Blog: Continuing efforts to bring our children home (gray area)
Continuing efforts to bring our children home
February 5th, 2010
There have been monumental efforts by many to bring our children home from Foyer de Sion. This effort continues and it looks like additional children will be flown to Miami this weekend to awaiting families. The exact number is still undetermined but we anxiously await notice of which children will be coming home.
In the interim we invite you to read the following articles:
Utah Hospital Task Force: http://www.ldsmag.com/churchupdate/100205life.html
Plane: http://www.ldsmag.com/churchupdate/100129plane.html
Orphanage Rescue:http://www.ldsmag.com/churchupdate/100201orphans.html
in the Meridian Magazine that outlines the efforts and sacrifices of the Utah Hospital Task Force in helping so many for the children and people of Haiti. A special thank you to Maurine Procter and Scot Facer Proctor for sharing the story.
Tags: Emergency Aid, Fontamara, Haiti Earthquake, Leogane, orphans, Petionville
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Family unions are joyous for all involved.
February 2nd, 2010
Many of the children of Foyer de Sion are finally making it to homes. The latest have been children going to awaiting families in America.
Some 60 children we’re recently flow to Miami to be joined with their families at the Catholic run “His Home Children’s Home”. A PHENOMENAL place to bring the children. The staff is exceptional and the children have plenty to do - ride bikes, roller blade, play in the park. The children are housed in very comfortable cottages. New clothes are provided. They are fed. They even have a full-time house mother that stays in the cottage with them with many volunteers offering assistance. We were very impressed with them this past weekend.
We’d love to post your stories and pictures if you’ll please send them to jsedrick@foyerdesion.org. There are many families that want to hear your story, your challenges your triumphs. Jody Sedrick on of our adopting families as started a blog http://adoptingdad.wordpress.com to share his experiences an photos as an adopting dad. His family just brought their two children home and KIVI TV was their to capture the joyous occasion for all the family http://www.kivitv.com/global/story.asp?s=11916195
We still have 14 children we are trying to get out of Haiti that fall under category 2 Humanitarian Parole status. The IAF team, Steve Studdert and his team have been working on this continually and also working to keep supplies coming in to the orphanage.
We’ve also had some major donations to help us move towards finishing the new orphanage. We are very excited about the generosity of those involved and will keep you posted.
God bless!
Tags: Emergency Aid, Fontamara, Haiti Earthquake, Leogane, orphans, Petionville
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Children are in Miami - Next Stop Home
January 29th, 2010
Foyer Friends and Families,
We have the final word. Sen. Hatch said the our children have to go through the process in Miami. Even category 1 children will be staying in Miami.
Even though no one wants to see their children go the shelter, they are on U.S. soil and they will be cared for and fed. And as someone noted in an email sometime today “they have come home months or even years sooner” than expected.
Allyson
IAF
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Kids are in the air!
January 29th, 2010
Through miraculous efforts 131 children are on their way to awaiting families in America. Special thanks to a BOLD pilot who wouldn’t leave until the kids were on the plane, the IAF team - Lindsay, Corrie, Chareyl, the Idaho/Utah Task force and the team here in the states. It truly is a miracle. All of the children that we expected to get on the plane have boarded and the plane is in flight.
Please pray for the 14 children that couldn’t come at this time. The amazing team that has been diligently working to bring all the kids home are not giving up, neither are we! God will continue to perform his miracles. He just threw the plane in the air and it’s going to land in America!
Here is the notice from IAF:
Dear Families,
We just received word that the plane has been loaded. All of the children that we expected to get on the plane have boarded and the plane is ready to leave. Lindsay, Corrie and Chareyl fought for the gray area children but they just could not get it to happen.
I have already spoken to Rachel Ellis at DHS and explained that we have children (there are 14 total) who did not get their humanitarian parole for various reasons….mostly expired fingerprints. Chareyl and I will send her a list of the 14 children and Rachel will follow up and work with us to resolve whatever the issues are that are preventing them from issuing humanitarian parole.
We still are getting different info from the Immigration officers on the plane and those in Miami regarding the children coming on to Utah. So, for now, stay put. As soon as we know where you should go, we’ll let you know.
By the time you receive this email, your children are probably going to be in the air.
Allyson Halpin
IAF
Tags: Emergency Aid, Fontamara, Haiti Earthquake, Leogane, orphans, Petionville
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The Roller Coaster continues…
January 29th, 2010
WOW! What a crazy day. We are now told by a reporter on the ground that the kids are on the plane. The following is the official word from our great IAF (International Adoption Facilitators Team)
“Hi Families,
The children are still waiting at the airport in PAP. Once we have confirmed they are on the plane, we will let you know. The pilot, bless his heart, has said he won’t leave without them.
There is still a disconnect between officials in Miami and the Immigration officials accompanying the flight. The officials in Haiti are telling us that the children can remain on the plane while they do the processing and then go on to Utah. The officials in Miami are going forward with their “shelter” plan.
So, while we sit tight, pray for the pilot and those accompanying the children. And pray that the two groups of immigration officials get on the same page and that that page is Utah.
Gray area families…I’ll get information as soon as I can about your children, but that is probably not going to be until the team gets back to U.S. soil.
Allyson Halpin
IAF”
Tags: Emergency Aid, Fontamara, Haiti Earthquake, Leogane, orphans, Petionville
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Bold Pilot - Standing firm for our children
January 29th, 2010
BOLD Pilot stands firm on tarmac of Port Au Prince Airport. We just received word from our team in Haiti that a news story is developing apparently a pilot with the Idaho/Utah Task force that went to take supplies and get the kids told officials he’s not leaving without our kids. The military gave him til 11 AM local. That’s 2 hours from now.A news agency in New York is supposedly on their way to the airport to get this story. CNN, maybe? ?We love the Utah Hospital Task Force and a pilot that’s willing to say, “What are you going to do, arrest me? Get those kids on this plane and THEN I’ll leave.” BIG COJONES! You gotta respect men like this!
We need more men and women like this who are willing to stand and fight for something good.
We’ll keep you posted!
Tags: Emergency Aid, Fontamara, Haiti Earthquake, Leogane, orphans, Petionville
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JCICS - Lands in Haiti
January 28th, 2010
Rebecca Harris, Tom DiFilipo, Dr. Jane Aronson, Steve Nagler, doctors from Mount Sinai Hospital and Partners in Health, landed in Port au Prince this morning at 8:15 a.m. on Wednesday. Read More….
Tags: Emergency Aid, Fontamara, Haiti Earthquake, Leogane, orphans, Petionville
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When You’ve Tried All You Can and It’s Still Not Enough…
January 28th, 2010
Report from IAF on 70 Children we’re trying to get home.
All,
I don’t even know what to say. We have done everything we could think of to try to make this smooth and efficient and easy on our families and, especially the children. We’ve found out in the last few hours that it isn’t enough.
Here’s the latest.
1. We all have Humanitarian Parole. Now we need the Prime Minister’s signature in order for our children to be authorized to leave the country.
2. While Chareyl was at the Embassy this afternoon, they announced that the Prime Minister was leaving - for Canada. What Chareyl told me was that unless you could take someone to wherever he was immediately and stand in front of him until he chose to sign your papers, there was nothing they could do.
3. Additionally, we have been trying to make this transition as painless as possible for the children. We’ve been working for days with all the different agencies and departments trying to make sure we have every T crossed and I dotted.
I cannot even begin to tell you what we’ve been through in the last week and a half, trying to wade through the marsh of bureaucracy so that you wouldn’t have to. We’ve tried to prep agencies and groups and make everyone aware of these children and this group and their plight. I have made the comment several times in the last week that I could not see how it was possible that I could be doing this as my volunteer full-time job for so many days and still have gov’t departments give me new “requirements” and processes and signatures needed for each department to be happy.
Just a couple of hours ago, we were notified…. well, I won’t even go into all the random stuff that we’ve been notified.
Here’s the short list:
If you Child is Category II (which nearly all of us are)
When the Prime Minister or other appropriate Haitian official finally decides to sign the paperwork and our children are finally released to travel, we have no say in what happens to them for the next 2-3 days. The child will be taken to Miami and will be taken into custody of the OOR. They will take your child to a shelter in Miami. They have suggested that we do NOT arrive at the Miami Airport as you won’t be able to see them there. The children will be taken via back ways to ensure that they aren’t a media spectacle.
When the OOR knows when our children are arriving (because the PM has finally signed the paperwork) we’ll be notified of which shelter will have them. They said they will send me out a “Welcome Letter” to tell us which hotels are in the area of the shelters where the children will be. You will be able to go and visit them and play with them during the day, but at night they will be staying at the shelter and you will be returning to your hotel. They said it typically takes 2-3 days for their process to confirm all is well with the child and that you are who you say you are, etc, etc, etc.
I tried. I really did. I am still sending them the packets that they said they could preprocess and I’m hoping that they will actually do that and that it will shorten the time your children will be in a shelter.
At this point, we have escalated to Senators Hatch and Crapo and Congressman Larsen as well as anyone else that would listen to my friend Brian at Utah - DHS. We’re demanding that the US government find an alternative to the signature of a Prime Minister who obviously doesn’t put the children first.
I would suggest you stay where you are for the moment. If they fix the signature fiasco and get someone else to authorize the files, we’ll be on the next plane to Miami and you’ll need to know which shelter your child(ren) wil be at. If they don’t fix the signature fiasco, you’ll need to be able to escalate and rally your local elected officials.
I think I’ll start to send you some of the emails that outline what we’ve been through these last days. I feel like we’ve tried - all the way along - to do what we were asked to do and be “good citizens” and because our children weren’t lucky enough to have the lousy Haitian process get them “far enough along” that our government could consider them Category I orphans. Those kids skip all this OOR shelter crap.
These poor kids have been the victim over and over and over again. They just can’t catch a break. And neither can their families.
I’ll keep you posted if I get any news. I wish this had worked out. We are still going to send the packets down, as I mentioned and I hope that will make things easier for your families when you do hit a border somewhere.
Tags: Emergency Aid, Fontamara, Haiti Earthquake, Leogane, orphans, Petionville
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Bringing 70 Children Home - The challenges
January 28th, 2010
We want to let you know the teams on the ground in Haiti and in the states have been working tirelessly to bring our children home. There have been literally 100’s of people have been putting together this flight to bring the children home. It’s also important to note many people are going down that are needed on the ground in Haiti (that aren’t part of our child reunification effort). These people will be going down in an effort to help the on-going efforts in Haiti as whole. Several organizations and churches have committed to get the children on another flight if they don’t make it onto this one.
It is important to note that while the children have been granted Humanitarian Parole the children haven’t been granted travel docs from the Haitian government yet. Our agency is going to the US Embassy again. ( They go everyday for MANY hours. ) But we have a plane scheduled to come in on Friday from Haiti with all our Foyer children being adopted in America and other orphanages’ children being adopted in America.
It truly is a MONUMENTAL effort and appreciate everyone’s prayers that the children will be granted travel documents. Remember we are still working with a country this still recovering from a huge tragedy. We need to be patient, supportive, contributive and prayerful.
We appreciate everything you do to help!
Tags: Emergency Aid, Fontamara, Haiti Earthquake, Leogane, orphans, Petionville
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Deseret News in Haiti: Plans yo-yo for Haitian children headed to Utah
January 28th, 2010
Working hard to get 70 children to adopting families
Please keep our team and the children in Haiti in your prayers
Tags: Emergency Aid, Fontamara, Haiti Earthquake, Leogane, orphans, Petionville
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