Adoption Blog

America World's Emails

Families,

Please take special note that we have received several notifications from various families that they are no longer receiving all of America World's emails.  In order to ensure that you receive all forthcoming pertinent emails from your family coordinators and all other America World staff, please be sure to add America World's domain to your email's "safe list" or "white list."

Depending on which email service you use (ie - gmail, yahoo, aol, verizon, etc), you should be able to add our domain (awaa.org) to your safe list so that it isn't picked up as spam and sent to your spam folder or entirely deleted altogether.

It might also be prudent to contact your email service provider and ask them to add "awaa.org" to their email safe list to further ensure the safe delivery of America World's emails to you.

Fax Machine Trouble

Dear Families,

Please note that if you tried to send a fax between COB (5 PM EST) on Thursday, November 5th and noon (EST) on Friday, November 6th, America World's main fax machine was experiencing technical difficulties, and these faxes were not received.  Our fax machine is now working properly again, and we ask that you resend your faxes to your intended party one more time to ensure that they were received.

Thanks and God Bless!

China Waiting Children Program November Updates

Referral Updates

We are excited to announce that over the past month 30 families have accepted their referrals. We praise God that these families will soon be bringing their children home. America World was honored to receive a large group of individually assigned referrals in October, as well as working with the monthly shared group that arrived. China Program staff have been busy working with families reviewing and accepting referrals. Many families are still reviewing referrals so our prayers are with them as they consult with doctors and consider the adoption of the child whose referral they are reviewing.

All families participating in the Waiting Children (WC) program and are not currently reviewing or accepting a referral have received a shared referral announcement earlier today. Families are encouraged to carefully review the FAQ document that was included in this email announcement so they can understand the referral review process. Another referral announcement containing new agency specific referrals that are available for adoption will be sent in the next 1-2 weeks, as soon as possible.

Monthly Prayer Request

We ask for prayers for an agency specific referral “Will” who is an outgoing 13 year old boy who has a repaired cleft lip and repaired palate.  He is described by his caretakers as well behaved, sensitive, and a good boy.  Will’s favorite subject in school is Social Studies and he like to play with cars. Due to China adoption law, children cannot be adopted when they reach the age of 14 and as Will turns 14 next August, if America World does not find a family for him by December 11th we will be returning his file to the CCAA in hopes that they can find a family for him with a different agency. Please help us advocate for Will and his adoption by praying for him. Please have any families interested in his adoption contact us at waitingchildren@awaa.org. We are hopeful his forever family will come forward within this next month!

Conference Call

The WC program is hosting a conference call with Love Without Boundaries on November 18th. Please see the separate blog post which outlines details regarding this opportunity. The call is open to any AWAA family regardless of the country they are adopting from or stage of adoption. We hope you will join us!

Recruiting New Families

We are privileged to continue to place waiting children into homes each month and encourage any China program family to consider submitting a WC application if they feel led to consider this option for their family. We have many resources available for those considering the program so please contact your Family Coordinator for more details.

Any family is welcome to email waitingchildren@awaa.org if they have questions regarding AWAA’s China Waiting Children Program.

Love Without Boundaries Conference Call

America World is excited to announce we will be hosting a conference call with Karen Maunu the Associate Executive Director of the Love Without Boundaries Foundation (LWB).  “Love Without Boundaries Foundation is a worldwide group of volunteers dedicated to improving the lives of orphaned and impoverished children in China. They provide humanitarian aid in 5 main programs – medical, education, foster care, healing homes, and orphanage assistance -enabling children to receive a family through adoption or to become self-sustaining members of their communities.”

This conference call opportunity will take place on Wednesday November 18th at 1pm EST and is open to any America World family- whether in the applicant stage, paper-chasing, waiting or post placement phases. While LWB focuses their work with orphans in China, a family in any America World program is invited to learn more about this organization and their education efforts for all adoptive parents, regardless of the country where they have adopted. The conference call will include information regarding the following 1) educational resources adoptive parents can utilize if they are considering adopting a waiting child or are preparing to bring a waiting child home 2) webinars, blogs and other resources families can use when they are home with their children and need support and education 3) learning about the advocacy efforts and programs of LWB

You can view the LWB website here: www.lovewithoutboundaries.com. Those who want to join the conference call are invited to email waitingchildren@awaa.org. An email will be sent on Tuesday November 17th to confirm with those families who registered how they can join the conference call. We look forward to this opportunity to partner with LWB and learn more about their educational and advocacy work on behalf of orphans and adoptive families!

Thanks for Coming to the AW Family Reunion!

Dear Families,

Thank you for joining us at America World Adoption’s Family Reunion.  Despite the inclement weather, we had a great time being around you all.  Celebrating Lineker & Amy’s wedding was very special for many of us and your stories about them were very touching. 

We all went to church together, but I forgot to but I forgot to ask for an offering.  Part of the reason I’m emailing you is to ask you to help financially support the outreach work our agency is participating in.  There are a few different opportunities for you to give:

Wedding Gift for Lineker & Amy
Aside from paying for the international flights from China, America World wants to give Amy & Lineker a gift to remember this special event that we had.  If you’d like to help contribute to their trip and wedding gift, please send America World a check with “Lineker & Amy” written in the memo line. By the way, they made it safely home and are touring another group!

Online “Silent Auction” 
We weren’t able to do the silent auction at the park pavilion on the Saturday of the reunion, so we are posting the donated items online for bidding.  There are lots of great items, including artwork, a Starbucks Coffee Basket, a Mary Kay basket, kids’ toys, books about adoption, and much more.  We’ll email you in the coming weeks with details about how to participate in this.

Orphan’s Ticket Home Campaign
The Orphan’s Ticket Home campaign is an effort by our agency to help children around the world who live in orphanages.  One result of this campaign is the tremendous success we’ve seen in Honduras, where over 300 orphans have been provided documentation establishing their identities, enabling them to have the opportunity to be raised in a family.  Many of those children have been reunified with their families, placed in foster care, placed for adoption or are now eligible for adoption!

We hope to provide funding to groups doing similar work in Ethiopia, Rwanda, China and El Salvador.  In addition to providing identity paperwork, the Orphan’s Ticket Home Campaign also provides funding to America World’s transition home in Ethiopia and toward America World’s new program development.  Your continued support of this campaign will help hundreds more children have the opportunity for a family.

Hopefully the next Family Reunion will have less rain and warmer weather!  Thank you again for joining us; thank you for blessing Amy and Lineker with kind words and gifts; and thank you for your consideration of supporting our ongoing efforts to provide parentless children with a family!

Sincerely,
Brian Luwis, CEO

Updates from this Past Week

The family reunion on Saturday was cold and rainy – but we really enjoyed seeing all the families and it was wonderful celebrating Amy & Lineker’s marriage vows together.  We had a time of sharing memories and stories of Amy and Lineker’s work on behalf of families.  Many of you told about how they solved problems, remained calm and helped you through the travel portion of your adoption.  Afterwards, in our pavilion, we had burgers, hot dogs and got to catch-up with one another.  Thanks for making this a special event for Lineker and Amy – and for me!

We had a “staff reunion” the following day at my house.  Current and former staff, along with spouses and children gathered to see each other, reminisce and encourage one another in our work.  It was great to see that the God who started our work is continuing to provide.  The Lord has provided our agency with faithful, intelligent, compassionate and hard-working staff for years – and the Lord’s faithfulness to us in this measure is the biggest reason for our agency’s ability to serve as a blessing to more families.

I traveled to Nashville this week to participate in a board meeting of the Christian Alliance for Orphans.  We talked a lot about the Orphan Sunday initiative that is coming up in just a few weeks.  If you haven’t heard about Orphan Sunday, please take this opportunity to visit the Orphan Sunday website and learn more.  If your church isn’t involved, see if there is a way you can have the pastor/preacher talk about the Bible’s message of advocating for orphans and God’s adoption of Christians that Sunday morning.  Perhaps you could setup a booth with information about adoption, foster care and/or orphan care.  

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ~Galatians 6:9

- Brian Luwis, CEO

Letter from Rachel Donoho

Dear fellow AWAA families,
 
I am writing to you from San Salvador as a new mother.  It is difficult to compress all the events and emotions we have gone through in the last two weeks into one blog.  Our adoption journey started in November 2005.  We accepted the call of adoption for our family at that time.  We knew we had an upcoming move so we could not start our paperwork until September of 2006.  In May of 2007 we submitted our completed dossier.  In July of 2008 we received our OPA approval.  In August of 2008, I accompanied Brain Luwis with other AWAA families to El Salvador and was able to meet our lawyer, Salvadoran adoption advocates and officials in the Consulate office at the American Embassy.  In September 2008, my husband and I drove halfway across the country to attend the Angels in Adoption event and were able to meet the Procurador, the director of OPA and reacquaint with others from El Salvador.  It was after this trip that we changed our immigration and home study to be willing to accept a sibling pair.  In each of these meetings we not only told our story but reminded those that there were many families waiting to adopt.
 
In November of 2008, we were told of a sibling pair that was going to the Joint Meeting to be paired with a family.  In December we found out they went to a family in Italy. In January of 2009, my husband led a mission trip from our church to El Salvador and through AWAA local contacts was again able to meet with the Procurador to remind him of all the waiting families in the States. In March of 2009, Susan Maines called us to let us know of another sibling pair that was available.  The day after Mother's day, we received the call that we had an official referral.  We immediately sent our acceptance to AWAA. In July we received pictures of our children.  And in September we received our court date, October 12, 2009.
 

New October Waiting Children Referrals

The CCAA posted a new group of shared and individual waiting children referrals. The China staff will be working diligently to match families with referrals and to create a referral announcement as soon as possible. Please note that new referrals can continue to arrive over the next few business days. We are praying for all waiting families and those who will be reviewing referrals over these next few days.

October Ethiopia Referrals!

Congratulations to the following families who have received their referrals so far this October 2009! Please find below the list of these children and the DTE dates of the families. Please keep in mind some of these referrals are sibling sets as well as children with special needs.

Age and Gender of Child	DTE Date
1 Male Infant	5/8/2009
3 Female Infants	12/12/2008 12/12/2008 6/26/2009
2 Male Toddlers	5/29/2009 5/29/2009
2 Female Toddlers	5/29/2009 7/17/2009

Due to the recent trends of received referrals the wait time for an infant male is now currently 5-7 months, while the wait time for a female infant remains 9-11 months.  This trend is based on recent history, but is subject to change.

The Lord has continued to bless America World’s work in the Ethiopia program.  Thank you for your prayers as we send children home with their forever families and bring more children into our transition home.

New Referrals Arrive!!

America World is pleased to announce that we received 12 referrals today-- 11 healthy girl referrals and 1 healthy boy referral!  Families receiving referrals were logged into the China Center of Adoption Affairs on 3/27/2006 (former Gift of Love Families) and 3/28/2006 (group 256).  All referrals were from the Jiangxi province and the children ranged in age from 7 to 21 months old.  Please join us in congratulating these families, and in praying for them as they prepare to travel.

Referral Matching and Dossier Review

The CCAA has finished the review of the adoption application documents (dossiers) registered with their office before December 31, 2007.
 
The CCAA has finished the placement of children for families whose dossiers were registered with the CCAA through March 28, 2006.