Please Pray!

Hello, all, this is Andy.  I want to take a moment to update you on our adoption and to ask you to pray for us.  As some of you know, we are coming up against a deadline (April 1), where, if we aren't matched with a child, we will have to resubmit all of our paperwork under Haiti's new adoption guidelines.  We were told (only about 3 weeks ago) that the actual requirements of the deadline were that we 1) would have to be matched, 2) would need to travel to Haiti for 2 weeks and 3) that we would need to turn in our I-600 (an adoption form) personally in Port-au-Prince.  We knew the deadline was coming, but when we received the above details, it was only about a month before the deadline--which significantly cut down our chances of successfully completing the requirements.  We had less than a month to get a match, and if we did, to get plane tickets, and make sure we were in Haiti for at least two weeks before April 1.  The same day we got the notice, I called our agency, and they essentially said, "you'd better start planning on updating."  And so, that's what we've begun doing.

However, we received a notice YESTERDAY that the requirements for completion by April 1 had either been miscommunicated or changed.  As of today, all we need by April 1 is a formal referral by the adoption authority in Haiti (the IBESR).  If we receive a match, we'll have a month to turn in our I-600, but we don't have to travel to Haiti to do it.

So, there is still the high potential of being matched by April 1 (several other families in our same situation have been matched in the past few days), and IBESR says that they are prioritizing all I-600 families until then.

That brings us to our prayer request: we have been trusting the Lord, that His timing is perfect, and that we will be matched according to His perfect will--and we will continue to do so.  We also believe, though, that according to Scripture, "the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."  Will you join us in praying that the Lord would help us be matched with a child or children by April 1?  We don't know what God's will is, and are ready and willing to do the update process, but we are asking that He work mightily in the next few days for us (and the other families in our same situation) to get matched before the deadline.

Thank you for your prayers and support.  May Jesus Christ's name be exalted!