The Last Stage

As we've gotten out of the last several steps of our adoption process, many people that we've talked to have assumed that surely...at this point...we could go get our girls.  And the answer has always been NOPE, we've got a few steps left.  Even now, as we celebrate that the girls have passports, quite a few people have thought that meant we could travel.  And once again, the answer is NOPE, we get to wait through ONE MORE STAGE!

The final stage in this process before we can finally bring these girls home is the U.S. Visa process, which is handled by the office of USCIS at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince.  ALL of the paperwork for us and for our girls from this ENTIRE process will hopefully be submitted to USCIS as early as Monday October 21st.  In this process there are a few "steps" before we get on the plane bound for Haiti.

The first step is called I600 approval.  The I600 is an official form that needs to be filed in every international adoption.  We filed this form in person when we went to the Embassy in May.  Now that all of the Haitian steps and documents are complete, the U.S. government needs to approve our petition to adopt Chelley and Naika into our family.  Right now, that approval process has been taking about a month. This was only taking 7-10 days in August but slowed down just before and during the U.S. government shutdown.  The hope is that now that the shutdown is over, the Visa process will pick back up and not take a full month for approval.  There are 10-12 other families adopting from our orphanage that are just ahead of us in this process so there are many families that need to receive their approval before it will be our turn.

Once we do receive our I600 approval, they will assign us a Visa appt. date and time, generally about 7-10 days out.  This is an appt. that Chelley and Naika will need to go to with a representative from GLA.  I don't fully understand what the purpose of this appt. is but I have heard that it is, in part, a medical clearance assuring that the girls are in good health and are able to enter the U.S.  GLA is great about medical care for the kids in their charge so we have no worries about the outcome of this appt.

Once that appt. is completed and successful, which is pretty much a given, we will get the best email EVER from our orphanage, telling us that we can come to GLA and get our girls the following week!!  We expect to have about 6-7 days' notice in buying our plane tickets.  This could possibly be delayed a little bit by the large number of families that are at the end of this process.  GLA needs to have room for these families and their kiddos at the guest house so we may run into a little delay if there are too many families all trying to get there at once.  That is a GREAT problem to have and we are rejoicing that so many of these precious kids are finally getting to go home with their forever families! 

So, based on those various steps, we're still looking at possibly the end of November or beginning of December for us to be traveling to bring our girls home.  Even as we rejoice at being this close to the end, we are still just SO READY to be done.  We'd get on a plane tomorrow if we could, but we have to survive this last bit of waiting before the process is complete.  It is becoming more and more real, and we are working hard to make sure everything is ready for the big transition coming up for all of us.  That's about it for now.  Soon, I'll be sharing more about our plan for helping all of us to survive and thrive through the major transition of bringing them home.  As always, thank you for your prayers and support throughout all the ups and downs of this long process.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

It's been 17 days since I last updated the blog and A LOT has happened in those 17 days!  They've possibly been the best 17 days of our adoption process thus far...full of great news and forward progress!!

For those of you not on facebook, I'm sorry for leaving you out of the loop for these last couple of weeks.  Let me back up and fill you in on the rejoicing and excitement that you've missed!

As of the last post on Oct. 1st, Naika had been approved and released from MOI (passport approval) in an AMAZING 13 days!  This was truly such a miracle and we were so happy to hear that great news.  Our happiness was tempered just a little bit by the fact that, for some reason, Chelley's file had not been released.  They had gone through every other step of this process together, so it seemed strange that they hadn't been released from MOI together. 

While we trusted that God had this part of the process under control as well, we knew that there was the potential for one sibling's file to be released while the other sibling's file remained in MOI for several more weeks...or even months!!  I'd witnessed other families adopting from our orphanage going through that kind of waiting for the last few months and we were really hoping and praying that there was no problem with Chelley's file that had kept it from being approved.

That waiting was yet another test of faith and submission.  Of choosing to praise God even if our process was delayed by weeks or months.  In hindsight, it seems easy now, but those 48 hours felt long and difficult in the midst of them.  Then, on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 3rd, we received word that Chelley's file had also been approved and released from MOI and would be forwarded on to passport printing (still on the Haitian side of the process).  The relief and joy were indescribable and overwhelming. 

Now, we just needed to wait for their passports to be printed, and then the Haitian side of the process would FINALLY be complete.  Our other prayer request at that point was that their passports would be printed correctly.  Passports with errors can cause another potential month of delay so we prayed that our girls' passports would have NO errors!  Since Naika had moved into passport printing before Chelley, we received word that her passport had been printed correctly as of last Friday, Oct. 11th. One down...one to go.

We figured we'd hear about Chelley's passport on Monday of this week, since she was only a couple of days behind.  No news on Monday, no news on Tuesday or Wednesday, and we knew we couldn't receive news on Thursday because all Haitian offices were closed for a Haitian holiday.  So, we were really ready to hear good news today!  And we were not disappointed!!  At about noon today, we received the email that Chelley's passport had been printed correctly as well.  PRAISE GOD!!! 

That means that we are FINALLY AND COMPLETELY DONE with the Haitian side of our adoption process!!!  That is an AMAZING feeling after the waiting of the last 15 months!!  Early next week, we should hear that all of our paperwork has been filed with the USCIS for the US Visa part of the process.  This is the LAST stage of our process and then we will actually be bringing these sweet girls HOME!  Can you tell we're excited?!?  We expect this Visa stage to possibly take another 6 weeks or so before we can travel to get the girls and we won't know our travel dates for sure until 6 or 7 days before we get on a plane.  I'll try to post again early next week to explain in a bit more detail what this Visa process entails.  But for now, we rejoice that we can see the light at the end of this tunnel and that our WHOLE family will be together in one place very soon.

Miracles and Answered Prayers

We have some wonderful news to celebrate today and wanted to share our joy and excitement with all of you!

The first news is that God gave us a miracle in our adoption process today!!  We received an email this morning letting us know that Naika's file was approved and released from MOI in a miraculous 13 days!!!  This is faster than any files have gotten through MOI in the last several months and was exactly what we had asked all of you to pray for so that we can hopefully celebrate Naika's 3rd birthday with her.  The orphanage will now be submitting Naika's file for her printed passport.

The only thing tempering our joy today is that Chelley's file has not yet been approved or released from MOI.  Here is the message we received from our orphanage regarding the situation...

"MOI did some random signing and released several files, in no particular order that had only been in for just over a week.  One of those was Naïka's file.  Unfortunately, Chelley's was not signed, but we are hoping that they will keep signing and hers will be released soon also.  

In the meantime, we will go ahead and submit Naïka's file to Immigration for her passport to be printed.  I will be sure to let you know once we receive her passport, as well as once Chelley's file comes out of MOI."

If you would please pray with us that Chelley's file would be released soon, we would appreciate that greatly.  We know that God knows every detail of this situation and we trust His hand and His timing in this process.  He has been faithful through every step and we know that He will continue to work on behalf of our girls to bring them home soon.  We are still in shock with the miracle he accomplished with Naika's paperwork and are praying that Chelley's will follow soon!!

Also, another way that God has clearly answered our prayers in the last week is that the U.S. government shutdown will not greatly impact the VISA process.  Here is what has been reported regarding the VISA processing in this shutdown...

The State Department would continue processing foreign applications for visas and U.S. applications for passports, since fees are collected to finance those services. Embassies and consulates overseas would continue to provide services to American citizens.

 So, there may still be some delays in the VISA process due to more limited staffing or other factors, but at least the VISA process itself will continue.  This is great news for the many families that were just submitted to the US VISA process this week and for those of us who will be there very, very soon!!  As soon as both Naika and Chelley have printed passports, we'll be ready to make it through the very last stage of the VISA process and finally bring these girls home.

 Our hearts are so filled with joy today as we watch God's hand at work in moving us yet another step closer to the end of this long and winding journey.  Please join us in prayer for Chelley to get OUT of MOI soon and join us in praising and thanking God for all that He has done in just the last week to hear and answer our prayers!!  Thank you!