What we are doing for National Adoption Month

I have talked to my work and they agreed to have a jeans day where eah employee who wants to wear jeans will donate $2 and we are going to send the donations to GLA. I couldn't get the whole bank to do it, but the email has been sent out to the north region of the bank (which is 19 branches). Hopefully we can collect a good amount of money for GLA but anything we collect will be helpful.

National Adoption Month

Did you know that NOVEMBER is "National Adoption Month" in the United States?

The History of Adoption Month (taken from "NACAC:" North American Council on Adoptable Children) Formalized, time-specific adoption awareness campaigns originated more than 20 years ago. In May 1976, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued the first state Adoption Week proclamation, and President Ford then officially proclaimed the week in a letter to the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) conference held later that year. As years went on, Adoption Week came to be observed during the week of Thanksgiving in November.
In 1986, NACAC helped coordinate a national "Calling Out" event based on an idea from Larry Gellerstein, then president of the Adoptive Parent Committee of New York. That year groups across North America braved late November weather and simultaneously assembled on state and provincial capitol steps to read statements about waiting children, and call out the names of waiting children in their state or province.

In 1990, NACAC decided to expand opportunities for raising awareness, and began advertising Adoption Week as National Adoption Awareness Month (November). The idea has quickly caught on, and Adoption Month has celebrated ever since.

In 2005, a Presidential Proclamation of November 19 marked "National Adoption Day" where thousands of children across the United States have their adoption finalized in court!

CELEBRATE ADOPTION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As an adoptive family, what can you do to celebrate National Adoption Month?

- contact your local schools and help them celebrate too
- contact your local child care facilities and ask them to celebrate adoption too
- connect with your employer/HR and start an adoption benefit
- start an adoptive family support group in your area
- plan a community gathering with your local adoptive families support groups
- write a letter (and send a photo) to your congress person to help encourage their support
- write a letter to your child's birth/first parents, expressing your emotions
- write a letter to your child telling them how much you love them
- work on or look at your child's Lifebook
- plan a family outing
- sponsor an orphan in your child's birth-country
- start an adoption ministry at your church
- have a fundraiser/garage sale/bake-off/silent auction at church... to benefit your child's orphanage/adoption expenses
- have siblings in the home write about "what adoption means to them"
- look into culture camps and homeland tours for your family
- learn something fun about your child's birth-country or birth-culture
- go out to eat or cook ethnic food
- make a tradition of having a family photo taken every November ... then send it out with Christmas cards!
- write a letter/story to your local newspaper educating about adoption
- pray for birth/first families, foster families, orphanage caretakers, adoptive families, and orphaned children around the world ... that they may celebrate the Blessings of adoption too

CELEBRATE ADOPTION !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

October Monthly Update

October greetings, Brandon and Ambur!

We have continued to be busy here in Haiti with many of our families coming and going! We have had 13 more families come to appear before the judge, as well as 9 families come to take their children home to join their “forever families.” We praise God for the completion of these adoptions, and we look forward to seeing many more children going home before the end of the year!

It has been nice to have had all of our foreign staff in Haiti for most of the month of October. Laurie is recovering well from her Hepatitis and is back to work in the office. Stephanie has also returned from visiting friends and family back home and is also back at work. John and Dixie were here in Haiti for most of the month, but they left earlier this week. They will be travelling in the US and Canada, doing fundraising for GLA. Please remember them in your prayers as they travel and also that they would be successful in raising the money we need to run the orphanage. We have had several major expenses recently, including generators and vehicles breaking down and needing repaired and replaced. We trust that God will be faithful, as always, to provide for our needs and for those of the children in our care.
“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” ~Philippians 4:19

This past month I had the pleasure of having my mom visit at GLA for several weeks, and Steevenson was one of the kids she spent time with. Your little guy absolutely stole her heart! She told me several times how blessed you are to have Steevenson (and Roselaure, who she also spent a little time with) join your family.

Steevenson certainly knows and recognizes your pictures from the album you have sent him. When he sees the picture, Steevenson gets his huge, adorable grin on his face. When someone points to the pictures, Steevenson says “mama” and “dada” at the respective pictures.

Steevenson plays very well independently, and there is not much this little boy does not enjoy playing with! Steevenson does well generally interacting with Roselaure, but he does NOT like getting his picture taken with her! He is fine when the two of them are on the balcony together. He does not mind sharing attention as long as he gets his fair share. But for some reason when I take their picture together, Steevenson gets upset with having to share.

Roselaure is doing very well and is continuing to grow and develop. She is a very curious baby, and she loves to watch everything going on around her. If she thinks there is something interesting that she cannot see, Roselaure will squirm and wiggle until she is able to see what she wants to. Roselaure also has good head control, and she does well at focusing on objects.

Roselaure is starting to become a vocal baby (just like her big brother!), making cooing noises and babbling. Roselaure has also just recently started to smile. She is certainly a happy little baby!

Steevenson:
Weight: 18 lbs 10 oz
Height: 29.5 inches (75 cm)
Adoption status: Pre-courts

Roselaure:
Weight: 11 lbs 6 oz
Height: 23.5 inches (59.5 cm)
Adoption status: Pre-IBESR

Blessings,
Melanie Wright, GLA Update Coordinator


Roselaure & Steevenson




Steevenson





Roselaure

Referral is official

Well it is official now, we have sent the signed acceptance letter for Rose Laure's referral. After a lot of talk and trying to figure out what will need to be done, we have found out. The adoptions will be done on one adoption, so we have to have Rose Laure's file combined with Steevenson's file and we get to go back to IBESR and start again. But the orphanage and their attorney thinks it shouldn't take to long since we have already been approved in those courts. We also have to file an amended I-600A for two children which also means that we will have to travel back down one more time before we go down and pick them up.

Fingerprint Extensions

Well it is that time again, our Fingerprints will expire in January; so once again we will need to file our fingerprint extension. This will be the third time we have been fingerprinted, but I guess we can look at as another chance to make a trip to Hammond and walk around the Cabela's store. I will be mailing out the paperwork tomorrow and hopefully we will get an appointment to go back and get this done as soon as possible. I think after doing so much paperwork it seems like you become numb to filling out more paperwork and going to anything that is related to keeping the adoption going.

And Life In Haiti Goes On by Dixie Bickel

Please say a prayer for our American and Canadian staff. We have had a lot of illnesses going around the house. I have had a terrible cold and cough for the last week and still wake up coughing at night. John and I have to leave in 2 weeks for a long fundraising trip through Canada and the States. I desperately need your prayers to get over this illness so that I'm at my best before going on this fundraising trip!

Adoption News by Dixie

We have seen lots of movement with adoptions this past month. We have received many dossiers out of MOI and even had several children going home. IBESR has gotten dispensations and we have even seen files coming out of parquet! It is so nice to see things moving for some families even if other families are stuck in different areas. I wish that all files could move through the system quickly, but I have kind of given up on this happening with Haitian adoptions!

The house has been full of adoptive parents coming to sign in front of the local Judge and we are almost caught up with all dossiers in courts and parquet. There are still a few families left to come, but not many. We think it has been nice for the families to see their children but I know it has been a hardship financially for some parents to make the trip to Haiti.

For families whose dossier is in courts, the dossier must now return to Parquet for a new Parquet paper with a date that is before the date the parents signed in front of the judge. I think this is a complete mess! We end up having to change three (3) court documents so that dates match! That does not even make sense to me! We are changing the dates on legal documents at the request of one judge!

We are still waiting on dispensations and last week received one that had been in the system since November 2008! We are still waiting on 5 from November! Waiting for the Presidential dispensations have been so frustrating! All we can do is sit and wait. I truly believe the stress has given me an ulcer!

Hopefully, we will continue to have parents coming to Haiti before they go into Parquet so that they can move through the system smoothly. Please pray that Judge Cadet will grandfather the files through that were already in the system before he made his fateful decision that all parents had to come to Haiti!

And Life In Haiti Goes On by Dixie Bickel

This has been a very difficult week at the orphanage. Two of our generators are broken down and three of our cars are broken down! I had to go rent two 7 passenger vehicles just to keep things going at the orphanage. We need vehicles to transport children to appointments, do airport runs, buy food, and just do our daily work!

We desperately need funds to help replace the broken vehicles that cannot be fixed and the large generator at the main house. The main generator broke last Friday while we had a baby on oxygen. The baby turned blue without the oxygen and we had to run her up to the Toddler House for the night so she would have oxygen to live.

On Saturday, we were able to go to Fort Jacques and bring a generator from there to the main house to get us through until the broken generator can be fixed. Unfortunately, the part they need to fix it is not available in Haiti right now.

We are very grateful to the French Association and our French adoptive families who have given funds to replace the small generator at the guesthouse.

A generator is mandatory especially at the main house where we care for the really sick children. Without a generator to supply the medical equipment, over the years many of our children would have died!

Please, we need your help to fix the cars and generator. Would you consider making a donation through PAYPAL today to help?

We have always said that we would never be able to help as many children as we do if we did not have GLA supporters who loved the Haitian children as much as we do!