Official USCIS I-600 Approval!!!!!

Official USCIS I-600 approval was received yesterday. Now we move on to the Visa's!!!!!  Once the boys have a Visa appointment date set from the US government, we can schedule our flight for FOUR out of Haiti for roughly five business days after the appointment. The government needs a few days to print the Visas.

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Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dewit,

USCIS in Port au Prince, Haiti is pleased to inform you that the I-600 petitions, which you filed at this office on June 12, 2012 on behalf of  __________ Elysee and Elie, seeking to qualify them as your immediate relatives have been approved. Your case has been transferred to the Adoption Unit of the Consular Section for the visa process. This completes all action by USCIS on the referenced petition. The Consular Section will soon contact you to follow-up on your case.

Should you have any question regarding the visa process, you may send your inquiry to the consular section at papadoptions@state.gov.

Regards,


Adoption Team

Department of Homeland Security
U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
US Embassy, Port-au-Prince

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The last couple of weeks have been an interesting emotional adventure. Craig and I have had some significant ups and downs. By the end of last week, we had had enough of all of the broken promises. We had been told a ridiculous number of times that our paperwork would be submitted only to have further delays for no apparent reason.

I spoke with our adoption counselor on Thursday afternoon and told her that if our paperwork was not submitted on Friday the 13th as promised, again, that Craig and I were going to be very upset. We told her that we wanted to be given updates of any movement with the paperwork. She seemed to understand our frustration and said she would be in touch. The orphanage director had an appointment 6/13/14 at 9:00 am Haiti time which was 8:00 am our time.

On Thursday night, Craig and I had a discussion and decided that if the paperwork was not submitted the next day, Craig was going to jump the first flight south to Haiti to bring the paperwork to USCIS himself. We knew that we couldn't take one more day of delays and needed to push to bring our boys home. It felt good to have a plan. Craig also sent a message out to the director of the USCIS immigration department and notified him of the  plan for our paperwork to be dropped off and our intent to bring the boys home with us following a potential mission trip.

The next morning, we prayed from the minute we woke up. I told my girls before leaving for work, "our paperwork is going to be dropped off in 5 minutes! Pray that they get it and by some miracle that we would get approval." I knew that it was not likely we would get approval and was just hopeful that it would be dropped off! We rallied our friends and families to pray. So many of our loved ones were praying over the adoption.

It was at 11:45 pm our time that we received the email indicating that the boys' dossiers were received by USCIS! The second sentence of the message brought on dancing in the office of my work! They had already reviewed the documents and concluded that they were free of errors and met their expectations!!!!!

This was the day that we had been waiting for....for so very long. The message indicated that we would be receiving our official I-600 approval early the following week...so we decided to wait to inform the world on our blog once the official message came. Well, "early the following week" came and went without any message. Finally at 2:02 pm Friday the 20th, we received the official message that was copied and pasted above!!! It is official, they are approved!!!!!

Now we wait again...but just for a short bit. We should be receiving an update soon with a date for the Visa appointment!!!!

So.......I have been nesting like a crazy woman. Totally loving filling my grocery cart with diapers, wipes and snacks for the plane ride. I have been sorting through adoption paperwork, organizing all of our files for the trip and starting to choose clothes to bring for them. I have started lists, lists and more lists. :) Lists for plane supplies, a list of questions for the birth dad in case we get to meet him,  lists of translated simple Creole/English words, and lists of the remaining steps and what we need to remember as we come back into the states with our precious boys!!! My head is spinning and sleep is rare, but all of it feels so magical! Such a blessing.

Continue to pray with us as we are moving closer to the final date. We are still tentatively planning on going on our church's mission trip just prior to bringing the boys home. So far it looks like God intended this all along because the timing appears to be perfect. If we get notice that the boys will be ready long before the mission trip, we will be backing out of the trip and going to get them as soon as possible...only God knows how this will all play out...but we are excited either way. Mission trip or no mission trip.

We will let you all know as soon as we have a timeline and flights. We will then be letting you all know the plan for our arrival and what "cocooning" (or bonding) will look like for our family.

Thank you so much for all of your love and prayers!!!

Beyond grateful,
Rebecca