Russian government creeps toward reaccreditation

Some excellent news came out of Russia this week for pre-adoptive parents like us!

The Russian government has issued its new set of reaccreditation requirements. They needed a new set because the old requirements were (apparently) inconsistent with some aspects of the NGO registration laws that slowed things down from about April to September. These requirements have been expected to come out "any time now" for at least 3-4 months. Finally some progress!

Practically speaking, this means that our agency and others now know WHAT forms they need to submit to get reaccredited. The new rules also have one great feature: accreditations will last for at least 5 years instead of being subject to annual renewals. This will make life much easier for those adopting from Russia in future years (who knows, maybe us again?).

No one knows how long it will take for Russia to actually process the reaccreditations, though the law does say that they must give adoption agencies a "yes" or "no" within three months of their application. I cannot begin to express how glad I am that we are not still in that "any day now" mode...the prospect of up to 3 months more of that feeling would be overwhelming.

We have confirmed our plans again with our caseworker - that whenever it is that our agency is reaccredited, she will not submit our paperwork yet but will first contact us to discuss the timing. We hope to travel in March, which would probably mean submitting paperwork in February and not before. However, even with the new "progress" on accreditation laws this week, it sounds like there is still some waiting to do...so it may be that our first opportunity to submit isn't until February anyway. I cannot even fathom the irony if that were to happen! It would sure be a lesson in learning to trust God's plans.