Please pray for the visa situation

... in Haiti right now. I have read on several blogs the past few days about how immigrant visas for adopted children in Haiti are being held up, possibly even by our own government. There are reports that birth mothers who are sacrificially choosing adoption out of love for their children and a desire to simply see them survive, are being criticized and denigrated by officials in their personal interviews. If this is true, it is not right! As one adoptive mom who has her bags packed and is just waiting for a visa wrote, "Adoption in general and international adoption is being attacked." (Source: Road to foreign adoption grows longer, Foreign adoptions decline)

Critics charge that UNICEF’s obsession with preventing corruption at all costs often results in countries adopting such restrictive regulations that foreign adoptions are reduced to a trickle. “Forces at the very top are making international adoption more and more difficult,” says Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Bartholet, who has written extensively on the subject. “What this means is that fewer kids are getting adopted, more children are required to spend time in orphanages, those who get out are of older ages, and are more likely to have developed serious disabilities that make them hard to parent.” ~Pat Wingert, When There’s No Place Like Home (Newsweek, February 4, 2008 )

Please pray for hearts to be softened and eyes opened to the great needs around them and to the value of every human life, that instead of hindering the futures of these precious children the officials would do everything in their power to help them get safely home. And praise God all the more for four visas which were received for children being adopted through our agency in Haiti recently! He is still the One who holds the children's futures in His sovereign hands.