Up-to-date on travel immunizations

Yesterday we went to the travel clinic here in town and got all of the shots necessary for traveling to Haiti (in anticipation of us going in the next few months). We ended up with 2 shots, 1 in each arm, and were then in pain for about the next 24 hrs! A heads up to anyone getting the typhoid vaccine: get it in your non-dominant arm because it'll be sore. We also have a prescription for malaria pills just waiting for us when we have an actual departure date.

Orphanage FAQs

After watching the videos from the last post, I realized how little I knew about the orphanage itself so I e-mailed my agency some questions. Here are their responses :-)

Where is Rivers of Hope located?

• It is about a 30 minute car ride from Port au Prince.

How was it started?

• A missionary family in Haiti (Willem and Beth seen in the Sofia film) has an orphanage/school/clinics and was approached by visiting missionaries to assist with adoptions. They did for a few but knew the need was greater than they could handle given their other mission responsibilities. They had a friend of many years from church, Rachel (also in the film), who operated a preschool in Haiti who was asked to assist. Rachel started coordinating these adoptions but knew there were more children who needed families. Through church contacts we were linked. After meeting with us and knowing our commitment to place children she used her own finances to open the orphanage in February 2007.

How many children are at the orphanage?

• 10. The age range is infant up to about 4 years old.

How/why do most of the children come to be in the orphanage?

• For the most part, their parents are located near by and simply cannot provide for them due to various factors.

How many workers work there?

• Rachel is there often but does not stay overnight. There are 2 nannies who care for the children in the home.

How is the orphanage funded?

• Rachel used her own finances to start the facility. She has received donations as well. Part of the adoption fees will go to care for the children and support the mission and care of more children.

Bringing Home Sophia Video

Our agency recently posted a link to a video another couple made about their adoption story:





They are adopting from the same orphanage (Rivers of Hope), as us, so it was awesome to get to see on this video the orphanage, the people who we'll meet, and the kids! It gives us a much better idea of what is to come in the future. Total the videos are about 18 minutes long, and I posted them because I thought some of you might to watch too.

I'm pretty sure that in this video, the couple is meeting their new daughter, Sophia, for the first time, but their paperwork is still being processed by the Haitian government. Hence, they will not be able to take her back to the States with them until a later date. Our hope is to make a similar trip to Haiti in the next few months in order to get to visit our child!

Dossier Heading to Haiti!

I dropped off our completed dossier to our agency this morning! It should be in Haiti by the end of next week :-)

Chicago Trip went smoothly

My trip to Chicago on Thursday went very smoothly. After getting to the Secretary of State's office I was in and out with my authenticated documents within 15 minutes. I'm really glad that I went (rather than sending things through the mail), because there was 1 document that had been notarized incorrectly and so they would have had to send it back to me to fix if I hadn't been there. Instead, I was able to take care of it right then and there. The Haitian Consulate was about a 2 minute walk down State Street from the Sec of State, and I was in and out of there in about 5 minutes. Quick and easy! One day trip to Chicago saved us a few weeks of mail going back and forth. If only there hadn't been traffic on the Dan Ryan and parking costs weren't atrocious! :-P

I-171H Approval?

All of our dossier paperwork is about ready to go to Haiti. I'm going to head up to Chicago this week and go to the Secretary of State's Office, to the Haitian Consulate, and then hand them off to the French Translators. It sounds like all of this can be done in about an hour and a half. Luckily they're all within a few blocks of each other! A week later, I'll have them back and then off they go to Haiti.

Only problem is that we're not quite sure if we need to have heard back from the US Citizenship & Immigration (CIS) office yet with our I-171H approval. From what I've been reading it seems unnecessary to have at this time, but if the word comes back from our agency that it is mandatory now then we'll have another 6-8 weeks to wait before sending the dossier, sigh.

Speaking of possible slowdowns, it looks as through the adoption process in Haiti is taking a loooong time. So, instead of the 6 months or so that we were hoping our paperwork would be in the Haitian adoption system, it looks more like 12 months. Hence, after we receive a referral for our child it'll likely be another year until they are in the States (Summer '08). Yet, its all in God's hands, and He knows what He's doing so we're feeling alright with it. But I'm still keeping my fingers crossed the Haitian adoption system gets moving!

Home Study Complete

Our Home Study is now complete. One more thing checked off the list!