News surrounding Vietnam and the MOU

Hello friends and family,
I hope you all are having a great weekend thus far. I thought I’d do our weekly update while flying home to Indianapolis from Orlando. I just finished up my National Meeting today. Brandon came to town with me and while I was in meetings, Brandon stayed with my mom and dad and enjoyed some R&R, golfing and lots of time enjoying the summer Olympic games. So on to our updates…

RUSSIA UPDATE:
There hasn’t been much movement that I’m aware of in our Russia program in the way of referrals lately. We are about number 11 on the list for a baby girl (from what I can tell). Where I was optimistic that we would receive a referral in 2-5 months originally; I now believe it may be up to another 4 months. Of course in the grand scheme of our elephant gestational period, this is a drop in the bucket. Maybe God is just telling us, “not yet”. So we continue to wait (now 2 days short of 2 months- and as Brandon would say…”who’s counting? ;-)” The very visible new concern that is in our minds is of course the hostility between Georgia and Russia. We haven’t been told that this will influence our adoption to Russia but we know to well that all things can affect International adoption; this being a very real issue at present.

VIETNAM:
So Vietnam on the other hand is much like the Indianapolis 500 these days! WOW! Every time I turn around there is another referral for another family. There have been 30+ referrals this year since Jan 08 and two more this week for baby girls (which means we move down to #34 on the list). It’s SO amazing and such a blessing to see the program pick up and children being placed in loving homes at a much faster pace!! On a very sad note, we have to acknowledge that one of the orphanages that FTIA works in within the Province of Bac Lieu has had some very tough events as of recently. 10 children had been hospitalized with fever and pneumonia. One baby girl that was referred to one of the FTIA families passed away a week ago. It is absolutely HEART WRENCHING to think about what that family must have experienced! Please keep them and all of these families in process in your prayers. The sooner these babies can come home, the better off they will be. It has been reported by our agency that some of the babies who were hospitalized are getting better which is a HUGE praise!!!

As everyone who has been following along on our blog knows…There has been much discussion between both the U.S. government and the Vietnamese government over the last several months surround a new MOU being signed. Though much progress has been made and continues to actively be made…We were informed yesterday that referrals from Vietnam will cease right now. The MOU will not be resigned by Sept 2nd but there is hope that a new agreement will be reached this fall. We will continue to hope and pray that a new agreement can and will be signed as quickly as possible so that adoptions may continue!! Please pray for all of the officials involved in this process, for the children of Vietnam and all waiting families. It will be a rough time for many as this program comes to a halt for now.

Everyone have an absolutely wonderful week!!!!

PS- I was attempting to be creative and did a, critter slide show (just WAIT till we have kids if you think this is bad ;-) The baby robin we raised is on their! If the slide show is not running or stops mid way through just click the small "X" in the upper right corner and it will start again.

Also, you can tell I was getting frisky with the blog this week (hehe :) I added music that reminds us of our little ones out there somewhere on the other side of the world, in Gods care.

Hugs and love,
Robin and Brandon