Info I found on Rwanda

"Rwanda, one of the poorest countries in the world, is a beautiful country struggling under the weight of the devastating genocide that occurred in 1994, when over 800,000 Rwandans were brutally murdered – leaving families decimated and the country’s infrastructure in shambles. In the aftermath of this tragedy, poverty increased, particularly among children. Half of Rwanda’s population is under the age of 18. Most of these children live on less than $1 a day. The infant mortality rate remains high at 37 per 1000 live births, and illnesses like HIV/AIDS have created a new wave of orphans. (Source: UNICEF)

Since the genocide, Rwanda has made great strides in advancing its economy and stabilizing its government; however, the orphan crisis has been largely unaddressed. In the entire United States, with a population exceeding 300 million people, there are 130,000 adoptable children . Compare that to the nearly 860,000 orphans in Rwanda - a country just the size of Maryland, with total population of 10.7 million people. This number of Rwandan orphans includes children in orphanages as well as an orphan group made up entirely of ‘child-headed households’. “Rwanda has one of the world’s largest proportions of households that are headed by children (i.e. children raising children) with an estimated 101,000 children heading up some 42,000 households.” (UNICEF, 2004)
Until 2008, Rwanda did not allow international adoptions. Because Rwanda has just recently opened to international adoption, the country does not have the same advanced adoption resources and infrastructure as seen in the United States and other countries. There remains an overall lack of awareness of the crucial needs and life-threatening conditions that Rwandan orphans face."

Found this information on another web sight called 4-more.

March update

Well I guess I really don't like updating this too often, or maybe I just don't like taking the time to do it.  Whatever the case is you can tell I'm not so good at writing.  I was hoping for this to be a kind of a journal of our adoption process, but I have been keeping track of things on a calendar at home, and that has been working much better for me.  But I did want to update all of you and let you know how things are coming with the adoption.  We have been busy at work.  Our home study is done and notarized and in the mail to us this week!! That is a big step.  Also I have a list of 14 documents that need to be collected, scanned and e-mailed to AWAA for approval, notarized, and then sent to the Secretary of State to be certified.  Currently I have in my possession 12 of these documents and they are all approved and notarized.  I am waiting for the home study document to come in the mail this week, and send off all 13 to be certified.  The 14th document will take a while and I'm not even sure what that document looks like.  So that one will just have to wait.  Once all 14 of these documents are certified we will be very close to done with the Dossier!!  But the hard part is that in the middle of all this paper chasing, we are leaving on a mission trip and family vacation to Hawaii.  Yes I'm excited to go, but wish I had the Dossier done.  

The other adventure we have begun to check into is a clean water one.  We are looking into the water situation at the orphanage we will be adopting from and seeing if we can do anything to get clean water for all the orphans there.  

Ok another reason I don't like blogging is because I type up this think then I can't spell check it!! What's up with that.  Anyway thanks for reading.
Thanks
Jill

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