Hi Everyone!!
We have a few new and exciting updates to share….As you may
or may not know, we received our approval letter last night from the United
States Citizen and Immigration Services.
I was beyond thrilled when I first began to review the letter because
this is a huge step in moving forward with our dossier. However, I quickly realized that there
was an error on the letter that was going to slow us down – the USCIS had
forgot one digit in our address.
This may not seem like a very big deal, but when it comes to international
adoption the paperwork has to be PERFECT.
I immediately tried to contact my agency but could not reach my family
coordinator. Because I did not
think there was any thing else I could do until the next day, I set the papers
aside and went along with my evening.
The next morning (today), I got up and planned on taking care of this
issue sometime throughout my day but then I quickly learned about the
government shutdown that had happened at midnight. I am going to be honest - I was completely heartbroken with
the thought that we were going to have to wait, we have been trying to get
everything together for four long months and we are both ready to be submitted
to Ethiopia. So I prayed and ask
for the prayers of others that, God willing, we would be able to get our
paperwork fixed quickly. We were
praying that there might be a miracle in the works for us by the man upstairs
and once again God answered our prayers.
The USCIS was open today and I was able to reach the officer assigned to
our case who said he would correct and mail out a new letter today. The USCIS operator probably thought I
was a little loopy because I almost started to cry when I realized they were
not part of the shutdown.
This led us to the next step… contacting the Secretary of
State to see if they were open or part of the shutdown. Can you guess what happened next? Yes, once again God answered our
prayers and I was able to reach someone in the office. Every state is different in their
requirements for state certification and from what I read for Indiana standards
I either had the choice of taking my documents to Indianapolis myself or
mailing all of the original documents that I spent the last four months working
hard to obtain. Needless to
say, I was planning a road trip.
However, I quickly learned that all I would be required to mail was the
two documents that required the stamp.
I was literally overjoyed that I did not have to mail all of my original
copies of my dossier and I could send the two originals out today rather than
waiting until Friday to drive down!!!
Therefore, I made a pit stop after work and paid for over night shipping
to get these two important documents where they need to be for the final approval.
This is it folks.
We are literally so close to submitting our dossier and beginning the
real wait. Once we receive the
corrected letter from the USCIS and get our two original copies back from the
secretary of state we are ready to submit. Well almost ready.
We are still short financially of what is needed to submit our paperwork
to Africa. However, I know that
God will not forsake us. He hasn’t
yet and I know he isn’t going to.
I trust he will provide. We
have already raised $11,486 in four months!!! That is a testimony in itself!!! Currently we need to raise an additional $4093. I have pasted the link below that shows
the break down of the costs thus far:
I also want to share that we are hosting an orphan walk this
Saturday at Coffee Creek in Chesterton.
If you are interested in walking please register at the link below:
We are so excited to see what God has in store for us as we move
along in our process. He is
constantly reassuring, guiding, and lifting us up throughout this process. I mean look at today for example…what
we thought was going to be impossible was possible with God. All the Glory to him for helping us
through today and getting what we need and All the Glory to him when we are
holding our sweet daughter. Thank
you again for your prayers and support.
God Bless.
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