By Elizabeth Stuart
and Amy Choate-Nielsen
Deseret News
LEHI — For almost two weeks, Lori Rosenlof has been strong.
When she got word her two soon-to-be-adopted children were missing after a 7.0 earthquake jolted their orphanage in Haiti, she held it together. When 70 of her babies' little orphan friends ran into trouble securing a flight out of the country, she didn't falter. She just took a deep breath and went to work, eschewing her day job in favor of devoting every waking minute to Haiti relief on the home front.
But Monday, for the first time, Rosenlof cried.
"Pray," the Lehi mother begged, sobbing. "If you believe in God, pray."
The evacuation of all Haitian orphans was put on hold indefinitely Monday. The list includes Rosenlof's two children, one of whom is still missing. The 72 in their group have been living at two orphanages with strong Utah ties, Help for Little Angels of Haiti and Foyer de Sion.
Some of the children have been waiting as long as five years to join their intended parents, who are mostly in Utah, and all were in the process of being adopted when the Jan. 12 earthquake hit. About half of the 72 children have been granted humanitarian parole. Prior to the moratorium, orphanage workers expected to obtain parole for the other half Monday. Parents expected the children to arrive in the U.S. as soon as the end of this week, but the Haitian government has placed a hold on evacuating orphans until, ostensibly, a more organized method can be established, said Nichole Hayden, a coordinator for Help for Little Angels of Haiti.'
"We are obviously very concerned," Hayden said.
Rosenlof was gleefully typing up e-mails informing fellow parents their children had secured their paperwork when she heard about the moratorium.
"One minute I was sending happy, happy messages," she said. "The next it was bad news."
A frantic push, fueled by parents, to speed up evacuation of orphans put the Haitian government on edge. Haitian and United Nations officials are concerned fast-tracked adoptions could endanger other Haitian children who might be sold or stolen by traffickers.
To combat this, the government has placed a moratorium on processing the orphans' evacuation papers until they have been checked twice. A U.N. official said all papers must be signed both by government and U.N. officials.
"They realized it could turn into a really rapid movement with a lot of checks and balances not being adhered to," a State Department spokesman said. "Last Friday, they asked for all the orphans leaving the country for their records to be checked a second time."
The backlog created by double-checking could take days, or longer, the spokesman said.
A wait like that could spell trouble for the 72 children Rosenlof, in tandem with Wasatch International Adoptions, has been working to evacuate.
Afraid to go into buildings because of persisting aftershocks affecting Haiti, the orphans are camped outside on the grounds of the Foyer de Sion orphanage. They only have enough food to last the rest of the week, Hayden said.
"This is so beyond anything I've ever had to deal with; I don't even know what to think," Rosenlof said.
Through her tears, Rosenlof still noted, however, that Utah parents and children have much to be grateful for — despite the setback.
For one, although the whereabouts of her 3-year-old daughter, Jessica, are still unknown, Rosenlof got word Monday that the little girl is alive.
"She's not where she needs to be, but it's closer," she said, sighing.
The group also managed, after a frantic 36 hours of fundraising, to raise $8,900 for jet fuel to airlift the children to America. Because of paperwork delays, the orphans had missed their scheduled flight out with The Church of Scientology.
Shortly after they collected the money, Rosenlof secured a jet.
At first, she said, she was disappointed because the children should have been ready to fly out on today and the only plane they could find was departing Thursday. Now she's calling it her "miracle plane."
"That's two extra days to get the paperwork through," she said, "and two extra days to find my Jessica."
She attributes the little blessing to "divine intervention."
"The Lord's hands have been all over this," she said. "After this he may want to wash the Haiti out from under his fingernails because he's been everywhere these past two weeks."
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