Done!!!!! Praise the Lord.

Seeing sibling's photos on a church wall.

Door to Adoption Opened: 6 years,1 month, 1 week, and 3 days.

First application paperwork in the mail until receiving Fritzlin's American passport in the mail: 5 years, 5 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days.

We will continue to pray for adoption paperwork to move forward, now it will be for the other kids that Fritzlin shared foster homes with or other families as we are finally done.

We will be heading home to Haiti the middle of this month, starting a new phase of life at Délice.

For the first time in over 6 years we can travel at will!

It really does not feel real.

The waiting is over.

So many answered prayers.


Thank you to all who supported us through this journey, through: prayers, help with paperwork, encouragement, and sharing the ups and downs.

First day of second grade. 

Fritzlin was more excited to see the eagle in his American passport than the one sheet of paper that is his certificate of citizenship. He was jumping up and down saying 'Now I'm an American.'

Campus Cookout for Anna's class

Free pizza for library summer reading program.

So he's been an American for a while, but now he's an American who can travel across boarders!

Very exciting as we're getting close to our final week in USA and preparing to return to Haiti.

All that remains is to receive all the documents we sent in for his passport and to send off some copies to our adoption agency.

Praise the Lord, through Who all blessings flow!

Sept. 2013. Home-study paperwork.

We learned and changed so much through this journey.

So many things we did not know or expect back six years ago.

We experienced almost every emotion from positives to negatives and sometimes several in just a few hours time.

We will forever be grateful to the Lord for allowing us the privilege of being Fritzlin's family.

    For being part of the family of God.

For opening so many closed doors on our behalf that finally allowed Fritzlin to join our family.

Thank you Lord.

Visa Approved!!!

The picture taken for the visa...

Celebrating tonight that Fritzlin's visa to American has been approved!


We will travel to Port au Prince on Friday to pick up the visa at the US Embassy. Will let them know tomorrow so that Cory's name can be on the list to get in without a long wait on Friday.

Only one more piece of paper to go, an exit letter from IBESR that should only take a day or so..

We plan to fly out in early May to attend our Global Partner's area retreat in Florida.

Working on summer plans for after that!

Very excited to finally be at this step.

The type of visa issued means that as soon as we enter the USA we will meet with the officals and Fritzlin will be an American citizen before we leave the airport.

We will then wait to receive his Certificate of Citizenship.

Thank you for the prayers.

Balancing act...prayer praises and request

At times life, parenting, and adoptions all require balancing, hard balancing.

When to ask or when to continue to wait quietly??

Tuesday we sent out a couple of different e-mails. One requesting information about our fingerprint renewal [as we heard nothing in the 2 week time line and the prints were set to expire in three weeks].

In the second we asked what the guys learned back in March when they went again to IBESR to ask about the I600 paperwork and if a "Plan B" existed if the paper kept getting misplaced.

Just received word that our fingerprints were renewed on March 30 !! Very happy not to travel to the USA, Dominican Republic or even Port-au-Prince for this step. Thank you Lord.

Equally exciting news arrived by email on Tuesday that our referral is printed and ready to be signed out! Hoping and praying that it can be picked up this week. Praise the Lord!!!

Thank you for praying the I-600 paperwork into the right spot!

The person who needs to sign it doesn't work every day so praying they already worked this week and signed so when the agency staff go to check, everything is ready to be picked up.

Prayers:

• Signature and dossier / chart pick up this week.
• Protection and safe travels for the paperwork to the North, in a timely fashion
• That the judge and court officials will have time in their schedules to rapidly process our case.
• Praising the Lord for the good news on both requests. 

A third piece of good news-for other families still under the I-600 visa. Everyone thought that if an official referral had not been signed by April 1st, that these transition families would need to redo their paperwork and resubmit it all for a I800 visa [Hauge treaty].

But an announcement from the US State Department makes things sound very good-that they will continue to work with IBESR on these cases and they may be able to continue as I600 cases. Another answer to prayer.

They plan to meet next week to work on details...another reason it would be great to exit this week so that the meetings do not delay our exit any further. 

Also received a two month update on F. He's doing well. Lost a tooth, enjoyed a morning at a pool, learning more manners and letters! He already politely used 'please' and 'thank-you' when we met him 11 months ago but adding 'excuse me'

All these answers to prayer have my hopes flying and increased my e-mail checking frequency a lot!

The Lord is working. Keep praying!

Fingerprints refreshed!

One year ago we received the e-mail informing us that our dossier ended IBESR on January 14 with the file number 42.

Received e-mail notice today that our fingerprints are now 'refreshed' and the immigration officer was updating our approval and will be getting it in the mail to us!

Thank you Lord.

Sent that e-mail on to our agency and our social worker who did our home study.

Our home study needs to be renewed by May 21.

Still praying that we can receive our referral, accept the match and get our bonding trip in before that date.

Our social worker responded and let us know that we will need to get a social worker who can visit our house and confirm that nothing changed since her visit in June 2013.

Then she can write up an update and sent it to the USCIS office.

Next week we plan to nicely ask one of the doctors at the meetings on LaGonave to fill out our 1 page medical updates needed for both our agency and the home study update.  We will also try to have our TB skin tests done while on LaGonave.

Then all that remains other than paperwork will be to find a social worker who would be willing to come to the house for a visit and write a one page report.