Happy Holidays!

Hello to everyone! We hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are enjoying this holiday seasong. We are continuing to work hard here at CAS with our El Salvador program and are thankful for the small steps that have been taken. Currently, we have been given verbal permission to obtain photos and updated social and medical history files on our waiting children and are waitng for the written consent to be given to our lawyer. Once this has been given, we are hoping that it will not be much longer to get that information. To help the process along, we have contacted Cristina, a relative of Doris Woodward in El Salvador, to go with our lawyer and get the much needed information quicker. We ask that you join us in prayer as times can be frustrating both for us as CAS staff, our waiting families, and especially the children in the orphanages. We know that the Lord is working and His timing is perfect so we are working diligently to do as much as we can to bring these children home and find families for those that are still waiting. Blessings to you!

Thinking of Adopting Older Children?

This is the name of a recent article published on the Rainbow Kids website. It has useful information and encouragement in adopting older children. Make sure you read the comments below to see what families have to say. There is a comment from a family that has adopted a 7 & 8 year old from El Salvador on there!

Here's the link: http://www.rainbowkids.com/articledetails.aspx?id=616

Enjoy!

Exciting News!

After many months of waiting to be cleared by OPA and ISNA to get updated files and pictures of our waiting children, our lawyer in San Salvador got the go! We are very excited to move forward with obtaining this updated information and continuing the journey of finding "forever" families for these children. It is encouraging to see that the Lord is moving us forward step by step and showing us HIS faithfulness in that. Our prayer is that the process would move quicker and that these children will finally be in families that can provide not only for their physical needs, but a loving embrace to grow from. Just as we live out of the embrace of Christ, we desire that these children come to know Him and are able to live out of that holistically -- from the embrace of the Father and their new families!

We are so close to finding families for these children, with serveral applications sent out already and are eager to see what happens next! A sibling set of girls may have found a home and one other family is already in the process of being adopted!

Thanks for praying with us for these children!

La Prensa Grafica

If you would like information on what is going on with ISNA please check out this recent posting in La Prensa Grafica (spanish only). Here ISNA is being criticized for not taking sufficient care of their children. These articles bring to light what has been going on recently with the news of the death of a child in their care. Although this breaks my heart, it also spurs our agency on to work quicker to bring those waiting children into loving homes. Along with that, this criticism is in our favor even within the El Salvador side of the process because it will case ISNA and OPA to look at the care of their children with a more critical eye and hopefully clear more children and quicker for adoption.

Website: http://www.laprensagrafica.com/epaper/20081001/default.html

Continuing the process...

The waiting process continues for us here at CAS. As the interest in our waiting children and in the program increases we are awaiting the updated information and pictures of these children. From what we have been told, we are half way through obtaining permision for having the pictures taken and are crossing our fingers that this will happen soon!

Over the past few weeks, we have had well over fifty families interested in the program and the children that are waiting! This has been a great encouragement to us and has also shown the Salvadoran goverment agencies our desire and heart to care for those children in need. With the high rate of malnourishment in children and the recent criticism that ISNA has recieved, it is obvious how much these children need a "forever" family. One that will care for them, love them and raise them in a Christian home. We are thankful for those families that have taken the step in faith to start this process and are eager for other families to do so as well.

In addition to adoption, there are other ways that we can help the need children in El Salvador. One major way is to help with the malnourishment problem and help raise awareness here of the help that is needed in El Salvador. Please visit http://www.love-link.org/contact.shtml and see the story of an incredible couple that has answered their call to love and care for these children and see how you can get involved.

Praying that our next update will bring more good and encouraging news!

And the wait continues...

I have been so encouraged and excited at the incredible amount of people that have had adoption placed on their heart! It has been is amazing to see families desire to love and care for kids that are in need and fulfill our calling as Christians to care for the orphans and the least of these. The longer I work here the more I see families living out this call and being active in their faith through this avenue.

As I mentioned before, we have several waiting kids from El Salvador and are slowly getting families for them. Right now we are waiting on updated file for their medical and social history for them. I am hoping that this wait won't be too much longer and that we will also get some pictures of the kids. We are patiently waiting for these updates although our hearts are really desiring to place these children in homes as soon as possible. I'll post an update with any new information that comes it, but as of now if you know of anyone interested they can email me and I'll send them the information that we have on the children. They are between the ages of 4-15. Have a great day!

International Adoption Info. Meeting

Just wanted to let you know that CAS is having their next International Adoption Informational Meeting next month on October 24th from 1-3pm. If you are at all interested in adoption this would be a great place to start and just gather information and have your questions answered. If you would like to join us, just give us a call at 704-847-0038. Hope you will join us!