A Pella family is anxiously awaiting information from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to find out if a child they are adopting from an orphanage there is safe following Tuesday’s devastating earthquake.  Mandy Poulter tells KNIA/KRLS News that she and her husband Matt were less than a month away from having four-year-old Maya in Pella when the quake struck.

“My husband [Matt] and I have plane tickets we ordered about a month ago to go to Haiti February 8th through the 14th in hopes to bring her home with us,” said Poulter. “Then we heard about the earthquake, and we haven’t been able to contact anyone at the orphanage. The orphanage director was in the United States at the time [of the earthquake] so he hasn’t been able to contact anyone.”

Matt Poulter serves on the Board of Directors for the Central Texas Orphan Mission Alliance, or C-TOMA, and Mandy says their adoption isn’t the only Pella family with a child at the Haitian orphanage.

“There are two other families here in Pella who are adopting from the same orphanage, and both of them are adopting sibling groups,” adds Poulter. “So out of the CTOMA orphanage down there, five of the children will be coming to Pella…we hope someday soon.”

Poulter says they’ve not been able to receive any word yet on the condition of the orphanage or children inside, but says Senator Tom Harkin’s office and the U.S. Government are working to hopefully find her little girl and safely transport her to the United States.

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