With all the devestation in Haiti, thousands of children are now orphans. NWHCM is trying to discern how to help in this aspect...
Northwest Haiti Christian Mission has served the children of Haiti for the last 30 years through its orphanage. We recently moved the children to a brand new facility in the Far West zone of Haiti. This has freed up the facility that remains empty in Port de Paix, Haiti. As the weeks and months pass and the displaced children in Port au Prince become known orphans we will begin the process of filling this campus again with children.
BUT there is good coming out this disaster for orphans on the end of adpotion and the government relaxing on the rules and regulations...There is been alot of exciting adoption news going around lately....
This is a story posted on Stacie Ayers blog....
Nine years ago, Jen and Jarod began the process of adopting three children. For years, they have watched other Haitian children adopted, but have never been able to adopt Daphne, Jadon and Justin. They have spent countless amount of money and time and travel and tears on different agencies and lawyers and on everything possible to make these adoptions happen, but corruption, (adoptions that are still open are still making money), ever-changing laws (cannot adopt until you’re 30…then cannot adopt until you’re 35….cannot adopt if you have biological children…) and “lost” paperwork have kept the adoption process going until now.
Because the adoptions could not be finalized, the kids couldn’t get visas, meaning that three of their five children (two biological) have never left Haiti, meaning that Jen and Jarod cannot leave Haiti together, but have always had to do short furlough’s apart while one of them cares for the kids here.
Jadon is also severely autistic, and has been unable to have access to any of the help that going to the States could have offered.
For NINE YEARS.
Since I met Jen, we have prayed for and searched with and hoped for her, but had truly seen NO progress. I have watched them struggle with coming to peace with the fact that the children that they have raised and loved and cared for and who have been THEIRS might never legally be…struggle with the knowledge that their lives might always and forever be mostly in Haiti in order to be with their children.
After nine years, it was just not going to happen.
Well, I just got off the phone with her, and TONIGHT, she and her FIVE children are flying to Fort-Lauderdale from Port-au-Prince. Due to all of the paperwork on adoptions being lost in the earthquakes, pending adoptions are being rushed through, and all her kiddos have Visa’s waiting for them in Port. Once they arrive in the States they can work to finalize the adoptions.
Tomorrow, she is taking her WHOLE family to her home country, and adoptions should be on the horizon. Jarod should be following soon, as soon as he is free from the major relief work in the DR/Haiti. She was SO EXCITED she could hardly speak, and I am so overwhelmed that I couldn’t either.
What a BEATUFIUL miracle, a miracle, and a beautiful thing arising from the ashes. I am so thankful, and so thankful for these happy tears and to see the day that nine years of the prayers of many were answered.
If you have not heard this next story it is absolutely amazing About 58 orphans being brought from HAiti to Pittsburgh to be adopted. These 2 young women have such a heart for HAiti and these children, it truly makes my heart smile
Article from CBS
A charity relief mission carrying dozens of young children from an orphanage in earthquake-ravaged Haiti has arrived in Pittsburgh.
Fifty-three children from infants to about age 10, along with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, were on the Air Force flight, which landed at Pittsburgh International Airport about 9:30 a.m. ET.
"I'm so proud to bring these kids back to Pittsburgh. It's awesome!" said Alison McMutrie, who with her sister had been caring for approximately 150 children at the orphanage they run in Port-au-Prince. "I think I'm dreaming. I don't know when I'm going to wake up."
Workers, some carrying children, disembarked the plane and boarded waiting buses. Other children walked by themselves and waved to onlookers.
Some children were wrapped in blankets as they adjusted to the Pittsburgh weather - 32°F and overcast, compared to the sun and 82° temperatures they had left behind.
Medical workers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and, in some cases, adoptive families are waiting for them.
Moments before speaking with CBS News correspondent Manuel Gallegus, Jill and Bruce Leeer of South Dakota were reunited at Pittsburgh's Children's Hospital with Ange Laurette and Pierre Cardin, the Haitian girl and boy they've been waiting for a year and a half to adopt.
"They look happy and content," Jill Leer said. "But I think they are exhausted."
Leslie McCombs, a senior consultant for government relations at UPMC who was also on the flight, said she'll never forget seeing the kids for the first time. The children were sitting in vans with the sisters, reaching out of the windows and waiting for help.
"We got on the van and they starting singing, they were clapping and giving us high fives. They were saying prayers," an emotional McCombs said. "It was amazing."
The children were taken to UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. Doctors who examined them say they are remarkably resilient, Gallegus reports.
"I would have to they they arrived in quite good shape. They are in general healthy, very few of them had any significant dehydration whatsoever," Dr. Richard Faladino said.
About 100 other children from their orphanage are being cared for by Dutch and French agencies.
"When we found out everyone was okay and everyone was alive and we knew we had to take action, I never imagined that this is how it would turn out," McMutrie said at a press conference.
"It was a long week, it was a really tough week living in a driveway with hundreds of children, but the fact that we're here now is certainly worth it, and just thank you to everyone."
She said the children were happy to arrive: "They know that they're coming home and hopefully to go home to their adoptive parents. The kids felt hopeless, too, because Haiti's in a really bad state right now. But they're doing great. There are some kids who had become dehydrated, running some fevers, basic baby stuff, but the team that came have almost nurtured them back to health already - everyone just took someone under their wing and took care of them.
"I'm Ali to them, but when I'm there, my sister and I are their moms," McMutrie said. "We have a family - we don't just have a group of kids that get fed. We all care about each other and love each other. And to be asked to leave without one was just not an option.
Marc Cherna, Director of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, said it was hoped that, once the children were cleared medically, their adoptions could be finalized promptly.
Many of the adoptive parents were done with the legal process when the earthquake hit, Cherna told told CBS Station KDKA. "Now hopefully we can finish it up."
To that end, a courtroom has been set up at Children's Hospital and the adoptive parents are arriving from all over the country. "The judges are all set," Cherna said. "We expect a good portion of these children will be adopted today."
The landing capped days of preparations and maneuvering by American caretakers, lawmakers and government officials. The orphans were cared for by two Pittsburgh-area sisters whose network of family and friends used Facebook and Twitter to let the world know they were in dire need of food, water, diapers - and a plane to ferry them out of Port-au-Prince after last week's massive earthquake.
Gov. Rendell, a crew of medical personnel and several Congressmen also were on the flight that carried the group out of Haiti late Monday and headed for Orlando, Fla. He told reporters that Alison's sister, Jamie, is still in Orlando with the 54th child, pending completion of paperwork. He said preparations are being made to fly them up to Pittsburgh.
Jamie McMutrie arrived in the Haitian capital in 2006, and with her sister (who moved there two years ago) run an orphanage called BRESMA.
After last week's earthquake destroyed much of the Haitian capital, the sisters contacted officials at UPMC, who in turn contacted the governor. Rendell reached the Haitian ambassador to the United States on Sunday, said the governor's spokesman, Gary Tuma.
The ambassador advised Rendell it would be "a good idea for the governor to be personally on the flight" because he could use his stature to cut through red tape, the spokesman said.
Rendell and U.S. Rep Jason Altmire, D-Pa., said Haiti's ambassador to the United States, Raymond Joseph, as well as the State Department, Department of Homeland Security and even the White House all helped get the children out.
Dutch and French agencies were caring for the other 100 or so children from the orphanage, which was badly damaged.
CBS News correspondent Seth Doane visited another orphanage on Monday, on the east side of Port-au-Prince. It was completely collapsed in the quake. But 78 kids survived - orphans who have lost their home once again. If it wasn't for one woman's dedication to the youngsters, they would be alone amid the rubble
