Dossier Progress

I was sitting down tonight to look at the pile of paperwork that is beginning to form our Dossier. It is mind-boggling at times...but we are going through the list bit by bit. I spent a good 45 minutes just organizing the documents that we have already received and making notes on what we still have to accomplish. I feel so much better about the process when things are orderly. Big surprise, I know. So after I had organized everything, I was able to get a clearer picture of where we are in the process. I have to say that I had a pretty big flutter of excitement after I saw our progress! There are a total of 28 items that need to be collected. We have officially obtained 13 of the 28 and are close to obtaining or in the process of obtaining 10 more! That is a grand total of 23 of the 28 already being addressed! Hopefully the ones that we are working on right now will come through quickly so we can wrap up the remaining 5 items to complete our portion of the Dossier process! Please continue to pray for perseverance. Satan works in such sneaky ways. Even tonight as I sat down to work on a part of one document, the computer had something funny happen that caused the keys to work...but only in slow motion. I am serious. I don't know how to explain it more accurately...but somehow it reversed itself and here I am...one step closer to getting this process completed! Praise God!

Kiki

I am in tears as I sit here and write tonight. Right before my church meeting this evening I was saddened by an e-mail that announced the news that a man I've only met once passed away last evening. The world has lost a great man, and Haiti has lost a great advocate for kids. http://forhisgloryoutreach.org/kiki 

Kiki dropping us off at the airport in Port au Prince as we left Haiti

I would say I'm devastated by the news and yet it's not a devastation in that I'm lost and beside myself and without hope, but devastation in that Kiki did so much for kids in Haiti that it's going to take multiple people to fill his shoes. At the same time, I'm also very excited by the news and rejoicing because I can only imagine the pile of crowns and jewels that Kiki has just received from Jesus in Heaven!

Rebecca and I both met Kiki in our travels to Haiti in 2010 with http://www.mission-haiti.org/. As Pam said in her e-mail tonight, Kiki was Mission-Haiti's "Haitian Director, best friend, translator, driver, hero to the kids in the orphanage, and everything in between." I only had the chance to meet Kiki at the end of my trip when he drove 5 hours from Port au Prince (where he lived) to Ti-Rivier (where the Mission-Haiti orphanage is), he spent the night at the orphanage with us and then the next day drove us back the 5 hours to Port. That night we stayed at Kiki's house before he took us to the airport early the following morning. It was during this time that I had conversation with Kiki about what my trip would mean for the rest of my life and it was then that I learned Kiki's "real job" (when he wasn't being "everything" to Mission-Haiti) was working for an orphanage in Port au Prince. http://forhisgloryoutreach.org/ Maybe you've seen that link in our blogs before? :)  After Bec returned from Haiti where she met Kiki, and after we prayed about what our trips meant to the rest of our lives, it was him who we contacted about where to start on this journey of adoption. (Here is our letter to Kiki from January 15, 2011 http://we2wits.blogspot.com/2011/07/letter-to-kiki-at-orphanage-in-haiti.html)  We wrote back and forth with him for a few weeks as we learned about the process and who we needed to get in touch with to adopt from For His Glory's orphanage. I thank God for Kiki's help in starting our journey and am saddened at the fact that when we go to pick up our little ones, he won't be there... (sorry, I just "lost it")

I can't explain the lump in my throat and the tears running down my face as I think about the kids at both orphanages that rarely have anything stable in their lives, but who had Kiki and now don't. I remember when I was at the Mission-Haiti orphanage and the kids knew Kiki was coming from Port, they heard the truck coming down the road and when he pulled into the gate they went sprinting for him. I am positive that the kids at For His Glory felt the same way and that they just lost one of their stable, Godly role models. I pray that our future kids are already alive and are at the orphanage, and that they are old enough to have known him and that he was able to impact them at their early ages! If that was the case, then I have high hopes of them becoming great people!

Here is Pam's e-mail from earlier tonight:
This is a really difficult email to write but many of you have heard or met
Kiki. He is our Haitian Director, best friend, translator, driver, hero to
the kids in the orphanage, and everything in between.  Last night he asked
for prayer because he was not feeling well.  This morning I received a call
that he had passed away in the night.

Mike and I are leaving for Haiti and will return on the 4th of September.

Please keep Kiki's parents in your prayers as well as all the children in
the orphanage.

Missing Kiki,
pam

Kiki guided Rebecca's team the 5 hours through the mountains to and from Port on Mission-Haiti's bus. The same bus that broke down about 30 times in the middle of the night on the team's trip back to Port to catch their flight. After leaving the bus on the side of the road to come back and pick up later, Kiki found a Haitian driver with a van to make it to the airport in time.

Home Study Completed...and On to the Dossier!!!

It is getting late and I know that I should really be heading off to bed...but I have been unable to update the blog for far too long! Tonight is the night. Craig and I have been working diligently over the last month gathering documents to piece together our Dossier. This process is something that we are learning about as we go, and I think that it is important to share what we are doing.

When we signed on with the International Agency, Children of All Nations (CAN), we were provided information that would help us to get all of the documents and education completed for the adoption. Craig scanned the two different lists that we have been working on so it is easier to explain (above). The first mailer was quite short. There were six documents/tasks to get accomplished before mailing it.

Once the first mailer was sent off, we began to focus on the necessary 24 hours of adoption education we needed to complete. We finished that up a couple of weeks ago. That was a wonderful moment because the completion of the education enabled our local adoption agency (LSS) to put the finishing touches onto our Home Study Report. It was then sent to us for approval and then on to the International Agency for approval. Official approval was received last week!

We then received the information on what needed to be obtained to create the second mailer, the Dossier. This Dossier is the official "portfolio" if you will that will be sent off to the International Agency for approval, then sent on to the State of South Dakota to authenticate all of the documents, then finally, it will be sent on to the government of Haiti. We will then wait to hear back from Haiti through our International Agency, Children of All Nations, for the approval. Once the approval is received, our understanding is that we will be able to receive referrals of children.

We are diligently piecing together the Dossier. There are 28 items to be prepared and we are working our way through them a couple at a time. It was a bit overwhelming at first. The list of 28 items was accompanied by a 56 page explanation guide. It has been very helpful, but it was a bit daunting at first! I had to make Craig stop reading it out loud to me and told him we would have to do one item at a time. Children of All Nations must know how I work because there are several spreadsheets and checklists. We have been whittling them down one at a time.

We had a funny moment this week as we went to the courthouse to have our criminal reports prepared. We had to have a notary along with us and Lisa Blankers (a family friend of Craig's) agreed to accompany us. As she was notarizing our documents, she was a bit concerned because my report was one page shorter than Craig's. I told her that was because my husband actually has a criminal report! Praise God that the numerous speeding tickets are not a deal breaker on the adoption front! It was comical when the kids started asking questions about the tickets...Craig didn't hesitate to blame me for one of the tickets he got back in 1995 driving me to a dance outside of Brookings, SD. Hmmm....seems to me that the cute teenage girl in the passenger seat of....oh yes....MY CAR....encouraged her over-eager boyfriend to slow down! There was discussion about the lights of the oncoming cars and how it was easy to see that they weren't cops. Oops...I guess teenage guys aren't invincible!

Okay, back on track. So we have completed 10 of the 28 items so far. We continue to be working on the remaining items...but nothing is as straight forward as it seems. This is a process and it will be a lengthy process. Craig and I have both had many questions from people wondering why the process takes so long and expressing frustration. We truly are not experiencing any of this frustration at this point. We realize that the adoption of a child...or children in our case...is a huge undertaking. It is necessary and important for the country of origin to have requirements to keep the children safe and to ensure that the placement will be successful.

Of course we are looking forward to our time with the children we will adopt, but in the meantime, we are balancing the adoption paperwork with memory making with our current family! We have been praying for the children that we will be adopting. It is exciting that they are likely already living at the orphanage, "For His Glory." We pray for their safety, their health and their comfort that a forever family is waiting just around the corner for them.

Our first preference is to adopt a sibling set. Currently there are only a handful of children that are in a sibling set. Most of those sibling sets have a much older sibling. Our plan continues to be to have the birth order in our current family maintained. We spoke with the social worker at CAN (Children of All Nations) and she said that there are several children that are not part of a sibling set that are available but not on their website. This was exciting news. Apparently CAN has 13 families waiting to adopt from Haiti! The social worker said that if we were not able to adopt a sibling set, it is likely that we would be able to adopt two children that share an extremely close relationship at the orphanage. We know that the Lord will lead us to the children that are meant to be a part of our family. Craig, myself and the kids are so excited to meet them and share our lives with them!

We covet your prayers as we continue on this journey. Please pray that the pieces of the Dossier continue to fall into place; that the approval of the Dossier will be timely; that the adoptive children will be safe and well-cared for in the meantime; that our family will continue to prepare for the transition to come and that the Lord would continue to use this remarkable journey to bring Him all of the Glory! We are relying on His strength and support every step of the way!

Blessings!
Rebecca

Letter to Kiki at the orphanage in Haiti

                        

                                                                                                            January 15, 2011

Blessings to you Kiki!

Craig and I (Rebecca) met you while we traveled to Haiti with Pam Plasier’s Mission Haiti teams in March and early October of 2010. I was along on the trip when the bus broke down about 30 times on the way back to Port. The evening before we left for Port, I spoke with you about your orphanage and told you that Craig and I have been praying about adoption.

Since our return from these trips, we have continued to pray, and we have spoken with our three children at length about the potential adoption and their opinions. They are very excited as well. We are at the point where we would like to learn more about the steps to move in that direction. We would appreciate any information that would be available to help us finalize on our decision and to connect us with the people that help us make this a reality.

We are looking for a child or potentially two that are siblings that are under 5 years of age. Our youngest is currently 4.5 years old, and we would like an adoptive child or children to be younger than him. Our daughters are 6 and 8 years old.

We spoke with Pam Plasier, and she encouraged us to send you this message so you could help us to answer our questions and begin exploring the process.

We appreciate any advice that you can provide us with, and I am certain that we will have further questions; however, we are certain that the Lord is placing this on our hearts and we are determined to follow His plan for our family.

Thank you and may God continue to bless you for all that you do in His name!

Craig and Rebecca DeWit

4408 East Scranton Street

Sioux Falls, SD 57103

605-339-3397

605-929-6894

we2wits@yahoo.com

Update June 19, 2011

Craig started this Blog for me about one month ago and my intention has been to back log all of the events that have brought us to the point of adoption.  Now that we have been in the car for ten hours on the way to a family vacation in Colorado, I have finally been able to do just that. We only have to add the photos to the different entries and we will be able to be current in our correspondences.

It was wonderful to reminisce through Craig’s Haiti trip, my own trip and the events that have occurred since our return. We have continued to work locally with Lutheran Social Services in the adoption process. We have now been through two of the three home study visits and have attended a two day adoption seminar to begin working toward the required 24 hours of adoption education.

We met a man when we were in Haiti named Kiki who works at an orphanage in Port-au-Prince called For His Glory/Maison des Enfants and were so impressed by his love for Christ and his mission for children. We knew immediately that our adoption would involve his orphanage. We began to look for international agencies that adopted out from For His Glory/Maison des Enfants. We had the list narrowed down to three agencies. It was a difficult time because we were given different information from each agency.  One of them said that the waiting period was 18-24 months; another 36 months; and still another 42 months. One of the agencies said that they had never done the Presidential Dispensation and another said that they had been working on their first one. We prayed that we would choose the right agency for us.

After much consideration and prayer, we decided to use Children of All Nations (CAN) for our international agency and they have been wonderful. We filled out all of the preliminary paperwork and feel as though we have shared every possible bit of information about our past, present, and future plans. We think that we are about half way through the paperwork chase. Yesterday we sent the most recent mailer back to CAN and we will be instructed when to move forward with preparing our Dossier. The Dossier is the largest part of the paperwork chase. There are about 30 pieces of information that need to be gathered, notarized and verified by the government.  It will be a long and tedious process but it will be so wonderful to see the items being checked off the list. We know that each step will bring our Haitian children closer to their forever family.

Our next step will be to complete the final home study visit on June 27^th. Then the local agency will prepare their report on whether they feel we are qualified. There hasn’t been any indication of problems with our paperwork or qualifications.

We will also be requesting certified birth certificates and a marriage certificate as the first portion of our Dossier. We are looking forward to this being complete.

We have some further adoption education that we need to complete. We have online computer education to complete in the next couple of months and this will complete that portion of the requirements to adopt from Haiti.

In the meantime, we have been frequently visiting the website for CAN. There is a list of available children and I have been frequently praying for these beautiful children that might come to be a part of our family…or at the very least are likely friends to the children that will become a part of our family.

Most people have heard that we are looking to adopt a sibling set with two children. I think that most people can’t believe that we are going to adopt two children at once. After much prayer, we knew that if we only adopted one child, we would likely be returning to Haiti to adopt another shortly after. We made the decision to do two at once in the hope that we will be able to keep a sibling group together. We are excited to see how this journey unfolds and are looking forward to the twists and turns along the way! It is amazing to watch God at work!

Excerpt taken from Rebecca’s Journal—March 5, 2011

So much has happened since I last wrote…hard to believe that it has already been five months. Time goes by so quickly. When I returned…the emotions were still so much on the surface. The experience was truly like none other in my life. Pivotal…we just didn’t know in what direction we were pivoting. Time and prayer has enabled us to understand where God’s plan is leading us more clearly now.

There is something that twists in the soul when a beautiful child with deep brown, dusty feet and tattered clothes reaches out and not only grasps the hand, but also the heart. That is how I felt with each of the kids I met on the journey in Haiti.

Over time…that grasping of our heart has turned into an ache. One that grows even more painful as the days pass. We have come to understand that this ache must be the Holy Spirit firmly nudging us in the direction of adoption.

We had wondered if our lives would move in this direction even before our trip…but now we are certain. We have been doing some research on agencies and have decided to go through Lutheran Social Services.

At first we were given several different bits of information about the requirements to adopt from Haiti and one of the requirements was that the adoptive family could not have more than two biological children. It was a bit emotional at first, but we discovered that there is a Presidential Dispensation that can be filed with the Haitian government that will allow us to adopt even though we have three children already.

I can’t wait for everything to fall into place and know that it will be another journey. I pray that the Lord will continue to prepare my heart for this transition. I pray that my strength and patience will be sufficient with the Lord’s help to journey through the months ahead. I also pray that He be with the children we will adopt and those caring for them.

Excerpt taken from Rebecca’s Journal—October 19, 2010

After I returned home from Haiti, I was so short on sleep from the travels and developed a powerful respiratory infection. I don’t recall ever feeling quite so fatigued. I spent every spare minute napping and going to bed early and sleeping in when possible in the hopes of catching up on some rest and healing the infection.

I had two days off at home with the kids and then it was back to the real world. It was overwhelming how different our world is compared to the Haitian world. How blessed we are with material things…and how conveniently all of our needs are met. I reflected on this so many times during that first week.

The longing I had for the people of Haiti initially was so much more intense than I had imagined possible! It is amazing how quickly we can fall in love with a culture, a people and a country.

I know that in the future the Lord plans for us to return to Haiti…to share in more memories with these precious people. I don’t know if it will be a family trip…individual trip…or something altogether different…but I am praying that the Lord will make His plan clear for us and will walk with us through this journey.

I hope to impact the people of Haiti in my own way over the years. I especially hope to encourage them in their faith walk and to journey closer to Christ-like-ness as we learn from each other’s example.

“If you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you’re saying that their lives matter less than some others’, and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that’s wrong with the world.” “You have to believe that small gestures matter, that they do add up.”   

—Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder