What a Week!

Thanks so much to all of you for your prayers this week as we’ve worked with USCIS in Detroit and our congressional office. After constant (read: hours of) correspondence with the folks in Detroit, we’ve finally progressed! We were informed that, lo and behold, all the paperwork they have needed from us has been sitting in our case file since we sent it on April 11 and they cannot explain why. (I can explain why: it’s because they didn’t open the file when our caseworker initiated contact with them on April 29th!)

We now have a specific person there to whom we are addressing our correspondence and this person has informed us that they need certified copies of Jude’s Haitian adoption finalization papers. We originally thought that meant copies certified by Haiti, but he clarified. For each of the twelve pages of Jude’s paperwork we had to have a separate page of our signatures, notarized, stating that the copies we provided were unaltered to our knowledge. Amazing. That wasn’t part of what they originally asked for, and no one has ever been asked for that before in Michigan that our caseworkers know of. You didn’t know we were quitethat special, did you?

Well, we found that out yesterday afternoon, completed it today, and sent it Express Mail to Detroit, where this particular person has committed to personally processing our I600 and forwarding it to the National Visa Center on Monday. Progress – praise the Lord!

This has been tiring, and we are thankful for those who held us up and held us close. A “walk and talk” with my sister Wednesday evening was a real encouragement, and we are thankful to God for ones He’s put close to us. Happy Friday to all!