5 for Hope: Needing Prayers...

Friday, February 8, 2008

Needing Prayers...

Once again, we are writing to update you on our adoption and to ask for your continued prayers. We have now waited three months for the Mixco Civil Registry in Guatemala to issue us a new birth certificate for Ana so that the United States will allow her to enter the country. Our adoption has been complete, final, and irreversible since November 16th. The United States, however, will not issue Ana a visa without a birth certificate with our last name on it. This is particularly frustrating, since the U.S., ultimately has the power to bring these children home by issuing them visas in their current names.

Here is the current situation:
Due to new approvals, there are now 36 families waiting for new birth certificates from Mixco - just from our agency. We are not sure why, but the Mixco Civil Registry has stated that they now need 30 business days to process these birth certificates. (They could actually all be issued in less than an hour.) Unfortunately, what has happened with all these families is that the civil registry invented “errors” in the files, kicked them out, and then started the 30 business day count all over once our attorney resubmitted them. (If you remember, Ana’s birth mother had to re-sign the adoption decree on a different kind of paper and we need a CERTIFIED approval of our adoption.) Since many of the “errors” were different, each file took a different amount of time to “correct” and be resubmitted. Our file fell somewhere in the middle of the group. The first families to be resubmitted will hit their 30 day mark next Thursday, February 14th. It is not looking promising that the civil registry will adhere to this 30 day “law” and actually release these first birth certificates next week, as they have promised. Because of this, the director of our agency’s Guatemala program is flying to Guatemala on that day to advocate for these birth certificates. She will be taking in (to civil registry) pictures of all the families and pictures of our children. If this is not successful, she plans to return the next day with several of the babies (with help from the workers at the orphanage) and basically sit there with them (hopefully putting a real face with these cases). Our agency is still working out a Plan B, if neither of these strategies produce any birth certificates, but one idea they have involves having ALL the families fly to Guatemala and petition the U.S. Embassy to allow us to bring our children home with their current birth certificates and get new birth certificates in the states. They would also take ALL the families with ALL the babies to the civil registry to try and get them to issue these birth certificates if the U.S. government continues to be unwilling to help us.
After this, they will pursue legal action; however, this is NOT a choice they want to make because it will likely involve a court date several months away.

Here is where you can help us in prayer:

1. Our main prayer is that once these cases hit the 30 day mark (or before), the civil registry will actually issue the birth certificates. IF this happens, then everything else will proceed and in about 4-5 weeks, we can go and bring her home. This would be the very best scenario.

2. If the birth certificates are not issued, Brian and I need to decide if we participate in this group effort and travel to Guatemala to personally advocate for Ana.

3. IF we do travel, we have some more decisions to make…
IF her birth certificate IS issued while we are there, do we come home and wait the 4-5 weeks it will take to get her visa OR do we feel that sending her back to the orphanage after caring for her for several days would be too traumatic for her? If we decide that it is not in her best interest to return to the orphanage, do we ALL stay (meaning Brian takes an unpaid leave of absence from work) or does Jenifer stay at the hotel with a few of the other home-schooling moms and school the kids there?

4. What happens if we travel to Guatemala and we still find no resolution to this situation?

Though there are many questions left to be answered, we are truly at peace with where God has us at this time. We feel so privileged to be the proud parents of this special little girl, and are grateful that God called us to this place. Even knowing the difficulties a corrupt government can cause, we would do it all over again in a heartbeat. It has already been such an amazing journey and a continued blessing to our entire family.

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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."