Ok...so that excitement has worn off now

I was reading my last entry and it sure doesn't reflect where things seem to be now.

What has become clear is that even those agencies who have had NGO status since JULY have still not been reaccreditted. Absolutely no agency has been reaccredited since the NGO legislation initially went into effect at the end of April. There has now been a report from one agency, to their clients, that two officials in the Russian Ministry of Education have resigned, and their signatures were needed for accreditations to be granted. If it is true, we must wait for these people to be replaced before anything new can happen.

There are a few agencies that were reaccredited last March and April, before the NGO rules were passed, who are still operating smoothly because their licenses are good until next March/April. A couple have gotten NGO status as well, so there are no delays with them at this point. We need to think and pray hard about this. Forms would need to be redone, money would be lost, and the process would still be unpredictable. However, if we could travel during this semester (while I am not teaching) it would be so much better than if we had to wait until Spring and I ended up having to recruit help to cover my two courses. I know I would get the help - my department is so fantastically supportive of all this! - but it would just make more sense for this to happen NOW!!! (Plus, as you may have noticed, I am ready to be a mom and am tired of waiting!)

Thanks so much for listening and hanging in there with us.

Successful Jump through Hoop # 1 !!!

We just learned today that our agency has been granted NGO status by the Russian government. Woohoo!!!!!

You might ask how this affects our situation. It essentially means that now our agency can actually apply for its reaccreditation (which was not allowed w/o NGO status). It could still be a while -- the online adoption gossip ranges for estimates of "any week now" to maybe not even this calendar year. Our agency has an optimistic timeline, but we will just have to see what happens. In any case, the situation is MUCH better now that the first hoop has been jumped through. Once hoop # 2 is done, we will be on our way to Russia in no time!

We'll keep you posted!