IBESR has expressed their intent to re-establish the adoption program in Haiti utilizing a quota of one dossier submission per accredited agency per month. There are over 300,000 orphans in Haiti and about 19 accredited agencies. Their purpose for the quota is to make sure the new system will work before getting a bunch of families involved, but it just doesn’t seem logical. For us, that means our paperwork could remain at rest in its current place on someone’s desk in Haiti for a few more months. For the orphanages, they simply can’t survive without the money coming in from adoptions. Orphanages will have to turn kids in need away, and that’s hard to imagine. Since our agency can only submit one dossier per month, they have chosen to use a committee to determine the order in which families will be allowed to proceed. It will not be a first come, first served situation, which would have worked out better for us. Instead of deciding which family gets to go first, they will be deciding which child will get to come home first, and then submit the family matched with that child. We are confident in our agency and their desire to seek God’s will in matching children with families, so we’re at peace with our place in line, wherever that may be. I’m not sure how they will be able to decide which child deserves priority, but I appreciate the idea of putting the children first.
The quota system is ridiculous, but some of the other changes to IBESR’s policies and procedures make more sense. Before the new policies and procedures, Referrals were made rather quickly, and then the dossiers for both the child and the family were sent together to IBESR, who then had to approve the family and the referral at the same time. Now, the family will have to be approved by IBESR before the official referral is made. That means families will not get their referral as quickly, but the time between referral and the end of the process is shorter. That’s a welcomed change. Our agency will be submitting dossiers with a match in mind, but IBESR will make the final decision on referrals after the family is approved. Our agency will not be allowed to give us any information whatsoever about the child they have matched us with until after we are approved by IBESR because they have final say.
It’s all rather confusing, but here's the bottom line: We are one of six paperwork ready families waiting to submit our dossier, and three more families are in process. A committee will match a child with a family and determine the order of submission based on which child they think needs to come home first. We have no idea where we will fall in line, but we hope that will be determined in the next few weeks. Hopefully, the quotas will be removed soon, and we will all be on our way. The orphanages will fight hard to get the quotas removed because they need the money.
I feel confident that IBESR will notice rather quickly that quotas will mean less money coming in, and they will work rather quickly to remedy the situation.
Whatever happens, we are at least 6 months to a year from a referral. That sounds like a long time, and it’s a little longer than we had hoped, but it’s not about what we want. God led us to Haiti, and we’re in this for the long haul. Jeremiah 1:19 says, “They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you, declares the Lord.” This is war and we’re armed and ready. This has been one battle after another, but God never said it would be easy. We can and WILL get this done. PRAY!
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