Ok folks,
We, along with all of the families currently adopting from Guatemala, NEED YOUR HELP!
The best mode of communication at this point is for individuals to contact their Congressperson in the House of Representatives. If enough people begin making a fuss, then they will contact the State Department and look into doing something about the human rights violations and atrocities being committed by these PGN "interviews." At this time there is no formal letter to sign or specific words to use. Just be yourself and tell them you're concerned about the interviews being conducted in Guatemala's PGN. Talk about how it doesn't seem right to you. Ask them personally to look into the matter. Don't stop until you hear back from them. Ours is a government that is designed to represent the desires of the people...so let's tell them our desires. We want these interviews to stop and for Guatemala to allow these adoption cases to be completed.
Here is a website I found that allows you to figure out who your Congressperson is and also allows you to easily email them.
House of Representatives
If this mode of action doesn't get any attention we'll try something else.
Thanks for being our community.
Keep praying constantly that God would have mercy on all this mess!
Grace and Peace
-Chris
7 comments:
Believe me I have written everyone I can on this matter. The embassy included. It is all in HIS hands now. Please let him guide us.
Praying for you.
My congressmen are willing to help just to get my name out of their inboxes.
Consider yourself helped.
We, along with a couple of other Guat adoptive parents have a meeting with the case worker for our congressman on Thursday. Please pray for God's leading as we speak to her.
I just sent the following email to my Congressman. Anyone can feel free to use it/modify it for your purposes:
Dear Honorable Rahall:
Our Guatemalan-born son joined our family in 2007, and he has been the joy of our lives. Through the pursuit of adoption, we have come to recognize the plight of Guatemalan children; it is estimated that nearly half will die before their fifth birthday. The people of the country are proud yet lack the resources or opportunities to improve their situations.
Some 5,000 children are currently waiting to join their "forever families" in the United States, but political tension between our country and theirs, as well as a change in Guatemalan political leaders has led to an even worse situation for these young ones. Cases that have made it through many stages of the process are now in limbo as the interviewers of PGN (the final court in Guatemalan adoptions) mandates that birth mothers who relinquished their children must now agree to yet another interview, one where they are allegedly being demeaned for their decision and offered money to take their children back.
This is not the way to aid these women. Their situations are not subject to change; on the contrary, if they accept these children back into their homes, in many cases, they are putting their entire families in worse situations.
I beg you to personally look into this matter and urge decision makers to stand up for these children, their biological mothers, and their adoptive parents. These interviews need to stop, and these adoption cases need to be finalized.
Thank you for considering my request,
YOUR NAME HERE
Can you please send me or melodie and email listing the "atrocities" that are confirmed to be going on?
It is unfair that they are not releasing cases and that they are putting the birth mothers thru these possibly grueling interviews. BUT "atrocities" is a pretty strong word. There are alot of rumors flying around about birth mother bribes and how harsh and persuasive the interviews are, but from what I read the sources for those rumors are a few lawyers, the less respectable ones, who are currently under fire for possibly switching babies and birth mothers around and tricking birth mothers into relinquishing their children.
PGN should not be messing with the cases, but what they are doing is not necessarily a bad thing, depending on how it is executed, BUT above all they should be holding to their promise of expeditiously processing the grandfathered cases.
Guatemala is definitely under international scrutiny and now have to lay in the bed that they have made for themselves by accepting 28 million (or whatever it was) from UNICEF to shutdown international adoptions.
Lindsey and Chris -
I am saying my prayers that things will get back to business in Guatemala, so Eliana and all the other chldren waiting to come home can do just that!!! I will get some letter writing done too!! I just saw on another blog that a someone is planning a hunger strike in front of PGN to protest what's been going on as well. Perhaps (and hopefully) more will join her. My heart is breaking for all involved, but I have huge faith that God will see you, Eliana -- everyone through and your baby girl will come home to her forever family!!
peace,
Beth
I think that I might steal the letter that Jason and Sabrina put on her and just replace it with Eliot's name. If that letter doesn't get our governments attention I don't know what will.
I am in continual prayer for you guys and others going through this same process.
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