Great news from Irkutsk!

A friend who adopted from Angarsk the same time we adopted Skip is in the process of trying to adopt another daughter from the same region. In fact Skip & Tanya were in the same groups for a long, long, time, & on a few occasions I visited her and took pictures to send back to the family.  They have waited about as long as we had waited and are trying very hard to submit their paperwork in hopes it will be approved.  They are using an agency and they got this AWESOME news from their facilitator over the weekend:
I have just received news that at the end of March we will have a new judge who would be hearing all international adoptions in the Irkutsk Regional Court. This new judge will replace the current one.


It will be a man in his early thirties. This news will become official in late February.


The news concerning the new judge will be spreading quickly.


I do not know much about him. All we know is that he his young, he has two children and his father works in the appeals court.


We hope that he may be less biased against international adoptions and we may process cases quiclky and I do hope that he would not request all these papers the previous judge is requesting.


The previous judge will stay in the court but she will be hearing appealed civil cases in another department and she will have nothing to do with adoptions.
 
This is really great! Please pray this new judge is one with a heart, and shows compassion for these poor kids! It is my prayer that soon this region soon become flooded with adoption applications and lots of children find their way home to loving families...