Email Update

September 1, 2008

Dear Vietnam Adoptive Families,

Today is September, 1 - the day the current Adoption Agreement expires between the US and Vietnam so I wanted to write and update you with what we know at this point.

New Agreement: The US Government and the Vietnam Government both assure us that negotiations for the new agreement are beginning. Both sides report optimism about the ability to reach a new agreement as significant progress has been made on issues that had been identified as concerns. There is no way to know for sure when the negotiations will be completed. As there is new info we will provide it.

Holt families with children matched to them: The Department of International Adoptions has assured us that all Holt families have the required DIA Letter to document that you have a formal match. That means that your cases continue to process.

Families with dossiers in Vietnam: If your dossier is in Vietnam and you are waiting on a match at this point the US or DIA have not provided us with new information about what will happen to your dossier. At this point there has been no agreement to "grandfather" the dossiers as we had earlier been told, and there is no information about what will happen yet. Robin is going to Vietnam later this month and will be providing an update as we get new information.

I do understand that this is not much information, but as new info is available we will be updating you. If there is specific information on your case we will of course provide it to you individually.

We recieved this email with sadness. We knew the country was closing, but we hoped they would give us words of encouragement that we would be "grandfathered" in since we already had all our paperwork in Vietnam. We are not sure where God is leading now...