Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Some movement, but not for us

It has been quite the roller coaster of a day. Tidbits of positive news have been trickling in since yesterday, but the U.S. Embassy did not send out their official adoption notice until this evening. The good news is that 62 Congolese orphans get to come home. This is the first time adopted children are being allowed to leave Congo since last fall. The bad news is that the rest of the children are not coming home now. There are hundreds of adopted children in Congo who have parents in the United States waiting for them, but only 15 of those are being allowed out of Congo. [The rest of the 62 children are going home to other countries.]

The remaining hundreds of children and their families now have to wait for Congo to re-write their adoption laws. Nobody knows how long this will take or what will be in them, but we are all required to adhere to whatever they may say (even those of us with finalized adoptions!). No timeframe was presented at all. This is getting really ridiculous. This morning we thought things were starting to move again because a few families were receiving exit permits, but now we realize that is not the case. Congo just wanted to get rid of a few of the oldest adoption cases before continuing to hold the rest of our children hostage while starting the process of writing new laws. I guess we just continue on with no timeframes and no promises while we wait for this never- ending adoption to finally come to an end.