A roadbump!

Hi my friends!
I am pasting part of an email that we got from our facilitator the other day. Don't know if it really is bad news or not but God is bigger than the Ukrainian government and our kids are in his hands so we are not to worried but please pray that it won't slow our process down. Our little ones have been in their orphanage long enough already and we want them to be able to come home as soon as possible.

Thanks for standing with us! Daniela

The following is an update from the U.S. State department’s website regarding changes in Ukraine. I have mentioned this change previously, but it was precipitated by some organizational structuring that happened within the Ukraine government back months ago. Basically the ministry under which the SDA existed – ceased to exist. Theoretically leaving the SDA reporting to no one. They were kind of in “no mans” land. Finally, on april 8th, the President signed a decree placing them under the Ministry for Social Policy. As the statement below mentions, this won’t be effective until it is “published” which should be any day now. So, for all intents and purposes, in my world – it is a done deal. They are moving. So, what does that mean for families in the process of adoption? Well, we simply don’t know. Once it is “published”, the SDA will begin to look at how they are going to handle this change. We don’t know if it will affect dossiers already filed, dossiers scheduled to be filed, and for sure don’t know what will happen in the next couple of months for people who don’t have their dossier in the hands of the SDA. WHAT THIS DOES NOT MEAN --- it does NOT mean adoptions are shut down. This is not a moratorium. It is simply a restructuring of the internal departments. So policies and procedures will most likely change – but then again might not. What we EXPECT will happen is that they will take some time to get “reorganized” so there may be a delay in filing a dossier, but we don’t know when that will begin or who it will affect. Because, again, technically it isn’t official until it has been posted. But we are expecting the posting any day. WHAT THIS DOES MEAN – don’t stop anything you are doing. We should continue preparing dossiers for filing as we have before – because there may be NO changes, or very little changes. I kind of think of this like “holiday” time. Things don’t stop….they just slow down a bit. For the family in Texas whose dossier is being filed this week, I will know on Wednesday whether the SDA accepted the dossier, but still won’t know if the internal processing time will change. For the family in Colorado whose dossier is slotted for filing later in April, we don’t know yet what will happen to those filing dates. For the rest of you still preparing dossiers, keep going!  As a note of encouragement….when I visited Ukraine last year, the facilitator I was with got a frantic phone call from a family that was in country. Some approval was still not done and they didn’t have a court date yet. To them the news was just horrible. When the facilitator got off the phone I asked what was wrong. She told me, and my response was, “Oh, that is such horrible news.” The facilitator said, “No, it is not bad news. BAD news is when you are told you cannot adopt the child you love. Everything else is just a roadbump!” So, don’t fret. This isn’t BAD news! It’s just a speed bump!!!