Our hopes soared while we tried to hold them back not wanting to be disappointed if the call happened to be about paperwork and not a referral.
PRAISE the Lord! Our referral paperwork was signed on May 5th. While the translation of the letter would take another day, we could read the French, learning our son's name and age.
We do not feel at liberty to share details at this time over the computer, will refer to him as F for now.
We will share that the details came together rapidly and after a phone conversation Friday afternoon with the mission director, we excitedly packed and traveled for our required socialization trip on Saturday.
So in less than 48 hours we received our referral and met him in person!
Very exciting. We stayed on the same campus as the crèche and were able to spend some time in the mornings and afternoons with F and his foster family.
Cory and I reviewed his paperwork on Monday and then traveled to a notary in Cap Haitian on Tuesday to sign our acceptance letters. The letters were scanned that same day and sent to the agencies.
During our time, the staff person from Haiti's social services came twice. The first time he watched us interact on the playground with F and some of his friends and the second time he asked us a few questions.
See the normal family blog for other activities during our visit.
We enjoyed getting to know F, seeing him in various parts of his day, interacting with his foster family and the people on the compound. We learned about his personality from stories and pictures, as well as spending time with him.
F will not be directly told we're his new family until the adoption is near completion. Then his house parents will start sharing pictures close to when we return to pick him up. However, he's very observant and smart, so he may have an idea.
Because of this, we tried to act as visitors and play with the other children in the home as well, but our attachment started and grew with every encounter.
His eyes sparkle with intelligence and mischief many times during the day, so watch out world!
We ask for an Embassy visa appointment the day-after missionary retreat so we would not need to travel again down to Port. [The missionary retreat will be held about 1 hour from the Embassy and over four hours from our home.]
So we plan to be in line at the USA Embassy by 6:30 a.m. on May 26th. This will be to start the process of obtaining F's visa to travel to the USA and for him to become a US citizen.
At the same time, our paperwork now along with F's will need to negotiate the various and complicated steps of a Haitian adoption. Only the Lord knows how long this may take, but we heard of a recent case moving very fast from the bonding trip to visa in three months....on the other extreme, some people may still be waiting to exit IBESR and get into the courts for over a year.
Lord knows. Still praying for His timing.
- Translation French to English of F's paperwork this week for Embassy appointment
- Timely Exit IBESR
- Courts/ Haitian adoption
- I-600 Visa appointment-next week
- Translation of home study update and other steps.
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