Last week I was lucky enough to be able to spend a long weekend in St. Louis with my family. The last time I was in St. Louis was over Thanksgiving break. It was very difficult for me to leave then since I was not sure if I would ever see my dad again. We were told that he could possible only have a few more weeks to live. Fast forward about 3 month and I am feeling so blessed to have had the opportunity to spend some more time with him.
News on the adoption front....
Things have been moving slow in Ecuador over the last couple of months. In 2011 work stated on Monday, January 3rd, with some problems, such as a disintegrated National Adoptions Office, and members of civil society who are part of the National Children's and Adolescents Council (CNNA-acronym in Spanish) whose appointments have expired and without clear procedures for holding a new election and without a public budget for the same, Therefore the CNNA has not met to evaluate how it will meet the objectives proposed for this year. In this far from encouraging scenario, meetings of the Assignment Committee have been called, but there was not a quorum at most of them to hold the meeting, which is why no national or international referrals have been made. CHSFS Ecuador representative supposedly has managed to get them to hold an extraordinary committee meeting for them to make the referrals in specific cases of waiting children who have already been proposed to CHSFS to seek families for them. Last week the CHSFS representative in Ecuador met with the directors of the homes/orphanages in Quito and the agreed to ask the Executive Secretary of the National Children's and Adolescent Council, for a meeting to request the a clear period of time be given in which the committee meetings and referrals will start again. This meeting will be requested for the week of March 14-18th. She hopes that the petition will be accepted and that there will be some results.
Right now we continue our wait. There is not a lot we can do at this point except to continue to be optimistic and pray....it's all in His hands!
