This week our congressional representative has been trying to get a response from USCIS Detroit (immigration) as to whether or not they processed our I600 on Monday as promised. They had asked for additional copies of some documentation after letting our original documentation sit in our file untouched for 9 1/2 weeks. She got nowhere with them, so she finally called the immigration office in Washington DC and asked them to get involved. Today they helped us to discover that the Detroit office signed for our package on Monday and then promptly lost it, letting our case sit dormant for another week. We are deeply disturbed, unspeakably frustrated, and very angry. They committed to us that if we sent our package via Express Mail, they would intercept it and process. They did not keep their commitment.
We now have new instructions to redo what we sent last week and drive it to Detroit, which we were previously advised not to do. We have specific people to whom we're to give our package, then we're to call our congressional representative to let her know we've done the delivery. The Washington DC office is now overseeing the processing of our I600, and Detroit has been instructed that they are to process it immediately upon receipt Monday. We shall see what happens. This is increasingly amazing with each day that goes by.
We praise God for:
- Belinda, our caseworker. She came back from a very brief vacation on Wednesday and dove right back into our case with the grace that characterizes her. She is a treasured confidante and has soothed many tears of frustration and bewilderment today.
- Our church family who continues to pray for us and is planning to give us a baby shower on July 20 so that we will have some things for Jude before we go to Haiti.
- God's plan. As my sister so gently reminded me, according to Romans 8:29 while we do not know why this all is happening, it means that if we are listening, still of heart, and open to God molding us and shaping us then Jude's Momma and Poppie will be more like Christ by the time he comes home. That's not something you trade in for any amount of ease.
- Our congressional representative, Mitzi. She has been very helpful, kind and gracious as she has sensed our frustration. We appreciate her!
We pray for:
- God to move the hands of the people in Detroit, and then at the National Visa Center, and then at the US Consulate in Haiti, so that we can go get Jude and bring him home.
- Us to remain still of heart and clear thinking, and to continue to respond to these challenges with grace and kindness to those at fault.
Thanks for praying. Stay tuned!
As I was on the telephone with the Haiti liaison at Bethany's corporate office, she received an email notifying her that Jude's passport has been printed and GLA has it in hand! This is very exciting! Next week they will be completing his medical exam.
However, this does indeed mean that the inaction of USCIS has now halted the progress. All they can do in Haiti is the medical exam. Then they sit and wait for the US Consulate to receive from USCIS and the National Visa Center what they should have received weeks ago. Normally once USCIS passes on our I600 paperwork to the NVC, it takes the NVC one to two weeks to get it to the Consulate.
So, given the lack of response from USCIS and the fact that they now are the cause of our adoption coming to a standstill, we have continued to work with our congressional office. The lady we're working with has committed to following up on Monday to be sure that our I600 was indeed processed by USCIS. Then, she's going to call the NVC and try to get their part expedited. We appreciate her!
We just may get this babe home by his birthday yet!
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 quite that 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!
We mentioned the cleft bottle campaign, and it generated another opportunity, so golfers, check this out!
A very generous friend who is a PGA golf instructor has kindly offered to host a golf-a-thon during which he'll give one-hour golf lessons for ten hours and 2/3 of the proceeds generated will go toward our adoption!
Details:
Times are limited for your golf lesson! Lessons for the golf-a-thon are only available June 23, from 6am to 4pm. Call Scott Seifferlein at 616.802.4969 to set up your lesson time. You can check out his website at www.grandrapidsgolflesson.com.
With the purchase of the golf instruction session you will receive:
- one hour of golf instruction
- KVEST instruction (www.k-vest.com)
- video instruction
- take home CD
- e-mail consultation
- complimentary practice balls after your session.
This premium session is a $150 investment. Plus $100 of your golf instruction investment will be donated to Jude’s Adoption Fundraiser!!
Tell any friends who you think might be interested!
Well, the I600 we mentioned in a previous post has still not been processed and the issue is still not resolved. After a month of trying to get information out of USCIS (immigration) in Detroit and receiving only vague anemic responses, our caseworker has finally recommended that we go to our congressman as a last resort. I spent this morning gathering documentation and drafting a letter of consent (for privacy issues) to Fred Upton's office so that they could look into our case. Jude's passport will be printed sometime between this Friday and next (June 20 - 27), and if we do not have the I171 (which is the response to the I600), the whole thing will come to a stop. We need USCIS to process that I600 into an I171 in order to move on. If they do, we're within a month or so of traveling.
Monday I called the National Visa Center and they will not talk to me unless I have the file number off our I171, which we do not have from USCIS because they haven't processed the I600. USCIS is sending us to the National Visa Center. They will not acknowledge the lack of I171.
Our caseworker has been very specific with USCIS in what we are asking the status of and they have emailed in circles as they apparently do not understand the differences in their own forms. It's really quite amazing. They no longer allow people to drive to their office and just "show up" as they did years ago.
Needless to say, we are deeply frustrated, and need much prayer in this area. Pray that this will shake loose, and that in the meantime, we will wait and respond in a way that glorifies the Lord.
Bottom line: God is still on the throne and He is good, He knows our every need, and Jude is in His care as are we. We will choose to take a posture of worship in our hearts knowing that He is bigger than all of this. We are grateful for our case worker, Belinda, as well as for our congressman's office and his staff.
We'll keep you up to date as things progress. Thanks for your prayers - they are not taken for granted.
All - we've decided to do a little fundraiser to continue to raise money to pay for Jude's adoption. We are going to order a dozen cleft palate bottles, which are not available in developing countries and are desperately needed to save the lives of cleft-affected babies. We'd like to place those bottles and have them filled with change. The change will go toward Jude's adoption costs; the bottles will then be sterilized and sent to an orphanage that needs them. Please let us know if you would be willing and able to place a cleft bottle at your place of business or at your church. We'll get the bottle(s) to you, and we'll pick them up. You just need to set it out and let us know when it's full. Email us or post a comment and we'll follow up with you. Thanks in advance for the help!
Yesterday we got word from our case worker that Jude's passport has been approved and sent for printing! This is great news.
Now we await our own USCIS (immigration) approval of Jude's I600. Please pray about this. This is what we need in order for the US Consulate in Haiti to do what they need to do before Jude can come home. If we get the I600, we could be looking at about a month before we travel. However, our I600 has been at USCIS for longer than usual - approximately nine weeks. Monday I'll be placing a call to the National Visa center to try to learn whether or not it's made it that far from the Detroit USCIS office. Our case worker, Belinda, has been emailing the Detroit office to try to get status updates and has yet to get details on our case.
With this little glitch and even with all the time we've spent pursuing this adoption, we have to say still that we love adoption! We are passionate about this. It seems to be the very heartbeat of God in our lives. Some of you have seen Chariots of Fire in which Eric Liddell testifies that God made him fast and when he runs, "...I feel His pleasure." Well, that's how we feel about adoption. Never in either of our lives have we felt God's will more strongly. Through this process God has taken things we've known and believed, and He's written them on our hearts as deep enduring convictions...things like: God is good; miracles are real; God is at work in the world; He knows what we need; He is pleased to reveal Himself to us.
Over and again we thought we'd have Jude home by a certain date. The latest prayer has been that God would allow him to come home by his second birthday, which is July 24. But we've been so ready to let that go like every other date we've hoped for, and the thought that we might no have to is just amazing!
Passport printing takes 1 - 2 weeks; the I600 goes to the US Consulate in Haiti at which point they initiate Jude's Visa and his orphan investigation (during which they interview his birth mother, etc.). This also takes 1 - 2 weeks. Then we get travel dates. As you can see, we need that I600.
We don't take your prayers for granted - they are so appreciated! Pray about the I600, and stay tuned!
Also, please pray for the family of our caseworker, Belinda. They live in Iowa; her brother is a farmer and his fields have washed out three times this year. It's going to be a rough season.
