on Thursday evenings and I promise that I am doing my best to get information to you. For the time being, I will send updates on Fridays until I am sure that I have all the stats from the week. I realize this is a very important email for all of you.

As many of you are experiencing, it feels as though life has stopped in Guatemala. Hopefully, you will be encouraged to read the latest. Things are happening, even when it seems like they’re not. Also, for some of you it feels as though you are not our priority. I want to encourage you. We have approximately 180 families currently involved in our adoption program through Guatemala and Kim, SooJin and I have each of you at the top of the list as far as who is the most important. Please be mindful that if you don’t hear from us the moment something happens, it just means that other things are happening at the same moment for many families and we are working on communicating with all of you. Also, we don’t always have information from Guatemala the moment it happens. It may seem that there is a delay, but we would not intentionally withhold information from you. That being said, read on and enjoy your weekend. We will be here on Monday at 8:30am to jump back in the boxing ring and fight the good fight with you!

PLACEMENTS:
We placed three children this week and are hoping to place 3-4 more in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully you have received your numbers on the waiting list. If not, send us an email and we can tell you what your number is.

FIRST TRIP:
One family will travel to meet their child for the first time next week, and at least two more will go the following week.

FAMILY COURT:
The week of Christmas and last week, four Family Court appointments occurred. We have submitted seven more files to Family Court and have appointments scheduled for next week.

DNA PROCESS:
We are awaiting DNA appointments for five families currently.

PGN:
FIVE Families were approved this week!!!

CIVIL REGISTRY:
Eight families are either being submitted to CR or have been submitted and we are waiting for approval and new documents for their child.

IN TRANSLATION:
No files in translation currently

IN US EMBASSY:
Three files have completed the CR and translation steps, and we submitted these files to the US Embassy this week.

PINK SLIP:
One family has a USE appointment next week, which means they will be bringing their child home. PLEASE READ THIS: SOMEDAY THIS WILL BE YOU!

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Favorite Family Verses

The grace of God will not take you where the will of God can not sustain you.

I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul..."
~Psalm 131: 1-2~

"I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."
~ Phillippians 4:13 ~
(Brian chose this verse to be engraved in Jen's wedding ring.)

"No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love is perfected in us."
~ 1 John 4:12 ~
(Jen chose this verse to be engraved in Brian's wedding ring.)

Our Thanks to You...

For those of you who have gone through the adoption process, you understand what a blessing it is to have a "cloud of witnesses" that surround you, uphold you in prayer, and agree to give up their time to assist in the incredible amount of paperwork that accompanies this decision. We have been incredibly blessed by the love shown to us by our friends. Many of you have spent hours filling out letters of recommedation, have made countless trips to the bank to have documents notarized only to find out that they need to be renotarized (and renotarized, and renotarized). Many of you have prayed for us, not only over the past few months, but the past few years, as well. Words can not adequately express our gratitude to you for the wonderful gift of your friendship. Thank you, from our entire family, for helping us to bring Ana Hope home to our family. And now that we venture forward, as a family of five, we continue to be blessed by your friendship, your prayers, and your constant support in caring for our family.

About All God's Children International

The following is "Heather's Story" as described in her mother's book The Strength of Mercy" (Jan Beazely). "Many years ago, when I was just eighteen, God called me to walk into the fields of the fatherless in Romania. There I was honored to find my sister Hannah. I had no way of knowing that Hannah’s adoption was just the beginning of what God had planned for my life. My call became my family’s mission as well. We were probably very much like your family, very ordinary, and one day God just asked us to answer His extraordinary call. Many people have asked me, “How did All God's Children International begin?” My answer is simply this... The first time I walked into a Romanian orphanage in 1990, I was overwhelmed by what I saw and I wanted to do something. Hopeless little orphan faces stared up at me and hardly responded when I reached out to touch them. I remember praying with tears running down my face, “Lord, there are so many…and their needs are so great… How can I even begin to help them all? God spoke back to me clearly. “Heather, you see the multitudes, but I know each one by name, all I’m asking you to do is to try, just help them one at a time.” So that is what I did. A month after completing Hannah’s adoption for my parents, AGCI officially became a Christian adoption and relief agency. I returned to Romania to help give the children I left behind the second chance they deserved. One child became two. Two turned into three and now over the last 16 years we have been privileged to give thousands of second chances to orphaned children not just in Romania, but Bulgaria, Russia, Guatemala, Nepal, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Macedonia, India, China and now Ethiopia. Through our foreign adoption services, our orphan relief and child sponsorship programs, as well as our Hannah’s Hope children’s homes, AGCI continues to make a difference in little lives. We have indeed grown over the years, but my passion to rescue and care for children has never changed. I continue to help them one at a time. I understand now that the compassion I felt was there for a reason. God’s voice is never silent concerning the orphan. If you listen you can hear Him whispering in the darkness at night. He continues to shout from the rooftops at daybreak. He fervently lays before the world His concern for the orphan. So never overlook small beginnings, never dismiss the vision God plants in your heart concerning a needy child. I believe that you are not reading my words by accident, but rather by divine appointment. Thank you so much for listening to my heart. I am praying that I have encouraged you to ask, “What can I do?” For somewhere in the world today an orphan needs your help… they wait in the fields of the fatherless hoping for a second chance. There is nothing in life more overwhelming then to walk through orphanage doors around the world and hear the heartbreaking echo of the orphan's cry. Nothing more unforgettable than to watch countless children run toward outstretched arms longing for just one embrace. Nothing more painful then to gaze into silent orphan eyes pleading for someone to come and care. And there is nothing more humbling than to witness such desperate need and then not be able to give every orphan child the second chance they deserve. Together we can soothe their cries, provide the embrace they long for, and send someone to care."