AGCI Listserve, Hannah's Hope, and Orphanage Holdups

AGCI offers this amazing listserve for the families, and each Friday the families put out two lists (that are created/maintained by families, not AGCI). One list is for waitlist families, and it shows what "unofficial" number you are, according to the known referrals. The other list is the post-referral list: showing referral,  court, and embassy dates so we can see what the current time frame is for the post-referral process. Both lists are great ways to get to know the other families walking in this process.

Another thing this means is that we can GUESS as to how many kids have been referred at Hannah's Hope (the transition home where all the AGCI babies live). And when families go to Hannah's Hope, they can report on how many "open beds" there are, and if HH is full or not. Currently HH is not full, and most of the kids there are actually already matched with families.

My thought is: Open beds? Just bring some babies in! Our caseworker just explained to me a bit more about how this works. AGCI/Hannah's Hope partners with a few different government orphanages. When a child is paperwork ready (aka they have paperwork identifying them as a legal orphan) then the govt orphanages can call AGCI or any other of the agencies they partner with (it is seemed to be sketchy if a orphanage only partners with one transition home, like HH... so they partner with lots of agencies). So a lot of the "ebb and flow" of adoption is because the partnering government orphanages don't have paperwork-ready kids that are meant for Hannah's Hope. All kids in Hannah's Hope are paperwork ready and thus available to be matched almost immediately (although sometimes the kids are very sick, so they need a little TLC before they are ready for a referral). Sometimes the government orphanages will have a lot of kids that are ready for HH, and sometimes it is just one or two kids. There is no rhyme or reason to it.

Another thing is that "paperwork ready" is a really difficult thing sometimes! I wrote this in an earlier blog post (taken from an AGCI email regarding the paperwork process).One of the AGCI Caseworkers had just returned from Ethiopia, and noted:

"When traveling to the South [of Ethiopia] especially, I was struck by the difficulty involved in completing the relinquishment or abandonment process for a child, a process that happens before AGCI or any other agency can even consider advocating for the placement of a child with an adoptive family. To give you a little background information, when a case is being processed for relinquishment or abandonment, there are essentially 3 main entities involved. The first is the Kebele, a part of the government that actually has to process the legal documents and officially approve a child for placement. The second is the birth family member currently caring for the child. Lastly, there is the social worker through a government affiliated orphanage who is actually communicating with the birth family. The Social workers role includes, helping them complete the necessary paperwork to submit to the Kebele for relinquishment and asking all those “right questions” to be sure that the birth family is truthful about their living circumstances, age of the child, medical information, social history, etc."

"Even after that point though when AGCI or another agency is assigned a child for placement, the process is not quite done. Due to the increasing scrutiny by the US Embassy and media attention on adoptions in Ethiopia, it has become increasingly important for agencies to also follow up on the details of each case to confirm the information is true, check for any discrepancies in information, and be sure all viable facts are known and presented as accurately as possible. This means even after a child is assigned to AGCI there may still be discrepancies to correct or further information to clarify or be gathered before we can refer a child. Finally, once these facts are confirmed by our staff we are able to officially place a child with their forever family and jump into the court process. All in all, this entire abandonment or relinquishment process can be anywhere from a few days to many, many months depending on all the variables involved in each case."
Understanding the paperwork process + the process of a kid getting to Hannah's Hope really helped clear things up for me! It helped me understand why there are such lags in between referrals, and how sometimes we can jump lots of spots in one month and then drag by for a few more months. But one thing is CLEAR! The Lord is sovereign, and His timing will be PERFECT! I can't wait to see the timing of our kid's life, and how we will be able to see God's sovereign timing for this little baby to be ours.

So I will end this post with an {old} video of Hannah's Hope in Ethiopia. This is how it came about, and actually in 2010 Hannah's Hope moved to a bigger building, so this building is not the one our baby will be in. But still, you can watch the heart behind it and see how much love and care goes into those babies. I can't wait to see it in person.