Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Dossier Location Unknown and Need a Referral Soon

Hi all, here's our latest list of prayer requests, but first we have a praise.

The orphanage is now allowing children to be received again. However, there aren't any adoptable children there at the moment.

Prayer Requests:

1) That our dossier is not lost but is just finishing clearing customs. Our dossier was sent 3 weeks ago today. It left Hanoi (the capital) to go to the province 2 weeks ago yesterday. It's not unusual for a dossier to sit in customs for a week or so, but now that we're over 3 weeks we're starting to get apprehensive.

Please pray that our dossier is delivered safe and sound to our facilitator very soon.

2) Please pray that we receive an official referral in time (by Sept. 1). This means that any adoptable children will have to be found and brought to the orphanage by June 1. After that ads have to be run, paperwork completed, and then wait for the official referral to come from DIA (Department of International Adoption--the Vietnam side).

3) Please pray that there aren't any more bumps, road blocks, whatevers in the process. We had another scare today that kept me glued to the computer following leads for hours. A newspaper misprinted the end date for referrals as July 1 and made it sound like it came from the head of DIA. Then several other newspapers all copied the original article but made it look like there was multiple sources all verifying the new date. Arrrgggghhhh!!! Not true, it's been verified that the end date is still Sept. 1. Whewww!

Thanks for praying,
Shae

Friday, April 25, 2008

Announced Ending Dates

Our US Embassy in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, has announced that dossiers have to be logged in by July 1, 2008, and only those families that have an official referral by September 1, 2008 will be allowed to continue to process their adoptions.

So here's our list of prayer requests:

1) Our dossier left the US on April 8. It was originally supposed to be delivered by the 18th which then changed to "In Transit" since the 14th. We do not know where our dossier is AGAIN. It could be sitting at customs or still being transported 11 days later.

Please pray that our dossier is delivered to our agency's facilitator (employee that does all in-country stuff) ASAP. He still has to translate it into Vietnamese and take it back to Hanoi to be logged in with DIA (Dept. of International Adoptions).

2) Please pray for the situation in the province. It is not good. I can't go into detail. It has to do with some of the prayer requests below but with more specifics.

3) Please pray that we have an official referral long before Sept. 1. We are still next in line.

4) Please pray that the orphanage director will allow paperwork to be processed on any unmatched orphans that are there. This is very important. Paperwork and ads take several months. If he does not start soon, it will be too, late.

5) Please pray that the director will allow true orphans into the orphanage instead of turning them away.

6) Please pray that other orphanages may even be opened as needed. This is a possibility. It is stuck in the "red tape" process right now. A new orphanage would definitely help the situation.

7) Please pray for the orphans of Vietnam. Pray that true orphans will find forever families. Yes, there has been a few cases of misconduct within the adoption process as there is in any country including ours. Overall the adoptions there are ethical. Pray for discernment for our Immigration investigators that they will find the wrong doing but not punish all the innocent people involved in ethical adoptions as well.

We really need and appreciate your prayers.

Thanks,
Shae

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Dossier Sent

Well, it was a busy week last week for us and our dossier.

Tuesday, I received a voice mail from an unidentified man at the Vietnamese Consulate in San Francisco. He stated that he had our dossier but didn't have a return FedEx envelope and wondered what we wanted him to do. He also left a phone number.

Well 2 things here:

1) I watched the return envelope go in the outer package before it was sealed. Also a FedEx supervisor later confirmed that it was there. So obviously someone at the Consulate "misplaced" our envelope.

2) For anyone that's ever tried to contact the Consulate they know that any phone number you have, just doesn't work. It actually hangs up on you which is frustrating to say the least when you've gone through all their menus. Also, their email gets rejected every time. Well the number this man left was no different.

So...we tried faxing the Consulate, but then didn't hold our breath. Immediately we called a courier from the area that specializes in adoption deliveries (she's an adoptive mama herself). The courier was able to get our dossier back and sent it to us overnight. Thanks Jill!

So in the end it just cost us more money (ha!) and the stress of almost losing 10 months of work and thousands of dollars I'm sure was great for our hearts.

Wednesday morning the dossier arrived. I spent the rest of the day and evening making the required collated photo copies and typing up the cover sheets. Over 400 copies...yeah! Who am I kidding, I really didn't care, I was just so glad to get our dossier back.

Thursday I took Ethan to preschool, we went to the bank to get one of the complete copies of the dossier notarized, picked up Ethan, and then off to the Secretary of State Office in the Capital building in Lincoln for State seals.

Friday morning I was able to send the dossier and it's copies to our agency. It is there now. After our agency director reviews it, our dossier will go to Vietnam to be translated and finally logged in with the Department of International Adoption (DIA).