Hi Loves,
We pray that you all had a FABULOUS Christmas & a great new year so far!! Many people have been asking for an update on the adoption, so here goes.
Before Thanksgiving, we received word from our agency that the program in Sierra Leone was in trouble and the possibility of us completing our adoption was uncertain. The whole story is extremely complicated and very messy, but I'll explain the best I can.
Adoption agencies located in the U.S. must register with the government of a particular country and have that registration approved in order to complete adoptions. From what we have heard, the process can be very long and drawn out depending on how quickly the government works, so a lot of adoption agencies have found a work around. They will partner with an organization in that country that is already established with the government and work under their registration, which is exactly what ECAS did. Unfortunately, the organization that they chose was corrupt and extremely unethical. I won't go into all of the gory details, but they lied about our agency and now the government has blacklisted ECAS. At first, our agency was hoping to partner with another organization here in the states that had their registration, but that has since fallen apart too. In fact, we have been hearing a lot of rumors that ECAS will be closing their doors in the next couple of months.
So what now???
Good question! We are working with ECAS to hopefully get some of our program fees back although I am starting to doubt that they will follow through on their promise, but we aren't giving up hope just yet. I am planning to contact the financial director on Monday, so hopefully he will be able to give us a better idea of what we can expect. Beyond that, we contacted several agencies in Minnesota and found out that we will need to completely redo our home study since we are switching agencies as well as countries, which is unfortunate. Thankfully, we have found an organization that comes highly recommended and they have also blessed us by discounting their rates for adoptive parents that already have a completed home study. Lord willing, we will have the funds available in the next couple of months, so we can get the ball rolling again!
So what country???
LIBERIA! This part is SO exciting friends! When God laid Africa on our hearts, Michael & I wanted to adopt from Liberia. We couldn't explain why since neither one of us have ever been there before, but it was just this feeling that we had. Unfortunately, Liberia was not open for adoptions at the time, but that didn't stop us. Michael checked with a group of missionaries that worked in Liberia and they believed that the country would be opening back up again, but felt that it would take a couple more years for that to happen. We started to think that maybe we got our signals crossed or we would adopt from Liberia later, so we pressed forward with Sierra Leone. As we continued on our journey, God brought 2 amazing ladies into our lives that both have ties to Liberia. We didn't think anything of it at the time, but God was slowly moving the pieces together! In 2015, Liberia re-opened their country for adoption, which is faster than anyone could have expected! Of course, we were already committed to Sierra Leone by then, but now God has closed that door. As hard as it is to face starting over again, Michael & I are overjoyed to see how God is answering our prayers! We started this journey wanting to adopt from Liberia & now it could actually happen! HALLELUJAH!!! Some people may question our decision to press forward with Sierra Leone when God laid Liberia on our hearts, but honestly we just want to serve God and decided to move forward on that path until God told us otherwise. Plus, God doesn't waste anything that we go through. He's using our journey to prepare our hearts for our kiddos & we're going to have an amazing story to tell them about how hard we fought to bring them home!
So there you have it! We'll keep you all posted on any upcoming fundraisers as we can!
Blessings,
Michael & Carey
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