Buckner Opens New Centers in Tegucigalpa, Roatan

By Jenny Pope
Buckner International

Watch video about Buckner Honduras director 

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Scattered along the river banks of Flor del Campo, women and children cram into tiny, corrugated tin cottages. It’s the only land they can afford to live on, at least until the river swells and they’re forced to move to higher ground.

“The men go to the seashore to collect sand to sell to construction workers; most of the women sell tortillas,” said Karen Medina, Buckner social worker at the new Community Transformation Center in Flor del Campo. “They are very poor, and there is a lot of violence.

Buckner Honduras director Yaneth Contreras conducts media interviews at the CTC opening.

The new Community Transformation Center will provide a centralized location for community services in Flor del Campo, an impoverished neighborhood of Tegucigalpa. In addition to organized sports, computer and English classes, licensed social workers are developing life maps for families in the area. They have already visited 30 families in their homes, Medina said.

“We went to one very small, little box house with 20 people living in it,” she continued. “There was an elderly lady who was not being attended to and kids who were not being fed properly. They had an attitude of hopelessness. If we don’t change the attitudes, we can’t change the community. This is why we’re here.”

Hundreds of families gathered July 7 to celebrate the opening of the new center in Tegucigalpa, which included performances from the national folklorico and marimba band and four national TV stations.

Dr. Albert Reyes, Buckner International president, places a pair of new shoes on a child's feet.

Vice Minister of Health Javier Pastor attended the celebration and affirmed Buckner’s approach at creating sustainable community programs in Honduras.

“By working to improve conditions on the micro level, the whole neighborhood can improve,” Pastor said. “There are a lot of needs – education, jobs, health. Our system is outdated. We are trying to change our approach to make it more purposeful.”

Part of that approach includes partnering with creditable NGOs, like Buckner, who can provide services for children and families while monitoring the effectiveness of the programs, he said.

“The partnership with the community makes is sustainable. By coming to the neighborhood, they have a sense of belonging – it’s theirs. We really appreciate your involvement.”

The new Community Transformation Center in Roatan is centrally located to provide services to many of the islands most needy people.

Buckner opened a second Community Transformation Center July 8 on the island of Roatan, Honduras, with more national media attention and hundreds of islanders in attendance. The center will provide day and night care for children while their mothers attend school. It will also offer English and computer classes to improve education levels.

At the ceremony, Buckner signed an official agreement with Roatan Mayor Julio Galindo, who has donated the use of the building rent free for three years. Galindo said they are facing some serious problems in Roatan due to the migration of hundreds of people to the island following Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

“People are without education, looking for jobs. They don’t have sewer, potable water, roads. Some are living like squatters,” he said. “It’s beyond the capability of the municipality; we don’t have the means to help.”

When Buckner approached Galindo in April about their plans to help the community, Galindo said he started researching the organization.

Buckner president Albert Reyes shakes hands with Roatan mayor Julio Galindo. Galindo has provided the building for the new CTC rent free for three years.

“I looked at the legal status of the organization and found out nothing but good things. I knew that they could do a lot to help. Hopefully I can continue helping them, too,” he said.

Buckner International President Albert Reyes attended both CTC openings and said they were some of the best celebrations he’s been a part of since elected as president in January.

“What Honduras is doing is a model for all of Buckner,” he said. “What I’ve seen around the world is NGOs who do their own services – health, water wells, food. That’s the specialty of the group and so they do this one thing and then they leave. We’re trying to bring a better solution to prevent separation of families. The CTCs have the ability to truly transform communities, and that’s what we’re all about.”

Learn more about Buckner Honduras at www.bucknerhonduras.hn. To help support Buckner CTCs, please call Buckner Foundation at 214-758-8050.

Holme Oltrogee consoles his mother, Nguyen Thi Thuan. Oltrogee was among a group of orphans fleeing Vietnam for Buckner Children’s Home in Dallas in 1975. His mother took him to the Cam Ranh City Christian Orphanage during the Vietnam War and the two had not seen each other for 35 years. He was also reunited with this five brothers and a sister he’d never met.

By Scott Collins

Click here to watch video from the reunion trip.

NHA TRANG, Vietnam – Thomas Ho holds his cousin’s right leg and foot in his hands as his wife, Trina sits nearby with a calculator. They are surrounded by a dozen family members from the Quang Nga Province of Vietnam who have made the day-and-a-half journey here by bus.

It’s been seven years since Ho’s cousin has had a new leg and the group is trying to figure out what a new one will cost. It can be purchased in Danang and before he returns to the United States, Thomas promises to provide the money to buy the leg. Everyone’s best guess is $300.

Thomas Ho looks at the prosthetic leg of his cousin, Dong, 52. She lost her leg to a land mine during the Vietnam War when she was 14. The cousins had not seen each other for 35 years, when Ho fled Vietnam for Buckner Children’s Home in Dallas.

When he set up the meeting with his cousin, Ho’s intent was to buy her a wheelchair. And while she is grateful for the offer, the cousin says a new leg is better. Life is too hard for a wheelchair and it would complicate her work making rice cakes.

The leg is a causality of the Vietnam War, lost in 1973 when Ho’s cousin was just 14 and she stepped on a land mine. Two years later, the cousins would lose something else – each other.

For some in the crowded hotel room, this is a reunion with a relative they haven’t seen in 35 years. For others, this is the first time they’ve ever seen Ho.

“I’m very emotional,” he said. “You didn’t see me earlier, but I was crying.”

Thomas was part of a group of orphans returning to Vietnam, many for the first time, since fleeing the country for Buckner Children’s Home in Dallas. It’s a trip that’s been in the making for years and the group timed their return to coincide with their arrival at Buckner 35 years to the day they stepped off busses on June 12, 1975 and filed into Pires Dormitory on the Buckner campus.

Ty (Thang) Cope scoops up dirt from the site of the abandoned Cam Ranh City Christian Orphanage during a reunion of orphans in Vietnam.

The arrival at Buckner ended a harrowing flight that started April 2, 1975, from Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. The group of 69 orphans, 13 staff members and their 13 children made the trip on land, sea and air, being shot at and stranded in a leaking boat before arriving at the Vietnamese Relocation Center in Fort Chaffee, Ark. From there, they spent several days as guests of West Memorial Baptist Church in Houston before finally arriving at Buckner.

The connection to Buckner came through Jim Gayle, a former Southern Baptist missionary in Vietnam who served as chaplain at the orphanage when he lived nearby. Gayle and his wife Margaret made the June reunion trip with the group.

Gayle, who was raised at Buckner Boys Ranch in the 1950s, called Buckner President R.C. Campbell in 1975 and asked if Buckner Children’s Home in Dallas could take in the group.

And while individual members of the group have made pilgrimages back to Vietnam over the past 35 years, the trip this summer was the first organized return for the orphans of the Cam Ranh City Christian Orphanage. The theme for the trip, emblazoned on T-shirts and caps, was “Get Love, Share Love,” something the orphans say they learned from their Vietnamese leaders and from Buckner.

The trip included family reunions with relatives many of the orphans have never met. A banquet June 12 was hosted by Buckner International. In addition, a group of the Buckner orphans joined Buckner staff visiting orphanages in the north part of Vietnam where Buckner works with government officials to help orphans.

Cam Ranh City Christian Orphans attend the Hoi Thanh Baptist Church during their reunion trip. The church was started in the 1960s by Southern Baptist missionaries.

During their return, the orphans visited the original site of the Cam Ranh City Christian Orphanage, now an elementary school. As they wandered around the grounds, some of the orphans knelt with empty water bottles in hand to scoop up sand from the ground as a souvenir.

Holme Oltrogee, of Frisco, Texas, was overcome with emotion when his mother, whom he had not seen since he was 10, arrived along with his brothers and a sister he’d never met. Now 42, Holme said he is thankful for the way his life has turned out, including his adoption from Buckner by Gene and Alice Oltrogee.

But he admitted a long-standing desire to return to Vietnam and see his long-lost birth mother. “This reunion forced me to come back,” he said. “I needed to come back. I learned more about myself.”

For Kelli St. Germain, who now lives in Hopedale, Mass., the return connected her with a past she never really knew. St. Germain was one of the youngest of the group of 69 orphans fleeing Cam Ranh. She had been placed in the orphanage by an aunt, who took her in after her parents were killed by a land mine explosion while walking through a rice field.

She managed to find the aunt, now 87, who placed her in the orphanage. The aunt still lives in Cam Ranh in the wooden house that’s been her home all her life. It’s also the home St. Germain lived in briefly before going to the orphanage.

“My husband and I have always said that we wanted to learn more about my roots,” she said. “We would eventually like to travel here with our kids to learn more about the culture. We feel it’s important for them to know where they came from.”

Analiz G. Schremmer

SAN JOSE PINULA, Guatemala – Buckner opened a new Community Transformation Center on May 25 to serve people in one of Guatemala’s most impoverished communities — San Jose Pinula.

Many children in the San Jose Pinula community do not go to school, like this child who cares for goats in the streets outside the new center.

“We did a socioeconomic study and found that there was great need,” said Liliana Arcely Pineda, Buckner social worker at the CTC. “We found illiteracy, poor health, and malnutrition among children; that’s why we chose this place.”

The CTC will offer English classes, literacy classes, computer classes, a medical clinic and more in collaboration with several community partners. Licensed social workers will also provide personalized case management for families, all with the goal of keeping families together and preventing children from being abused, neglected and abandoned.

 “There is an orphanage close by and we want to transform the community so that we can stop filling it with children,” said Roberto Tejada, Buckner director of Community Transformation Centers in Guatemala. “By doing our part, we will keep families together by equipping them with the tools they need to be self sufficient and capable of providing for their children.”

According to Unicef, children under the age of 18 compose more than half of Guatemala’s population. About 50 percent of them, 3.7 million girls and boys, live in poverty. About 23 percent of children are part of the labor force, a cycle which prevents children from receiving an education and provides little hope for their future. 

This mother and child eagerly toured the new CTC at San Jose Pinula.

“We hope that in five or 10 years, there will be a difference in these people’s quality of life,” Tejada said. “We’d like to see young people grow up educated, working in the community and preserving their families.”

Jose Mario Lutin Solares Consejal, who spoke on behalf of the city mayor Victor Reyes Pur at the ribbon cutting ceremony, said that the CTC is “part of what our citizens have always dreamed of. Today we recognize this group of people as being sent here by God. Let us educate children and young people so that we won’t have to correct the adults.” The mayor’s office provides 30 percent of the CTC building’s rent.

Buckner operates similar programs for communities in Guatemala, Ethiopia and Mexico. To learn more about the ways you can support Buckner’s work to prevent child abandonment and abuse, visit www.buckner.org or call 214-758-8050.

BEAUMONT, Texas — Sixteen foster children from Buckner Children’s Village ran through a crowd of volunteers May 13 yelling, “Move that Van” – Extreme Home Makeover, style.

They were returning to their home at Buckner Children’s Village after Keller Williams Realtors and community partners spent the day renovating the emergency shelter with the help of many community partners, a $20,000 endeavor.

Keller Williams Realty is an international organization, but for its company-wide day of service, the local franchise selected a very local goal. RED (Renew, Energize and Donate) Day is an annual Keller Williams Realty service initiative dedicated to improving local communities. On May 13, Keller Williams Realty market centers in the US and Canada closed their doors and the associates spent the day donating their time to renewing and energizing aspects of their local communities.

Buckner Children and Family Services was extremely pleased to have been selected as their charity of choice, said administrator Laura May.

“The emergency shelter is the first place a child goes when they are removed from a home due to abuse, neglect or abandonment,” she said. “So the gifts and the work done by more than 40 volunteers, does a lot to give the children a more cheerful environment.”

May said the emergency shelter houses up to 16 children between the ages of 5 and 17.

“It was truly like an extreme home makeover. They came in one day and painted five children’s rooms, five bathrooms, and they accented walls in the living room and kitchen,” May said.

They also installed new kitchen appliances, including a double convection oven, and assembled an entertainment system with a big screen TV.

“It was great to watch the kids run into each of their rooms jumping up and down squealing with excitement of how bright and colorful their rooms were,” May said. “They each had two new outfits laid out on their bed and they showed off their new stuff to each other.

“It was such a sweet blessing for our staff and children to be uplifted by the generous spirit of giving. This home will be a cheerful, safe, welcoming place for so many children at a time of crisis.”

Leah Cleveland from Keller Williams Realty said that it was overwhelming to see the children’s faces as they walked through their rooms that evening.

“It was an honor to work with Buckner and have the ability to make such an impact on not only these beautiful children, but every child who walks through those doors from this day forward.”

The following sponsors helped make the day a success:

Allstate Insurance: Mike Roby
American Home Shield: Susan Miguez
Arc Angels Motorcycle Ministry
Call AHollier / Handyman
Chem-Dry
Chili’s – Beaumont
Cornerstone Media
Golden Triangle Title Services
Great American Cookie Company @ Parkdale Mall
Hadley’s Furniture
Home Masters Inspection Services
Hooks Title & Abstract Company
Lowe’s Home Improvement
M & D Supply
Manning’s Office Supply
Market Basket
McClelland, Samuel, Fehnel & Busch, L.L.P.
McCowen Paint
Mr. Sparky Electrical Services
National Property Inspection
Patriot Bank Mortgage
PODS
R&P Employer Solutions, Inc. &  RPR Group Payroll
Sherwin Williams
Stewart Title Company
Sutherlands
Target
The Mortgage Group
Triangle Blueprint
Tri-Supply
Wal-Mart
Wallpapers, Etc.
Wells Fargo Bank
Westin Mortgage: Calim Atkins & Ruby Martin
Video Monitoring
Zummo’s Meat Co.

For 131 years, Buckner has cared for many of the least fortunate boys and girls in our society. Many of these children have endured appalling suffering: physical and mental abuse, neglect, and even abandonment. Instead of experiencing the joys of childhood, they were forced to grow up quickly.

May is National Foster Care Month. At Buckner, almost every day, we see children heal through the ministry of foster care. Foster families can restore hope to children who have only known fear and hardship.This year, more than 1,500 children will rely on Buckner Foster Care in the United States and around the globe. Each foster child in our care receives personalized attention from a Buckner case manager and is carefully placed with a loving family that has been thoroughly trained to help and heal the child.

But not every child in Buckner Foster Care is the victim of abuse.

Mason Budke is a child with severe autism. Though his parents Mary and Henry love him dearly, they struggled to give him the specialized care he needed. By age 12, he still wasn’t speaking or toilet trained.

So the Budkes placed Mason into foster case where he would end up living with Ellinor Nixon, a Buckner foster mother who has cared for special needs children since the early 1990s. It didn’t take long for Mason to begin flourishing.

Today, he’s well adjusted – he’s speaking and learning to live more independently. He’s even on course to graduate from high school.

In Texas, Buckner Foster Care is supported in part by the Department of Family and Protective Services, but these funds do not cover all the expenses. The extensive case management, education and support that Buckner provides its foster families is what separates our services from others. In other countries internationally where Buckner provides foster care, it relies completely on philanthropic support.

Buckner relies on the generous support of donors to make stories like Mason’s a reality — in the United States and around the globe. To help support foster care through Buckner, please click here.

Analiz G. Schremmer

(DALLAS)—For the tenth year in a row, the Missouri Rotary District 6040 has come through for Buckner, bringing a donation of more than 20,000 pairs of shoes—right when needed most.

“Right now our shelves are empty from having sent out 50,000 pairs of shoes to Haiti and many other countries,” said Rachel Garton, director of Buckner International’s Shoes for Orphan Souls program. “There is such a huge need.”

The Missouri Rotary donation also included 764 pairs of socks, 2,042 laces, 2,024 t-shirts 945 coloring books and $5,253. It is the largest single contributing organization to the Shoes for Orphan Souls campaign to date, collecting a total of 190,000 pairs of shoes and $67,000 in cash since the first shoe drive in 2001.

This year, Missouri Rotary district Governor John R. Gill and the Rotary’s Buckner liaison, Larry Lunsford, drove for three days straight and made 20 caravan stops to collect loads of shoes from the collections that were held in different parts of the district.

“Rotarians provide ‘Service Above Self’ in serving their local communities, and also their international community,” said Larry Lunsford, former district governor of Rotary District 6040. “For the past decade, the Shoes for Orphan Souls project has prompted Missouri Rotarians to action.  The project has been a great way for Rotarians in Missouri to partner with Buckner, and connect with the international aspects of Rotary, to help children we may never meet, just because. 

“Missouri Rotarians know that a simple gift, such as a new pair of shoes, provides tangible benefits to an orphan child, but most importantly, Rotarians believe the gift shows that child someone truly cares about them.  This year, our Rotarians responded to the needs of the Haitian children in a big way, and we are thankful to be able to help.”

Other groups who helped with this shipment include the United Postal Service, who delivered the shipment at no cost, and the Texas Baptist Men and friends who worked tirelessly to unpack the full trailer at the Buckner Center for Humanitarian Aid.

Ben Muzechenko, transportation service manager for UPS, brought five employees to help with the unloading.

“It’s an honor to do this. My employees and I look forward to this annually, and each year it just gets better and better, just seeing everyone come together and giving their effort, that’s what it’s all about,” he said.

Andy Bugh, member of First Christian Church in Plano, is a missionary in Honduras on furlough. He said he was happy to help unload the donation because his ministry has given him a better understanding of the great need for basic necessities like shoes.

Since 1999, Shoes for Orphan Souls has delivered more than 2 million pairs of shoes and socks to orphan children in 69 countries. Shoes for Orphan Souls is a ministry of Buckner International, a Dallas-based global ministry dedicated to the restoration and healing of orphans and at-risk children, families and senior adults.

Shoes for Orphan Souls is still desperately in need of shoe donations. Buckner plans to send more shoes to orphans and vulnerable children in Haiti as well other countries in need, but can’t put shoes on orphans without your help. Click here to make an online donation.

By Sean Gaffney
The McAllen Monitor

PEÑITAS — Rolando Rosales and his six children plan to tend to his wife’s grave Sunday. As they do, he will carry the answer to her prayers: keys to the family’s new home.

Cancer killed Martha Rosales two years ago, but on Tuesday her final plea was answered when her husband unlocked the side door and the children ran inside to the three-bedroom abode for which their mother had prayed.

Buckner International, a global Christian ministry, with the help of volunteers from First Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., built the $15,000 home for the widowed father, who has struggled since his wife’s death to raise the children and do odd jobs to put food on the table.
“I take it day by day,” the 41-year-old said. “It was pretty hard at first.”

The square home sits raised on concrete blocks in a colonia north of Peñitas. Inside, the children have already divided up the two bedrooms — three girls in one and three boys in the other.

Kevin, the oldest boy, said he took the smaller bedroom for himself and his brothers because it would be easier to keep clean.

“I’m excited to move in,” said the 12-year-old, who wants to be a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
The home is not yet finished. Rolando Rosales and a friend need to paint the walls, lay the linoleum floor, install the kitchen cabinets and appliances and do most everything else to the home’s interior. He also needs to find furniture.

Abert Reyes, the president of Buckner, said the organization leaves the home unfinished in the hope that the new owner will feel a sense of pride by completing the work on his own. Of course, Buckner will help out if need be.

“We’re helping fill that gap that they just can’t cross,” Reyes said.
Rolando Rosales also needs to find furniture, some of which will be donated by McAllen’s Calvary Baptist Church.

The family’s mattresses were stolen last month when thieves broke into a trailer adjacent to the family’s new home. The criminals made off with the children’s toys and even scattered clothing in the yard. Rolando Rosales was slowly fixing the trailer to move his family from their current home at his mother’s house before the church group began construction on the new house last week.

Misfortune and blessings have come two-by-two for the Rosales family. When Martha Rosales battled cancer, aid groups provided her with treatment and Buckner International helped the family rent a new home and leave the shack where Martha sweated inside in the summer heat and watched her children play outdoors through a hole in the wall.

The Rio Grande Valley’s chapter of Buckner International built 28 homes last year for needy families and repaired 450 others. There are more than 1,000 colonias in Hidalgo County that are home to close to a half million people, some of whom live in squalor, said Jorge Zapata, Buckner’s colonia program director in the Valley.

“(Our work) is a drop of water in the middle of the desert,” he said.
Back at the home, Rolando Rosales ventured outside. His young children leaned against the trailer, giggling and looking at their new home.

“I feel very happy and grateful,” the father said.

Assistant Director of Apartment Life Jimmy Gunn, Resident Director Chris Holloway, sophomores Philip Coleman and Andrew Moore helped the DBU campus collect more than $2,157 for orphans in three months through spare change.

By Jenny Pope
Buckner International

DALLAS – What started as a goal to raise $25 a month in a boys’ dormitory at Dallas Baptist University led to a campus-wide orphan care fundraiser calling for change through the collection of spare change.

Resident Director Chris Holloway, 23, has been on several mission trips with Buckner International, a global nonprofit ministry that helps orphans, vulnerable children and families. As part of the organization’s Voice Council in 2009, he wanted to inspire his dorm to collect just $25 a month to help orphans where he had served.

“I got a five gallon water jug and put a banner on it, it was nothing fancy,” Holloway recalled. He asked resident assistants for help to get the word out among the students. When the first month ended, they had collected $571.68.

It wasn’t long before the rest of the campus’ 1500 students living in dorms and apartments became involved, said Jimmy Gunn, assistant director of apartment life. “We had our maintenance guys go door to door, walking around to the apartments asking for spare change. They saw it as a service to go to them.”

Resident director Chris Holloway initiated the 'Change for Change' project at DBU.

Competition between the dorms and apartments fueled the project, and after three months they had raised more than $2,157 to benefit international orphans through Buckner.

“As we competed, it was the orphans who won,” Holloway said.

Sophomore Phillip Coleman from Longview, Texas said the change project was a “really simple way to get involved. I don’t carry a change purse or anything, and change can be annoying to keep on you. We kept a Gatorade bottle in our room for loose change, and at the end of the month, we’d dump all the change in the jug.”

“It was nice to results,” he continued. “Chris would put up a flyer at the end of the month to show us our success. Our motto was always, ‘Every penny counts.’”

Students found creative ways to get involved, Holloway said. One student would play his guitar and put his case out in front of him to collect “tips,” which he would in turn give to the project.

Holloway said he was overwhelmed at the way students responded to the fundraiser.

“Their hearts have been incredible. Some gave $20 bills. We don’t who they are because they don’t want us to know. It’s for the glory of the Lord.”

Students are DBU are still collecting Change for Change during the spring semester. Holloway hopes the project will continue for many years.

(DALLAS)—Buckner International, a global ministry serving orphans and vulnerable children, celebrated some of its most notable success stories Friday, April 16 at the Dallas Market Center as part of its annual Founder’s Day celebration.

This year, the organization celebrated 131 years of serving children and families.

The honorees included Aaron Hardin, who grew up attending a Buckner after-school program in South Dallas; Bruce and Denise Kendrick, who serve as Buckner foster parents in Melissa, Texas; Charbra Richardson, a single mom living at Buckner Family Place in Amarillo; and Celeste del Carmen Hernandez Rosales, a young adult living in a Buckner transitional home in Guatemala.

“These are some of the individuals who make all of our efforts worthwhile,” said Albert Reyes, president of Buckner International. “They are our inspiration and the reason we give our lives to this ministry.”

Aaron Hardin, who started attending the Wynnewood Community Center when he was 15, didn’t want to participate in the gang activity everyone seemed to be involved in.

“Mostly I just wanted to hang out here (at the Buckner after school program) there was just a peace here.”

Today, at 25, Aaron is working on his second college degree after graduating high school at the top of his class and finishing his associate’s degree in business. He wants to go into ministry full time and is often seen quoting Scripture or offering a gentle word of encouragement to people he meets.

Two other honored guests were foster parents Bruce and Denise Kendrick have provided home to 25 foster children in need of care and adopted one teenage son, in addition to caring for their three biological children.

“The best part of fostering,” says Denise, “is getting to see kids who may have been neglected or abused really start to blossom and the more you invest in them, you get to see their true personalities come out when they’re not hungry or afraid.”

Charbra Richardson and her two sons live at Buckner Family Place in Amarillo, Texas.

Charbra Richardson lives at Buckner Family Place in Amarillo, Texas and is studying criminal justice in hopes of becoming a probation officer for juveniles.

“When you look at your kids and they are hungry or you tell them that we have to go into a shelter or be separated, it does something to a mom and I could not deal with that,” Richardson said. “It’s great knowing that I can come here and make my kids feel at home and loved and know that I have a way out.”

The final honoree was Celeste Del Carmen Hernandez Rosales, who dreams of being a lawyer. When she was 15, she turned herself over to be admitted to the government orphanages in Guatemala. It was her only hope to receive an education, she said.

“I can finally trust God,” Celeste said. “I believe in Him. I know that because I have gone through so much, God will bless me with many things. And He has. I have a house, food, friends, an education—I don’t lack anything.”

According to Buckner’s Russia staff this morning, international adoptions are continuing without interruption. Andrei Pukhlov, director of the Buckner program, said there “has been no official announcement from the Ministry of Education regarding the suspension of adoptions.”

Numerous stories in the media today announcing the suspension of adoptions quoted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, that agency of the Russian government does not oversee the adoption program and according to other sources, does not have the authority to suspend adoptions.

“While we have not received any official word, we are watching the situation closely and we will be in touch with our families waiting to adopt from Russia,” said Felipe Garza, vice president at Buckner.

Buckner began adoptions from Russia in 1995. More than 250 Russian children have been placed with families through Buckner in the past 15 years.

Recent news events surrounding the status of Russian adoption to American families has centered on the case of a 7-year-old boy who was sent back to Moscow alone last week by his adoptive mother in Tennessee. The case of the boy, who was named Artyom in Russia before he was adopted last year, has caused widespread anger here, and Russian officials said new regulations had to be put in place before adoptions by Americans could proceed.

The U.S. State Department in Washington is sending a high-level delegation to Moscow to hold talks on reaching an agreement, and both countries have expressed hope that the matter can be resolved quickly.

Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said they had not received official notification of a suspension and were seeking more information from their Russian counterparts.

Russia was the third leading source of adoptive children in the United States in 2009, with 1,586, after China and Ethiopia, officials said. More than 50,000 Russian children have been adopted by United States citizens since 1991, according to the United States Embassy.

Artyom, who was named Justin by his adoptive American mother, arrived in Moscow last week after flying by himself from Washington. He presented the authorities with a note from his adoptive mother in which she said she could no longer handle him.

Click here to read an update from the U.S. State Department on this issue.

Watch the WFAA Ch. 8 news story about Russian adoptions and Buckner.

Watch the CBS 11 news story about a Buckner family adopting their second child from Russia.