Hague Accreditation – we are thrilled to announce that Wasatch Adoptions is on the Department of State first published list of Hague accredited agencies. Going through the accreditation process has been an interesting journey for us, but since we have been through a COA accreditation in the past we were aware of what the accreditation process was like and how much work it would take to become accredited. Now that our policies and procedures for Hague cases are in place and approved by COA, we should be able to work and partner well with any Hague country in the future. Right now the only Hague country we work with is China, but feel that other countries will be signing on to Hague in the future. When other countries sign this treaty, Wasatch will be right there, ready to continue the adoption process without any problems. 
I would like to thank all those staff members who worked so hard to get us this accreditation. Randy Mitchell took the raw materials handed to him and made all of our forms and documents look great! Without Randy and his computer expertise we would never have done as well as we did. Randy also assembled our self study and when this huge binder was submitted to COA it weighed a lot! The reviewers told us that Wasatch submitted not only the heaviest self study of any agency in the U.S., but also the easiest to read through! 
China Update – This country continues to be extremely slow in issuing referrals. On February 1st we received referrals for dossiers submitted through December 27th and expect to receive more referrals any day now. We are hoping this slow down will not last and are keeping our fingers crossed that after the Summer Olympics are over we will see the timeline speed up somewhat. We understand the frustration of those of you who are waiting for the referral of your child and want you to know that we are also frustrated. In the past China was one of our most popular adoption options and over the years we have placed sooooo many children from this country. All of these adoptions have had wonderful outcomes and the children and the families are doing well. This slow down has been heartbreaking for everyone and we hate to think about these little children living in an orphanage when they could be in a loving home. We know these little girls – and sometimes little boys – will be so happy when they finally do get to come home with their adoptive families. We pray that all of you can continue to hang in there and know that this will eventually happen for you. Don’t give up – think of how important it is to these children that you stay strong and continue to hang on through this waiting game. Eventually you will bring your child home and even though the pain of this long wait won’t ever go away it will eventually end with you having your child to hold in your arms. And, please know that we will always be here for you during this very lengthy adoption process.
Our China Waiting Child Program is now on hold as CCAA has not included us in the list of agencies approved for this program. This program is now completely electronic and CCAA no longer sends hard copies of information on children available. We have submitted a formal letter of request asking that we be included as one of the agencies approved to access this list and place these children. We continue to dialogue with CCAA and will hopefully be approved to place waiting children soon. We did just receive travel approvals for 3 families who are adopting waiting children from China. This has been a wonderful program in the past and we are hoping so much that CCAA will approve us for this program once again. Currently we are assigned two waiting children, both of whom need homes badly. One of these children is a 10 year old girl and is considered special needs because of her age. The other child is a little 4 year old boy who is Albino. 
Wasatch International
Adoptions
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Haiti Update – by Chareyl Moyes
A am thrilled to be able to give an update on our Haiti program. We currently have 23 families in the process of adopting 36 children from Haiti. WOW! How awesome and wonderful this is for these little children. for the little children. We currently work with three great orphanages – Foyer de Sion, Chances 4 Children, and Hope for the Little Angels of Haiti.
Several families have recently come out of the long MOI process and are now waiting to get a visa appointment with USCIS so they can bring their children home. What a blessing for these families who are finally and the end of the long adoption journey. We also have several families that have come out of IBESR lately and also several families that have entered IBESR. These cases are still progressing well in Haiti, but of course experience the usually delays at each phase of the adoption process. Hait is a country with much poverty and sickness and even though our little ones are placed in the care of an orphanage, they still sometimes end up getting sick. Our hearts go out to some of our families who in the last month have suffered the loss of the children they were adopting. It is our hope that we will be able to continue work with the Haitian government to lessen the length of time it takes to complete adoptions. Our goal is to see less and less sorrow and loss of Haiti’s beautiful children.
Many of you have had the opportunity to travel to Haiti on parent trips and see this country. Many of your hearts have been touched by the things experienced and seen on these trips. I am so impressed by your desire to reach out to help the people of Haiti as well as the orphanages and all the children living there. So many of you are involved in humanitarian projects and fundraising projects – we want to say THANK YOU for your efforts. It was moving for me to be in Haiti in January of this year to see some of the fruits of your labor on behalf of Haiti. Your donations of money and other things have helped several orphanages. Many of you have employers and church congregations, neighbors, friends and family who also participated in these projects and we express our gratitude to everyone involved with these projects. If you would like more information on how to donate to any of our Haiti projects, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
I love the country of Haiti and as many of you know I have adopted a little boy from this beautiful country. He is such a light in our lives. We love every minute with him and count him as one of our greatest blessings. I know the adoption journey is hard and sometimes it feels as though you will never have your children home. But, hold on – I promise it will happen and it will be worth everything you live through now when your child is safe and home with you at last.
Below are pictures of Chareyl on her trip to Haiti as well as pictures of some of the children who have just come home!
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Kazakhstan – We feel lucky that this country is still open and placing children, but it is one of the more challenging adoption options for families. The children are beautiful and we hope to have a little boy home soon. We will include some pictures in our next newsletter. For those of you interested in adopting from Kazakhstan, it is important to understand that the adoption process does require a lengthy stay in the country, requires both parents to travel initially although one parent can return home in about 2 weeks, and it is a little more expensive than some other programs. That being said, Kazakhstan is a great option for those families who feel that a Caucasian child is the best fit for their family. If you are interested in more information about adopting from Kazakhstan, please contact Kathy Junk.
Vietnam – What sad information we have to report about adoptions in Vietnam. Things do not seem to be improving in that country and the situation looks very bleak for the future of adoptions. To date we have heard no good news from the U.S. Department of State regarding the signing of a new agreement with Vietnam. The only recent news from DOS is that agencies that did not receive Hague accreditation may loose the ability to work in Vietnam. However, for those of you in this program, Wasatch did receive Hague accreditation so that at least is one less thing to worry about. We do read the posts on the DOS website, however, and there are continued complaints about perceived corruption in the Vietnamese process and DOS continued pressure from DOS for Vietnam sign the Hague Convention Treaty and bring their standards of practice in compliance with this treaty. We have read many internet postings from families as well as newspaper articles about families who had completed the adoption process in Vietnam, but were denied approval of their I-600 and were unable to obtain a U.S. visa for their adopted child. When these families filed an official protest with USCIS here in the states, their denial was overturned. Unfortunately USCIS officials in HCMC were still refusing to issue the child’s visa. It is unimaginable that this could happen, but that is the reality at this point. We have also been told that this winter has been a harsh and a very cold one in Vietnam. Many children who are living in orphanages are getting sick with pneumonia and a huge percentage of them are dying. Many of these children could have been safe and living with loving families if the approach to adoptions in this country was a more supportive. We are hopefully that the U.S. Department of State will reassess their insistence in trying to impose their will on officials of other countries, but don’t expect this will happen. There is not a lot of hope that a new Understanding of Agreement will be signed by the U.S. and Vietnam when the current one expires. Because of the situation surrounding adoptions from this country, we are suspending our Vietnam program until things are resolved. We are trying very hard to obtain referrals for our waiting families and hope that we can complete the adoption process for them before things completely shut down in this country. We owe our continuing gratitude and thanks to our in-country staff, Kien and Trang, who work so hard on our behalf! Because of the hard work of this great couple we are hoping to forge ahead and be successful in obtaining babies for our waiting families.
We do want to welcome home Grady, who is now with his family in the U.S. His parents tell me he is doing really well and they absolutely adore him!
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Taiwan Special Needs Program – Wasatch Adoptions is in the process of hopefully opening a waiting child program in Taiwan and hope to have this program available very soon. Right now we have sent our information to the orphanage in Taiwan and are just waiting for approval from the orphanage director. We are very hopeful that in the next two to three weeks we will receive our approval and can begin placing these children. Taiwan is a wonderful option for families who cannot meet the restrictions of China, and may be an option for those who are caught in the Vietnam problems. The medical and social information on the children available from Taiwan is extremely comprehensive, and the process is fairly quick. We will continue to keep families updated about the progress of this new program as things move forward.
Our China Party for the Amazing Judy Wu
During the month of February we were part of a group that was able to bring “The Amazing Judy Wu” to the U.S. for a visit. Judy is our Chinese guide who works with all of our families who adopt from China through us and our families have come home with stories many about how Judy helped them with everything from taking their sick babies to the doctor in China to crossing the street in a city in China. Judy is sweet, patient, kind, smart, and she knows how to get these adoptions finished up and families on their way back home in record time. Judy flew to the U.S. and spent time with many of the families she met during the adoption process. While in Utah, we hosted a fun get-together at the Ice Sheet in Ogden so our adoptive families could see and visit with Judy again. The kids skated, we ate pizza, the kids ran around, and we talked and talked and talked with Judy. Judy brought her little boy with her and he had an amazing time playing with all the American kids. Judy was here for 3 days and was hosted by some of our families who have adopted from China. We want to thank Circe and Scott Dopp, Rebecca and Samuel White, and Jesse and Laurel West, who hosted Judy and did so much for her while she was here. Take a look at these great pictures – I think we can safely say that a fun time was had by everyone attending!
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Humanitarian Projects
Cow Project: The staff of Wasatch has been blessed to have made some wonderful friends over the years. Last fall we were contacted by Cyndie Kersh, who is the Mom of one of our really great adoptive families. Kersh family adopted 2 little girls from China, one through our traditional program and one through our waiting child program. The two little boys in this family, Jacob and Andrew decided they wanted to be a part of our cow project in Vietnam, and Cyndie told me they had opened a lemonade stand in order to earn the $200 to buy a cow. These young boys worked so hard to sell enough lemonade to people to come up with the $200 it takes to buy a cow that it was just amazing! Their Mom tells me her boys’ love these kinds of projects and when they grow up they want to find a job that will let them work towards helping others. It took a lot of hard work and a lot of lemonade, but Jacob and Andrew earned enough money to buy a cow for a family in Vietnam. We thought it would be fun to show you all a picture of the lemonade stand that made it possible to buy a cow. I don’t have the words to tell these boys what a wonderful thing they have done for a family in Vietnam – they have truly changed the lives of this family and our hearts are so touched by these sweet boys and their generosity and kindness. Thank you, Jacob and Andrew – we want you to know what a wonderful thing you have done and how proud we are of you!
By the way, the little girl the Kersh family adopted from our waiting child program is doing wonderfully!! This family is really special and we are so lucky to have met them!
Also, we want to thank the Oliver family and the Braca family for their really really big donation to our cow project. In December we sent enough money to Vietnam to buy 12 cows! Pictures of these cows and the families who were the recipients of the cows are pending!!
Haiti Projects – We have several on-going projects in Haiti and are always grateful for the donations given to us by people. A couple of months ago Monte and Sonja Smith, a couple who adopted 2 darling children from Guatemala, dropped by the office with boxes and boxes of beautiful clothing and supplies for the children of Haiti. We are so grateful to this family – they have actually been bringing us donations like this for years now. We can send these articles with every adoptive family traveling to Haiti, and the orphanages are always thankful for the things we send. We also want to let all of you know that there are children in Haiti who are desperately longing to go to school. For a donation of $400 you can send a child living in Haiti to school for 1 whole year. Educating the children of Haiti may be the best way to help this country rise above the poverty they now experience. These darling children need our help and your donation can have a huge impact on their lives forever. The little children pictured below are waiting for money in order to be able to attend school.
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Guatemala – As most of you know, this country has halted adoptions from their country at this point in time until things get worked out with compliance with The Hague Convention treaty. We have worked with so many great families who have adopted from Guatemala, and you, like us, may be worrying about the children who didn’t find families before the country closed. There are several attorneys we work with who still are taking care of these children but are running low on funds to continue caring for them. Wasatch was able to send some money to Guatemala for the continued care of the children, but there is a never ending need for money to help the attorneys provide for these babies. If you are interested in helping out, please send a check to Wasatch and we will forward the money to our people in Guatemala. Please indicate on your check which attorney you would like this money to be sent to.
In Conclusion…
Much is changing in the international adoption world. Options are ever changing and countries are continually closing their doors to adoption. The Hague Convention Treaty has impacted adoptions dramatically, often times not with a very positive outcome. We feel that although the programs we offer are not as varied as they have been in the past, they are all still great programs and the children living in these countries desperately need families who will step forward to adopt them. We have wonderful program coordinators who have the best interests of the children at heart and who are very dedicated to helping our prospective adoptive families go forward and be successful in bringing a child home.
We are also very happy to be able to provide domestic adoption services and hope to be able to open this program up as a viable option for those families who would like to adopt domestically. We are now searching for birth mothers who will be willing to work with us for the placement of their babies. We also offer counseling to pregnant birth mothers and if they decide to parent their children we will help them create a good and realistic life plan so they can be successful in rearing their child. We are asking all of you to help us find birth mothers who might be willing to place a child with one of our great adoptive families. We do want you to know that the staff of Wasatch Adoptions continues to remain dedicated to our mission, which is to bring families together. We thank you for all you do on behalf of the children of the world. We want to thank everyone who donated money and goods to our upcoming domestic program, and also a big Thank You to everyone who donated to our overseas humanitarian projects. Working and partnering together, and combining our efforts to provide assistance to others, I feel we can positively impact the lives of many people in foreign countries and right here at here at home in the U.S. Without your involvement we could not do all that we have been able to do. Thank you for your generosity and love!
Kathy Kaiser
Director
Wasatch Adoptions
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