It was time to find the truth: a beautiful end to an ugly beginning

In April 2012, when my husband and I traveled to Haiti, we were matched with R and W. I mentioned W briefly in my first blog post (here) . The day we met W we were at Giving Hope Rescue Mission creche. He was brought to my husband and I by Heather Elyse. She brought several girls and a couple of boys for us to meet with. W is such a handsome boy with a beautiful smile. He won my heart, so my husband and I ask to spend more time with him. He and R came back to our hotel and Heather encouraged them to spend the night with us. The next day we told Heather we would parent both children. See our blog post here

Heather told us a story of horrific abuse. She said he was, "beaten, neglected, burned with cigarettes, starved and left outside naked and alone." She also told us when he was brought into care he, "had scabies, open sores on his body, and had intestinal parasites." Our hearts were broken for this boy. We returned home and ask our church to pray for him, I spent countless nights praying for our boy, and our children to this day pray for W. We started paying our monthly child support payments for him through Room For Grace International, and started raising money to pay his adoption fees. We also submitted our dossier to adopt both R and W.

One month later I received this message through facebook:

• May 27, 2012
• 

  5/27, 10:34am
  

  Heather Elyse
  

  
  
  

  keeping you in the loop---- having difficulty with [W]'s case--- so prepare your heart in case for some reason he becomes un adoptable. Please pray pray pray and just dedicate this whole situation to the Lord. Things are not looking good. Just wanted to keep you in the loop

  
  
• 

  5/27, 11:20am
  

  Kimberly Williams
  

  
  
  

  Can you give us more details?

  
  

  Please call me ***-***-***

  
  
• 

  5/27, 11:27am
  

  Heather Elyse
  

  
  
  

  His family is just causing drama

  I'm in Haiti so can't call unfortunately

  
  
• 

  5/27, 11:28am
  

  Kimberly Williams
  

  
  
  

  Praying

  
  
• 

  5/27, 11:29am
  

  Heather Elyse
  

  
  
  

  I honestly wouldn't worry just told you so we could get some prayers going.

  
  
• 

  5/27, 11:53am
  

  Kimberly Williams
  

  
  
  

  We just prayed at church. The Lord is good!
  
  
  

I never received a phone call, and was worried about the outcome of this situation. My husband feared that something just wasn't right. After much prayer we sent this email to Heather on 6/7/12:

Good Morning Heather,

I hope all is well with you! 

I just wanted to be transparent with you and felt %100 positive I NEED to share our thoughts and feelings regarding sweet [W].

Jeremy and I have an overwhelming since of fear and trepidation. We're not sure why we feel this way, but we have been praying like crazy. We both have such a uneasy feeling about his adoption. We prayed together last night and can't determine if it is just fear brought on by the news of his family causing problems, if it's fear of loosing him, or if it's a sense that God is closing the door on his adoption. I don't know what is going on, but I know I need to share with you. You are his mommy right now and I know how much you love and care for him. 

We also wanted you to know you can be %100 open and honest with us. I know you pride yourself in being upfront, but I don't want you to be worried about our feelings.  [W] is WAY more important than our feelings. 

My spirit is in a state of unrest. I am however, trusting the sovereignty of our Lord. 

Much love and prayers,

Kimberly

Her response: 

Heather <heather@givinghopehaiti.org>	6/7/12
to me

Thank you for sharing your heart with me.  I wish I was in the states so I could talk to you via phone.

I do however consider his adoption high risk now after meeting with his bio family. What a mess they all are!!! They basically don't care about him and  don't want him to be happy or adopted--- it's honestly the saddest thing I have heard! His whole family admits to neglecting and abusing him but seriously doesn't  want him to have a chance at life. His family is extremely dysfunctional. extremely Uneducated and drug users. I am seeing if I can get abandonment papers on him since he was truly abandoned.

I will keep you posted. God is sovereign.

I know God is in control.

His family at one time signed off on him and agreed to adoption. Now they went before the judge and IBESR and changed their mind.

I will fight as if he is my own.

Love ya
Sent from my iPhone

Just two weeks later we received this communication via email:
 

Heather <heather@givinghopehaiti.org>	6/14/12
to me, Tim, Michelle

With great sadness and a heavy heart I write this.
I wish their could have been a different outcome.
There is no pretty way to say this ...
So I am just going to be blunt and honest.

Unfortunately.....

[W] was officially marked as UN adoptable by IBESR about an hour ago.

We feel as if we all just had a miscarriage and we are grieving deeply.

We were told in the beginning that he was 100% available for adoption. We would of never agreed to this adoption if we would have known the outcome. We are deeply sorry. We know how much you adored this precious gift from God.

I was 90% sure as of last week that it would all work out... I never in a million years saw this coming.

W was one of our original 12 children.... So we are all hurting over the fact he is going to have to live at the Creche possibly until we can pay for his college etc etc. figure out a solution for him and all our other future leaders of Haiti.

We know that this email is going to be quite a shock and pray that you can extend us all grace. This was completely out of our control and please know we fought to change this outcome.

We love you.

Tim
Wesmin
Heather and Michelle

Sent from my iPhone

Heather Elyse, Tim Rowe, and missionaries at Giving Hope Rescue mission are defending their organization and stating that all of the children in care at GHRM are adoptable. This was not the case for W. His parents never wanted him to be adopted. 

On May 7, 2013, 11 months after we found out that W was unadoptable and Heather said he'd need to live at the creche forever due to parental abuse, an email was sent to the staff of VOTO outlining which kids were in care and which had been sent home to their local families. Below is an excerpt from that email. 

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Heather Elyse <heather@givinghopehaiti.org> wrote:

Greetings from Haiti!!!

I just spent most of the day with Wesmin, R V, S, J, and S (staff members). We went through both creche's and assessed everything. We also personally talked about each child and so I wanted to send my report to you all.

Currently in the MAIN creche we have the one house where the kitchen is attached used for missionary housing and the school. e are still utilizing the storage room for all the creche needs.

We currently have 49 children in the main creche.

The NEW creche which we all call our "underground creche" because we don't allow anyone to visit it and IBESR doesn't even know about it!!!!!!!!! We have 38 babies here.

So here are the final totals of where all our GIVING HOPE RESCUE MISSION children are:

49-Main Creche 38-Underground Creche 18-Elyse Foster Care Home 12-J Foster Care Home 6-V personal Home 3-***** Foster Home 3- Altagrace Foster Home 2- A W Foster Home 5- Cabaret Baptist Home 3- Annie Bon Samaritan Orphanage 2-Orphanage in Cap Haitian (Warren Girls) 4-W Orphanage 4-M/C 16-Cap Haitian Justice Rescue Project

A GRAND TOTAL OF: 165 children!!!!

We have a HUGE WAITING LIST of children that are sitting in hospitals abandoned, but we just don't have any room currently. Our numbers have dropped drastically due to the fact I gave several children back to relatives that could care for them.... I of course made sure the relatives were legit.

Those who are no longer with us: D W**** C N S J M C

*Names removed for privacy*

This was a disturbing contradiction to what Heather had told our family about "W's" family and ability to return home. Either Heather was lying about his family life or she returned him to incredibly abusive parents. You be the judge after you read the next part of this story....the beautiful ending to a very ugly beginning.... 

.............

W is now at home with his parents and he is thriving. He was never relinquished legally and his parents never wanted to place him for adoption (according to investigators we sent to find him.) He was originally taken to an orphanage next to Giving Hope Rescue Mission to be treated for parasites and to receive health care. "W" was then taken to GHRM by a family member and wasn't returned to his parents. His father felt that he was receiving good care at GHRM, so he allowed them to care for him short term. Heather began to ask them for W's birth certificate, which the family refused to turn over. His family is poor, but they never wanted their son to leave Haiti. 

The beautiful part of this story is that our family is still a part of his life and we now get to see him grow and flourish with parents who care for him. We are sponsoring W to go to school. God has allowed us to see this little boy home, happy, and with his FAMILY. He is going to receive an education and hopefully break the cycle of poverty in his family. 

With their permission, I am posting these pictures. 

W is doing great and we share this story as encouragement to any adoptive family who have been given horror stories of their adopted child's history by Heather Elyse. We propose it is time to search for more information on each child....

Kim and Jeremy

Brian and Anne's Story: Supporting a mother to reunite with her child

We found Heather Elyse and Giving Hope Rescue Mission via a comment/recommendation from a missionary on Facebook in late 2011. At the time Heather had a lot of strong social media.

We reached out to Heather and asked if she could give us more information about adoption. She responded that she would would connect us to Michelle See (cofounder) and that she would like to take us to lunch next time we were in Haiti. When Heather emailed Michelle about us she copied us on the email and told Michelle that she had been "stalking" our family on Facebook and had all kinds of flattering things to say about us...it was odd because we don't post very much on Facebook.

Brian and I were intent on doing things the right way. We volunteer with an organization in Haiti and would never want to be involved in anything that isn't above-board.

We began researching. Brian and our daughter visited the Giving Hope Rescue Mission creche in April of 2012. They visited the crèche the week that one of the VOTO staff who was also adopting was there and she had very good things to tell Brian about the crèche and Heather. (She has since quit working for VOTO.)
Heather and her husband Steve took Brian and our daughter to dinner at Club Indigo (the resort where they lived) but Heather had to leave abruptly to go to a hospital in Port au Prince because a child from the creche had a seizure related to a very high fever.

There was one major red flag during this trip that we unfortunately chose to ignore. A woman approached Brian in Haiti and said: "if you are talking about Heather Elyse my advice is to run as fast as you can away from her". We talked about this and searched online to learn more about Heather but couldn't find anything. (We now know that her last name had only recently been changed to Elyse approximately a year prior so we were not getting accurate search results.) Everything online about "Heather Elyse" looked fine.

We signed our contract with Voice of the Orphan, Giving Hope Rescue Mission's partner adoption agency from Indianapolis, that summer of 2012. We believed that Voice of the Orphan was a licensed adoption agency. Our main contact was Heather, the Vice President of Voice of the Orphan and co-founder of Giving Hope.

In Oct 2012 I (Anne) visited the crèche for a day and had lunch with the missionaries who had just moved there to work for Giving Hope Rescue Mission. Heather was not there and I was curious about her life between two countries while raising 7 children of her own. I asked the missionaries if the kids travel back and forth with her or if they stay put somewhere. Specifically if they stay with her husband when she is gone. The missionaries didn't know who Heather's husband was. It was very awkward. Apparently since the previous spring he was no longer in the picture.

In November of 2012 we received a phone call from one of the missionaries from the ministry we volunteer with in Haiti. There was a couple at the gate with a 17 day old baby they (baby's aunt and uncle) were trying to surrender for care. We were all very concerned about the baby as things can go terribly wrong quickly if a baby that young is not cared for. We called neighboring missions to see if they could help since we don't accept babies/children at our gates but no one had space available. 

We got in touch with the missionary working for Giving Hope Rescue Mission and he talked with Heather Elyse who agreed to take the baby. 
Ryan, the missionary, and a translator came the next morning and met with our Exec Director who happened to be in Haiti and the aunt and uncle. Ryan and Wesmin took the baby to Giving Hope Rescue Mission. 

We were concerned about next steps for the baby and asked a lot of questions. Would they send someone to investigate whether the baby was adoptable? (GHRM is a creche which means that children who live there are supposed to be in the adoption process. If she was not going to be adopted then we would need to look for another placement.) We also wanted to know if they could find the baby's mom and see if she was able to parent her.
 
Heather responded that that's not how they operate - they don't track down birth parents to ask them to parent their children. 

On Nov 20, 2012, at 5:17 PM, Brian (address removed) wrote:

Thanks Heather.  For the girl, we are wondering does the family plan to go to IBESR to fill out paper work? Do you have to bring baby girl to IBESR? How about her med exam -- do you do that at Giving Hope or do you have to take her someplace for that? Is she adoptable?  Has the family visited her?  What are the next steps for her?

On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 6:29 PM, <heather@givinghopehaiti.org> wrote:

Great questions. 

No the family doesn't go to IBESR. 

The family goes before a judge in Montrouis, to relinquish their rights, and agrees to adoption. Specifically to you adopting her.

Then she is added to our crèche license. A birth certificate has to be created and archived. Then we start preparing her dossier.  

She has to have blood work done, and our crèche doctor has to give her a medical exam and certificate. 

As long as the family agrees to adoption- there should be no issue. 

On the Voto Facebook group - there is a file called what goes into a child's dossier. All those items will have to be created in order for an adoption to take place. 

Hope this helps.

H-
Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 20, 2012, at 6:24 PM, Brian (email removed) wrote:

Couple follow-up questions.  Did the family visit her on 11/15?  Also is Giving Hope going to see the family and inquire if adoption is truly the best option for everyone (baby and her family)? 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <heather@givinghopehaiti.org>
Date: Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 1:18 PM
Subject: Re: Donation: $2,500 McNeill Family Adoption
To: Brian (address removed for privacy)

The family did not visit her on the 15th. 

That is an optional thing that bio parents can do. Many just don't care, and they just don't visit. We will not be pursuing the family--- that's not how we do things. 

I have an organized system that is ethical - I don't go hunting down birth parents begging to sign over their child. 

Here are the steps: 

- the bio family is invited to an adoption training class by me and a Haitian attorney. 

- they sign an integrity agreement 

- then they have a court appointment 

- then the child is registered into IBESR for adoption 

- the child's dossier is completed 

- the birth parents meet adoptive parents and agree verbally to an adoption--- they ask questions galore

- bio parents fill out all kinds of paperwork 

- bio parents are welcome to visit on the 15th of the month 

- bio parents are included and invited to participate during the entire adoption process 

- bio parents have an interview with the US embassy 

Etc etc Etc etc 

I could keep going --- but hopefully that gives you a glimpse of the process. 

I handle everything from this end.... 

Now you are not allowed to worry! :) once an investigation is made and I can tell you 100% that she is adoptable - then we will send you an official referral. ;) so be on the look out! 

I promise you this.... I have your best interest at heart ---and keep in mind--- I'm here to protect your heart and the heart of your potential child's ----until adoption is final ! 

Let me know how else we can serve you or explain the process. 

H-

Sent from my iPhone

(We later learned that this information ie. "we will not be pursuing the birth family - that's not how we do things" is in direct contradiction to Eric Ludy's online "Defense of Heather Elyse" click for link.)

"The first condition was that the child genuinely did not have anywhere else to go. Taking in a child was always a “last resort” for Miss Elyse. Before she brought them into her ministry, she always searched for the biological family of the child (if they were alive) and attempted to reunify that child with family members, if at all possible. In many situations, Miss Elyse even financially supported the biological families of the children she rescued, in order to make it possible for the child to remain with family. But if the biological family was truly unable or unwilling to care for the child, Miss Elyse took the child, cared for him/her and sought to find a loving home for the child to grow up in."

We inquired if the baby's family ever visited or showed any interest in her and Heather responded with confusing information - no, they never visited. Then said they are dangerous people. Then said they are liars. 

Voice of the Orphan told us there was a window for submitting our dossier for adoption in early Jan 2013 so we rushed and had our dossier sent down then. We waited for our referral, waited for word of anything really. It was never clear what we were waiting for.

In April of 2013 we received and accepted our "official referral" for the baby that had been transferred from our ministry to Giving Hope Rescue Mission. We assumed that in that time the proper investigation into her adoptability had taken place and the proper paperwork was in place.

Brian was going to be in Haiti a few weeks later with our daughter for a baptism and they were given special permission to visit the baby. (At that point families were not being allowed to visit their children.)

By this time we had begun hearing some disturbing things about Heather and her operation via the missionary and expat community in Haiti. However, we had been matched with this baby and felt that she would have nowhere to go if we didn't adopt her.

Brian and our daughter arrived in Haiti and spent a few days in Port au Prince then went up to the resort where Heather was living to spend a weekend with baby girl. 

Sheena, one of the young missionaries working for Heather, texted Brian - "we are on our way, we just have to stop at the crèche and get the baby." 
Brian began texting me at the same time, updating me with what they were doing, how our daughter was reacting to the anticipation of meeting her baby sister, etc. While waiting Brian got another text from Sheena - "we're on our way, will be there soon."

Within minutes I received texts from Heather:

Knowing what we had heard about Heather and children disappearing from Giving Hope Rescue Mission, and already being hesitant and fearful about working with Heather, we were initially terrified. I texted Brian and told him to lock our daughter in their room and go see why the missionaries were coming if they didn't have the baby. He went down and met two scared women -- he said they were meek, scared and apologetic. We didn't understand why were weren't given this information in time to prevent Brian and our daughter from going all the way to Montrouis to visit.

In our opinion, knowing the control that Heather operates over the creche and volunteers, we find it highly unlikely that Heather had not been informed the night before when the little girl was removed....

We felt extremely concerned about the baby so we sent a Haitian friend to find the family and get the real story. Our friends found the family and the baby. The mother, who was young and had initially been afraid of parenting her newborn, said that she had decided to go to visit her daughter at Giving Hope Rescue Mission and they tried to give her the wrong baby. That was enough for the mom to know she had to get her out. She decided to take custody of her.

Brian and I began to maneuver our way out of this disaster, quickly realizing that we had made a mistake in working with an agency and creche that gave so little respect to birth families. We were wrong to have believed Heather's stories about the baby's birth family being liars. 

We were contacted by another staff member (NB) of VOTO who told us "I don't want you to be too discouraged. This same thing happened to a close friend and Heather was able to work over the situation and now they have their baby"  and we were even more disgusted. Our eyes were opened to the way Heather operated and in our opinion this statement was evidence that Heather was coercing birth families.

We sent an email to Heather, Michelle, Tim and AM (former staff) to tell them that we believed that God was closing the door for our adoption and we would like our money back. Heather texted me and said that we should consider adopting from Columbia - she has a friend that does adoptions there and it only takes 9 months. We were not impressed at all. A speedy adoption was not our goal. We wanted an ethical adoption.

The mother of baby girl, since removing her from Giving Hope Rescue Mission, has done a great job with a little support. She has brought her baby to our ministry for church and to see our doctor regularly. We sent formula and the clothes that we bought when we thought we were going to adopt her. We have realized that with a little support this baby can be well cared for by her birthmother and she is very obviously healthy and very much beloved. 

She is a miracle to our family, she educated us, and we stand in solidarity with the birthparents in Haiti who want to remove their children from Giving Hope Rescue Mission and parent them.

Brian and Anne

Visiting baby girl and her birthmother.

Brenda's Story: We lost a year to a scam

I never thought I would be in this position.  I have read about people being scammed or cheated through their adoption process and I felt very blessed to believe I had found a good Christian organization to work with so I wouldn’t have to worry about that.  This Christian organization, Giving Hope Rescue Mission, was even one of the voices speaking out against corruption in the Haitian adoption system. Unfortunately we ended up in the very position we never wanted to be in - feeling scammed.

We began our adoption journey one year ago, in September of 2012, following a visit to Haiti.  Our daughter lives in Haiti and we went down to visit. We stayed at the orphanage she works for (unrelated to Giving Hope.)  

That was my first trip to Haiti and my husband’s second trip.  I did not go there with the intent to adopt but God had other plans and we felt compelled to bring four of the girls from the orphanage into our family.  Those of you who have felt this call know that it is a strong and persistent call that cannot be ignored.  We began to pursue this adoption with a passion and were on a tight timeframe given that our oldest adopted daughter would be turning 16 (the cutoff age for adoption from Haiti.) My husband found Voice of the Orphan (VOTO) online through a blog post that he read by Heather Elyse, the director of Giving Hope Rescue Mission (GHRM).  She was speaking of how she was fighting the injustices of the adoption process in Haiti and we were drawn to her passion and her love of God and the children of Haiti. 

On September 19, 2012 we sent an initial application to Voice of the Orphan who advertise on their web site that  “Voice of the Orphan is committed to providing ethical and God honoring adoptions in Haiti. We are guided by the Bible and believe that caring for widows and orphans is a clear obligation of the Christian Church. Our goal is to process adoptions with integrity, honesty and compassion.” 

They also note that “Voice of the Orphan has been able to help families process the adoption of a child in other orphanages (more information coming soon). These situations will be evaluated on a case by case basis.  If you need more information about this we invite you to contact us.” 

This second paragraph was what we were looking for since the children we planned to adopt were in another orphanage.  

At that time we were not aware of the new draft adoption laws being discussed in Haiti that would limit which agencies and orphanages families could adopt from.  VOTO assured us that they could process our adoption and that Heather Elyse was a miracle worker in Haiti and could get adoptions processed much faster than anyone else. Their explanation for this fast processing was because Heather supposedly had a strong relationship with IBESR (Haitian Children’s Services).  They told us that the whole process would take 9 months to a year.  We were very excited. 

We have since learned that VOTO was not even licensed as an adoption agency in their state of Indiana until June 2013.

On October 11^th  2012 VOTO accepted our adoption application and told us we could begin preparing our dossier.  We had not received a contract from VOTO yet but they kept reassuring us that we would receive it.  This was finally received on January 3, 2013.  I’m not sure why it took so long to just get a contract but during this time we were able to complete our dossier preparation.  We were just waiting for VOTO to give our Home Study agency their license number to put on our home study so we could get it authenticated.   At this time we were told that IBESR was closing down to get ready to switch to the Hague policies so nothing would be done until they re-opened after the first of the year.  Once they re-opened under the Hague laws we would be able to enter the adoption system in Haiti.

On January 13^th, 2013 we received a call from our dossier coach at VOTO stating that IBESR was going to open for a short time to take dossiers under the old policy. We were told to rush our documents to them as soon as possible.  They told us to have the homestudy completed without VOTO's license number since we were filing this as a non-Hague homestudy and a license number was not needed.   We spent the next few days running around like crazy people trying to get the county and state authentications done and overnight our paperwork to someone at VOTO to take to the Haitian consulate in Chicago for authentication. We were told that someone was traveling to Haiti on February 1^st and would take our dossier there to be submitted. We were so excited that things were moving.

On February 7^th we got a call saying that the laws had changed and that the Haitian government would only allow each agency to submit one dossier for one adoptive family per month.  VOTO had told us that previously Heather had been able to submit 20 dossiers a month.  This was a serious blow and we were disappointed to say the least. 

On March 11^th I received my first phone call from Heather Elyse.  She spent almost an hour with me on the phone answering my many questions and assuring me that she could process our adoption even though our children were not in Giving Hope Rescue Mission and even though she could only submit one adoptive family per month for adoption.  

She said it was fine to have our children remain at their previous orphanage and that Giving Hope Rescue Mission could take custody of the girls in name/paperwork only. We told her at this time that we were planning to adopt all 4 girls and gave her the information on the girls and the orphanage where they lived.  She informed us at that time that this constituted us being “pre-matched” with these 4 girls.  She said they would begin processing the girl’s adoption paperwork in Haiti.  She said she loved our hearts and was so excited that we were willing to take 4 children because she had never had anyone willing to adopt so many besides herself. 

When I told her the age of the children and that the oldest was then 15 years old, she immediately informed me that we would need to change her age.  She said that it was not a big deal and that we just needed to have her father go file for a new birth certificate in the town where they live and say that she is only 13.  She said they could give the father money to do it but that we should make it very clear to him that he could never say that we told him to do it or that he received any money to do it.  She said it was normal process in Haiti. 

The next day, after prayerfully considering what Heather had told us, I emailed Heather back and told her that we were not comfortable forging a birth certificate for our oldest child.  She never responded to that email.

It was during this conversation that we first heard from Heather that Voice of the Orphan was no longer an approved agency to process adoptions in Haiti, although I am still unclear as to whether or not they were ever an approved agency.   

Heather told us that she was working hard at trying to get IBESR to allow Voice of the Orphan to continue to submit adoption dossiers.  She gave us the option to switch to MLJ Adoptions (an adoption agency she had just begun to partner with) but told us that it would be much more expensive and that MLJ Adoptions was "all about the money and not really interested in the children’s well being."  

We opted to not jump ship and to continue in our contract with Voice of the Orphan believing that Heather would get approval from IBESR to continue working with VOTO soon.

Heather also came up with a plan at that time to have us write a letter of appeal to IBESR explaining our circumstances and that we had tried to begin this process before the policy changes and see if they would accept our dossier directly.  We were planning a trip to Haiti on March 19^th so the plan was to get an appointment with IBESR while we were there. 

We drafted the appeal letter and were waiting to find out what we were supposed to do with it and if we were supposed to go into IBESR when we got there.  I emailed Heather, and 3 other members of VOTO to try to get an answer before heading to Haiti.  I got a reply on March 17^th saying to hold off on the appeal letter and that there was another window of opportunity opening up with IBESR and that MLJ Adoptions could submit our dossier right away. We were so excited that they were willing to do that!

On March 19^th as I sat in the airport waiting for our connecting flight to Haiti, I messaged a member of the VOTO staff and was told that MLJ Adoptions had refused to submit our dossier because our children were not living at the Giving Hope Rescue Mission crèche.  We were confused and devastated.  We were about to see our girls and now did not have any good news to report. 

When we returned home to the US we emailed asking for updates and to see what we should do now.  On March 28^th we received an email from Heather saying that they found other options for us so we would be able to “adopt this year” and they would give us more information soon.   On April 9^th I received a call from VOTO stating that MLJ Adoptions had agreed to take our case and would work with us even though our children were not in GHRM creche. Things were getting confusing.

On April 15^th we received an email from VOTO that was sent to all of their clients who were waiting to be submitted to IBESR for Haitian adoptions.  It outlined 3 options for their clients.  Option 1 was to transfer to MLJ Adoptions, Option 2 was to wait for VOTO to receive Hague accreditation in the fall and then try to complete an adoption and Option 3 was to find another agency that would take us.  Since we believed we had already been accepted by MLJ Adoptions and were being submitted by them to IBESR I was confused as to why I had received this letter.

I called MLJ adoptions that very day and had my first conversation with "L" the director of Haitian adoptions for MLJ.  L had no idea who I was! And MLJ Adoptions had never heard of our case and had never agreed to take us on or submit us to IBESR. I was shocked.  

I couldn’t understand why this was happening when I had specifically asked VOTO if they were sure that MLJ had agreed to take us under the special circumstance of our children being in a different orphanage.  They assured me they had.  

L asked me to forward her the email I had received and then informed me that the information on that email from VOTO was incorrect.  L told me that she would attempt to contact Heather to find out why Heather had given us this misinformation. She said that she often had a hard time contacting Heather.  I told her that Heather had told us that she was waiting on MLJ to complete the contract work or she would have had us submitted already.  

This was the first of many contradictory stories we would receive, the lies appearing to come from Heather and Voice of the Orphan.

I also must note at this time that L was very professional and accommodating.  Through our conversation that day and in all future conversations with her, I found L to be a caring, compassionate person and an advocate for orphans.  This is very contrary to the picture that Heather painted of MLJ Adoptions.  

We spent the next couple of weeks trying to contact Heather by phone, text, and email.  On May 1^st 2013 my husband sent a thank you email to Heather for the work she is doing in Haiti.  This finally got her to respond to us.  She sent us a glowing email telling us “I just want your girls home in your arms?  I am cheering you all on, and am willing to stand beside you and fight so they can come home.  I also put in a good word for you all at MLJ – explaining it is critical we get your dossier in ASAP.”  She ended the email saying “I am busy---but never to busy to serve my adoptive parents.”

On May 14^th Heather sent a text stating that she was preparing our 4 girls’ adoption documents and asked us for their orphanage contact information again.  We texted her back and asked when we would be submitted and she said “either this Friday or next Monday”. 

On May 21^st we received an email from Heather in response to our inquiries stating that IBESR was not taking any agency dossiers at that time but reassuring us that we were first on the list to go in when they started taking them.

On May 25^th I received a call from Heather stating that IBESR would never accept a submission for 4 children that were not siblings.  We were devastated.  We had never been given even a hint of this during any of our previous correspondence with VOTO or Heather even though all of them were aware the entire time that we were trying to adopt 4 children.  

Heather acted like we should have know this would be the case but since we don’t know anything about adoptions we were completely taken by surprise.  

She asked us to pick which two we would like to submit first and if they would allow 3 which child would be next.  She vowed to fight to get all 4 but assured us that if she couldn’t get them all submitted at once that as soon as we exited IBESR with the first ones, we could immediately re-enter with the remaining children.  We have since learned that this is not possible.

On June 4^th after texting Heather to receive an update, since we were assured we were being submitted, we received this text:

"Let me reassure you:

You are not being ignored.

… Neither is your case.

You are with an agency so there will be no issue with getting you in…

My issue is: I feel like if you want me to get you in tomorrow I can-but I will only be with two or three girls.  If you can please give us some time to fight your case—I would feel better knowing we did all we could to get all four in;);)

I promise once you have Ibesr numbers we will shout it from the rooftops

I simply adore you guys and promise to do your adoption with honor !!!  Excited about this!!! I need like 200 more families like you all."

This was the last response we ever received from Heather.  We sent repeated emails and texts but never received a reply.  L at MLJ was also trying to obtain information for us.
We received an email from Heather's assistant via Heather’s email stating that Heather was still trying to submit for all 4 girls and that we should email back in a couple of weeks if we hadn't heard anything.

L at MLJ went to Haiti to meet with GHRM in July and called us on July 18^th when she returned from there to inform us that Heather was not able to get all 4 girls into IBESR but that we were matched with the oldest 2. 

Through some reading of things online we realized that we needed to get our immigration application filed before our oldest turned 16 so we began asking questions on what we needed to do.  During this process we found out that Giving Hope Rescue Mission was no longer a licensed creche in Haiti or able to submit dossiers.  

We also found out that our children’s dossiers (adoption paperwork) were never even started.  Nothing had been done for our adoption from September 2012-July 2013.

We began hearing other things about GHRM which prompted us to contact MLJ Adoptions to ask some very pointed questions. 

I spoke to L at MLJ on July 29^th and she told me that one of the reasons for her visit to Haiti was to look into the accusations being made against Heather.  She assured me that she had met with Heather and was confident that the accusations were false and that there were no problems with GHRM.  She told me that Heather had assured her that she could submit dossiers and that we were matched with our 2 oldest girls.  Also, in an email dated July 23^rd, L assured us that Heather had submitted us for the match with the 2 girls.

Since we knew that these statements were not true and that Heather had not even obtained basic information on our children from their orphanage, we contacted another agency to try to get some help in rescuing our adoption. 

On August 2^nd we spoke to MLJ about terminating our agreement with them and getting our dossier and money back.  MLJ was able to make arrangements to get our dossier back and were very helpful and accommodating to us.  Since that time we have learned that they also terminated their relationship with Giving Hope Rescue Mission.  We also got a refund of what we paid to Voice of the Orphan but were unable to get any money back that was donated by our friends and family to them in our name.  According to my records that amounts to $2200 but I am not sure I have a record of everything that was sent to them.  The only way I ever received notification of donations sent was if I sent an email requesting confirmation of money received when friends told me they donated.  If someone did not tell me they made a donation then I didn’t know to ask so they may have more of our money than I think.

When our new adoption agency got our dossier they informed us that it was never legalized with the Department of Foreign Affairs in Haiti, which should have been done when our dossier arrived in Haiti in February, 2013.  

This made it even more clear to us that Heather Elyse had never attempted to submit our dossier to IBESR (despite her repeated and ongoing assurances that she had tried) since this step would have been done if she had.

This entire ordeal has been an emotional roller coaster ride.  I have no idea what it profited Heather or anyone in VOTO to lie to us or string us along the way they did.  I do not write any of this down in an effort to hurt or slander anyone.  I just want everyone considering starting this process to know all of the facts about Giving Hope Rescue Mission and Heather Elyse before they put their trust in them.

We feel like we are starting over now after a year of this ordeal.  It is disappointing to us and to the girls, who unfortunately know that we are trying to adopt them and have been strung along in this process.  Ultimately, we know that this is all in God’s hands and He will work things out according to His perfect plan and His perfect timing.  We pray that we will still be able to bring all 4 of our daughters home some day soon.  Thank you for reading our story and praying with us. 

Brenda

Our girls. Still waiting.