Saturday, July 28, 2012

Waiting.....


The past few days have been bittersweet for us. We received a e-mail stating that we have a court date on August 13th in Ethiopia which is amazing news. While this news is more than exciting, we are somewhat overwhelmed because of all that is needed on our end with the USCIS/ Dept. of Homeland Security. It simply is not ready.  Long story short as soon as we received our home study we mailed off our I-600a form which had to include our home study documentation to the USCIS office. When they received our form they sent a receipt and now the process is to wait for a date to be fingerprinted and then they will follow up with an approval letter that we will need in court
When we received the receipt we started to call to see if we could speak to the officer assigned to our case because we know that he/she has the authority to hurry the case along if he/she is willing to work with us. Each day when we have called we have been told that our case is still sitting in the bins to be picked up by and officer with no guarantees of when it will be picked up. Yesterday I was finally able to speak to a manager who told us that our documents were in the 7th bin. She then went on to explain that 6 very full bins were in line in front of ours and that she had no idea how long the process would be. She then went on to say that she thought it would be about 70 days because so many officers are on vacation at this time of the year. She said that we just needed to wait for our fingerprint appointment that she couldn't help us.
We know that from our first adoption as soon as we have the paper that gives our fingerprint date and time that we can go to the fingerprint location to be fingerprinted...........so today as I went to get the mail I was so excited to find the notice of our fingerprint appointment! We plan to be at the USCIS office at 8:00am Monday morning with proof of our court date and we hope to have this step of the process complete. Please pray with us that on Monday they allow us to be fingerprinted and that somehow an officer picks up our file and will be willing to work quickly with us to have the needed approval letter to us by August 8th or 9th prior to us needing to leave to be in Ethiopia for the August 13th court date! Thanks for being on this crazy journey with us.
 Who would have thought that in this crazy world of adoption we would be waiting almost two years in one case and completely rushed and behind in another- Our God always knows what is best and as always I am trusting His perfect plan for our family.


Lemme,
You will never know how emotional I have been the past few days! To think that one piece of paper could keep you living without a family for 2-3 extra months really breaks my heart. I am trusting that God has this thing all planned out but I sure can't wait to have you at home with us. We are all waiting for you to be here! I can't imagine how excited you must be to know that after waiting for more than four years a family is going to take you home and give you a family- I am so sorry that it has taken us so long. I want you to know that your siblings have longed for you to be a part of our family for two years- they can't wait for you to be here. One of your older sisters, Kaylee, has Lemme in Henna tattoo on her arm- She loves you so much! Garrett can't wait for you to be here and he is asking everyday how much longer. Jacob is super excited to have another younger brother and he is going to give you his bed as he moves to another bedroom. Megan has had pictures of you in her room for as long as I can remember and she made the first contact with our agency to see about bringing you home to be a part of our family. Your sisters Tia and Lindsay pray for you every night and they both say everyday that they can't wait for you to be home! You will never know how much you are loved and it will take you a very long time to understand what it feels like to live in a family. Dad and I are so ready to start introducing you to what it feels like to be loved unconditionally, forever and always. What it means to be a part of a family- and more importantly than any of this we can't wait to tell you about Jesus and His great love for you! We love you son and we hate that you are going to bed alone tonight- We pray that God wraps HIs arms around you and holds you tight. We promise that we are on our way........We are one day closer to being a party of nine and I just can't wait!
Love you more than you could imagine or dream-
Mom

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