Still waiting...

Today marks our 15th month in IBESR waiting for a referral and four weeks since the 'keep your phones on' e-mail.

Two days ago marked the 'two months before we fly to the USA' date.

Trying to wait well with complete confidence in the Lord's plan and timing has me asking more and more people for prayer.

I'll confess I find myself frequently reminding the Lord that a referral this week before the bonding trip in the next four weeks would be great. No need to fly back to Haiti for the bonding trip and to postpone/ cancel church visits or appointments. Both Eli and Anna could easier go with us [if allowed by the orphanage]. No additional costs for changing our flights or tacking on an extra trip.

My head knows that the Lord sees the bigger picture, loves us, knows the plan and has the power to execute the plan as He sees fit. My heart longs to jump up and down with hope and joy more than sitting calmly at His feet praising Him while I wait calmly.

I like to pray as specifically as I can but after years of praying for our adoption process, I'm finding myself running out of ways to keep saying, asking, thanking the Lord for the same issues, needs, and wants.

I want to move to the next step. I want to bargain with the Lord to move things along. I want to know facts. However, more than all that I want HIS WILL.

A dear friend who's walked this walk wrote me this last week: "And for the adoption.  I know that your logistics are different from ours here.  But I think every adopting parent has hoops that look impossible and horrible and strike terror to the heart.  But I can't get away from the fact that he led you this far.  And he isn't the kind who takes you into the middle of the Red Sea that is piled up on both sides, walking on dry ground, only to pull a trick and let the water come crashing down.  No.  He will get you ALL THE WAY across.  You WILL hold your children.  He will finish what he started.  He will hold you up until it is done.  And then some more."

So pray for me.

Pray for us, to be content in the wait, knowing 100% that the Lord's way is best. He's actively interceding for our family and our child/children.

Pray that we can praise Him wholeheartedly, giving Him the honor and praise that only His deserves.

Pray we can keep our eyes on Him and not get distracted. That we can focus during our days on the opportunities before us to serve Him with love and joy filled hearts.

He cares for the flowers, animals and knows the hairs on each head. He loves each of us with an unconditional love. He cares for me, you and each life.

Thank you for joining us in prayer.

P.S. Someone on the Facebook group posted that IBESR may start up parent interviews again in May.

Close?

On Tuesday we received an exciting e-mail from our adoption agency that we should keep our phones on as a few families from the crèche we plan to work with in the North received referrals last week.

This step of the process should go something like this:

IBESR signs the last signature needed to our paperwork approving a referral.

At that point the clock starts to click down, as we will have 14 days to accept the referral.

Then IBESR needs to contact the crèche where our child/children live. This unfortunately can take several days. The crèche in turn contacts our agency.

The agency then needs to translate the child/children's information into English. Then the phone call should come.

Once we receive the referral we pray and decide if we will accept. A formal letter stating that we plan to accept the referral needs to be written and then signed in front of a notary.

The letter then scanned-back to the agency, translated and returned in some form to IBESR before the 14 days run out [not sure if that includes weekends or not.

So you can see things will need to move rapidly when we get our referral. For us the notary may mean a long 6 hours or so to the Embassy if we can get an Embassy appointment rapidly.

Encouraging news if it happens soon...as we just read that IBESR may be stopping processing any children's charts for up to 3 months while they work on the 1,200 parents charts waiting at their office.

Please pray!

Thankful for a reminder!

After I posted yesterday's update I considered that often filling in paperwork feels better than waiting.

Doing something feels like progress, even when mourning the fact that due to the length of the adoption process, the papers need to be done over.

Checking off the home study meant back to praying for patience...but wait a minute. A small uncomfortable feeling started to surface. That brain itch that tells you that you missed something.

After shutting down the computers for the night and completing our family devotions it came to me.

While Lindsay would send her report to Nightlight, we also needed to send in some papers didn't we?

Back to the computer. Searching the old e-mails. Found it!

Yes, a list of paperwork we need to send in that came in an E-mail the end of January.

Arriving between my parents leaving and our trip to Babaco/LaGonave I neglected to add it to the to-do list. As soon as we returned home Anna became ill, and we prepared and hosted the Warsaw team. The day they left we cleaned for the home study visit the next day!

Thankfully, I remembered last night. This allows us to get the papers filled in, copied and signed for tomorrow's mail run. Tomorrow we will head to Cap Haitian joining a medical team until Sunday afternoon.

Saturday will make two months until our I-600A expires. So a couple of months remain before the deadline but we do not want to cut the deadline close at all.

Nightlight responded rapidly to our request for help. In addition to the papers they need, we will also send the papers that need to go to the USCIS, and they will attach the additional papers and mail it in for us.

We remain very grateful for all the people working on our and our child/children's behalf.  

Social Worker visit

Thankful for all the prayers concerning our social worker visit.

Issues that came up while trying to set up  the visit included: no social workers in northern Haiti, finding someone willing to come [one possibility is stateside for the month of March], travel strikes, local protests closing roads, vehicle issues, flight costs, passport/visa issues/finding the time to come, finding a rider...

Despite all these obstacles the home visit occurred this weekend!

March 14, 14 months to the day after our chart entered IBESR.

Someone this week who entered 15 months ago received a referral!

Thanks to Lindsay for packing up son, dog and friend to drive 4 hours to visit us.

She will now write up the one page update needed by Rhonda, our original social worker based in California so that we can proceed with the paperwork to renew our I-600a paperwork.

Request for the I-600a extension will need to be submitted before it expires on May 21.

Monday, Cathy plans to bring our updated information to the post-office to send off to our US adoption agency.

So now, once again....we wait. Pray and wait.

Need home study update.

Our updated paperwork just needs to be put into a large envelope and addressed, as the team will bring it to the USA and put it into the mail.


We used a Haitian notary to complete it before we started getting busy with the team.

We located an American social worker to come visit so that she can write a one page update for the original social worker who did our home study. Unfortunately for us, due to vehicle troubles she has not yet been able to drive up to visit.

Praying we figure out a way for her to visit soon or we'll need to start to look for someone else.

The paperwork needs to get to CA, assuming notarized, and the gold seal added before being sent in to the US government office.

Due by May 23.

Continue to wait for our referral. Think the step after accepting the match is to write a letter stating our intent to adopt the child/children and that will need to be notarized as well.

An Embassy meeting is scheduled to occur in Cap Haitian on March 19th. Many reasons we'd like to match by then but one would be so we don't need to travel the 6+ hours, overnight to get one letter signed at the Embassy....but will do it if need be.

After then we would schedule our two week bonding trip. Over one year ago we started the wait for our referral.

We continue to wait.

Last week the countdown to our USA trip started with the purchase of tickets for June 12th.

Trying to wait well, trusting in the Lord, in His plan.....but it is hard. Getting harder.

Please pray for us. Pray for us to have patience. To increase our faith. For the Lord to open the doors and make a way for our family to grow according to His plan. No delays from the devil.

[Photos-my new Amazon lily (Eucharist lily). Fitting as we just celebrated 20 years after our engagement in the Amazon rain forest of Brazil.]

Finger print renewal and more paperwork

Received our updated I-600a provisional approval, I-171H in the mail this week with the new date for our fingerprint expiration now reading, April 27, 2016.

Confirmed that no Haitian social workers work in northern Haiti and contacted the closest ex-pat social worker than we know of living in Haiti.

Will try to work out a time for her to visit in the next couple months and if we cannot get a date that works we will start to contact other social workers in Port-au-Prince.

This week we started to fill out updated information for our agency. Thankfully not as much as the first time around but still we pray this will be the last time.


Have the medical part already completed during our visit to LaGonave, including the needed TB skin test.

With major transportation strikes the last few weeks closing down parts of the country and Carnival this week doubt that much business will get done.

The opposition party threatens to renew and strength the transportation strike after Carnival if the government does not make the changes that they want.

Please continue to pray for:

•  the Haitian government
• for political stability
• for referrals 
• for our referral to come soon
• we can find a social worker for our home study renewal
• completion of our update paperwork
• that our bonding trip would not conflict with other scheduled events
• that we wait well and learn the lessons we need to learn
• for the additional prayer request on the side bar
• and mostly that the Lord's plan for our lives and those of our child [children] will be done. 

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.