Up and Down We Go, Where She Stops Nobody Knows

Yesterday, I spoke directly with our orphanage director which was such a blessing. It provided clarity on what she has already done and what she intends to do. Her plan is to go the Embassy on Wednesday with the kids to try again. She asked us to email some papers directly to the Embassy and also called again today to say that a Florida Congressment has said he will do his best to have the Dept. of State or Homeland Security expediate things and have things ready for her on Wednesday when she arrives. Who knows if that can happen but he might as well try. Our own representatives (well at least 2 out of the 3) have also said that they will be contacting DOS or DHS on Wednesday to ensure our paperwork will be in PAP instead of in someone's email box in DC. So that all sounded really promising.





Then on Sunday night, the Haitian president said that children were no longer free to leave Haiti if they had been in process prior to the earthquake. The President now must personally approve any child's departure. Apparently there have been concerns that children who were not in process have been allowed to leave. My personal opinion involves political games from a not so child friendly advocacy group that is most often recognized by a six letter acronym that starts with U and ends with F. They are so ideological that they are often not practical and get fixated on adoption rather than working on tangible solutions to child welfare. Prior to this, they worked very hard to convince the Haitian government that adopted children may be being trafficked so more steps and scrutinty were necessary to ensure that kids were really being adopted. Despite no evidence to trafficking, the process in Haiti became even more lengthy. And it never seemed like this group really focused on how the majority of kids were being exploited or abused through a culturally acceptable practice of restevek slavery or due to a lack of a social service system that could investigate and prosecute true case of child abuse. Now, this group has apparently being crying bloody murder over kids being allowed to leave. They have yet to explain how they are currently caring for the possible million orphans left from the earthquake but instead have focused on the 2, 500 children who were matched with families. My frustration level with this is rather high if you can't tell. And if you're in disagreement with me on this agency, sorry. I just have seen too much to think too positively of them.





So that means that while our director may be successful in getting something accomplished on Wednesday, without the President approving it, they may not be able to leave. We are in a total quandry about what to do regarding travel as one concern is that if we are not there to receive our child, someone may place her in a foster placement. No one knows the answer to this. Our Senator's office says this will not happen while our Representative's office says it may. We can't just quickly get to FL (if that's where they land). It takes 8 hours or so to fly and if they called in the afternoon, we would probably not be able to arrive until the next day due to flight schedules. We had talked about me just planning to go down onWednesday to a location in FL and just waiting until we knew what was going on. (Sure wish I had a friend who lived in FL that I was just dying to visit.) But then if this presidential thing takes very long, it means I'm stuck in FL by myself while we wait for things to clear up. And we still don't know for 100% sure that the US government will grant Conleigh Parole so there is yet another uncertainty. We definitely are praying from James, that God will give us wisdom on what to do.





Basically, I'm just really tired of not knowing what to do or what will happen. Please pray for things to settle down so they are not constantly changing and for Conleigh to just get home. She is a face not a number, a child not a statistic....