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.

*********************************************************************************

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

*********************************************************************************

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

Praying Us Through

Sometimes it is difficult to know where to even start. Sadly, I feel like I am saying the same things week after week after week for the nine months now! I really look forward to the day that I am able to tell all of you that the end is truly in sight and a date has been given to us, but unfortunately this is not that time.

Instead I am here to tell you that your prayers are powerful, and we are really feeling them. With as many delays as we have been having at the end of this process, I have to admit that there have been many moments of frustration, defeat and sometimes even anger. I think that having these emotions in the face of something so central to the makeup of our family is to be expected. However, I really believe that we have survived these negative feelings because of prayer. Dozens consistently and likely hundreds periodically have been lifting our family up before the Lord pleading for patience, health for the twins and for this process to move forward. I am certain that the spiritual realm is bristling with energy with all of the prayers that are surrounding our family. I firmly believe that your prayers have protected us from the lowest of lows. Without our faith, and without our family and friends praying us through, there is no way that we would have been able to venture into the adoption world.

The end of last week, we made some decisions that required much prayer and wisdom. We spoke with a local lawyer and received some information from an international lawyer as well to make our decision. I don't feel that this is the place to elaborate, but I feel that for the first time in a year we have some leverage. I am not sure if it will truly make any difference in the grand scheme of things, but it has given us a sense of peace that we haven't had for a long time.

Last week two other families that had been submitted to USCIS found out that they had errors that needed to be fixed as well. Our international adoption counselor informed us that there might be these issues with our paperwork as well. My anger flared when she said this. I really felt a bit hopeless at that point but was able to express to her that they needed to examine our paperwork immediately to determine if we would have these issues as well. It was incompetent to NOT be looking for these errors in our paperwork when we should have been submitted NINE months ago! Let's just say that my assertive communication was working at its best in those moments. Point taken....she discovered early this week that we did not have those same errors. Supposedly.

It is now Saturday, May 31st, and I am reflecting back on a week that I thought might be OUR week. Our week for re-submission. I rallied for prayer support this week, hopeful for everything to finally be complete.

We were told that this week our director would be checking on our adoption decree attestations which are the last documents that we need for our file to be ready for re-submission to the US visa process. Sadly it took until Friday for our director to go check on them and they were not ready. I do not know how long it normally takes to do this portion of the process, but next week I will be clarifying when our documents were dropped off for attestation and how long that usually takes. I want to know if there is an issue causing the delay with wrapping up this step. None of this seems to make sense to me. All of these delays are maddening...but your prayers kept me from hopeless anger.

We had been sending many messages this week checking in with the new Haitian lawyer that we are going to have review our case prior to resubmitting to USCIS. He was ill at mid-week but thought that he would be able to pick up our dossier to review it sometime on Friday. Well, late Friday I contacted him to see if he was able to get it, and he was at Parquet court all day Friday so wasn't able to pick it up. Sigh. What a strange feeling to always be hopeful and guarded at the same time. It has to be your prayers that kept me from freaking out at that moment. 

Surprisingly, in the face of all of these disappointments, the emotion that I feel the most today is hope, HOPE! Crazy. After nine months of broken promises, dealing with a broken system, with a broken heart...I feel hope. The only explanation for this irrational feeling at this time is your prayers!

I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate all of you! Those praying that we see regularly or talk to often and those praying that we have never even met!!! I received a couple of messages this week from strangers that have stumbled across our blog and lift us up in prayer regularly. That gives me a lump in my throat and swells my heart with what I can only describe as HOPE.

This world is so broken. Broken like my heart, but with people like you praying consistently, we are given something irrational in our situation...HOPE.

Craig and I took another step this week that we have been praying about for many months. We have been trying to figure out when or if we should schedule a trip to see the boys. This waiting is torture. It has been one year and three months since we saw them last. They have changed so much in that time. I really try to keep myself from thinking about all of the firsts that we are missing with the boys. That is survival. If I dwell on the bruises and battle wounds I see in their pictures or think about the parasites and other organisms that are likely affecting their health and growth, it eats me up inside. This is what pushes us forward, but it also makes us want to jump the next plane and just go hold them. 

In the meantime, we have also been asked by our pastor to join a team from our church to go on a mission trip with Mission Haiti in July. Our church is traveling to Haiti several times a year to the area that we have done all of our mission work. Every time a team heads to Haiti without us, I have to admit....both of us are filled with jealousy. I guess it is a good form of jealousy. It means that we are completely in love with the people of Haiti and love and support what our church and Mission Haiti are doing there. So....we have loosely committed to join a team from July 15th-22nd and would stay after the team heads home to spend time with the boys.

As much as I am excited to head back to Haiti to do missions again, I am hoping that we won't be able to go. If the boys come home before the travel dates, we won't be going along. Our pastor and Mission Haiti is aware of this and are very supportive. They have been praying for us in our adoption since the earliest days of this journey.

So, it is with a spirit filled with hope that I plead for you to continue to pray for our family. 

Pray:

* that the adoption decree attestation would be completed.

* that the new lawyer would obtain our dossiers and find them error free

* that we would be submitted to USCIS for visas and it would take less than the normal 6 weeks

* that we finish our 4th home study update paperwork

* that the boys continue to have good health

* that we would have the patience we need

Thank you for praying us though,

Rebecca

Frayed but Clinging to God

A beautiful couple we met when we were in Haiti on our first bonding trip to meet the boys experienced the homecoming of their lifetime tonight! With huge grins on their faces and two adorable Haitian boys in their arms, they greeted the people from their community that have been praying them through on their journey. With tears of great gratitude and thankfulness to God, I am so happy that they were able to move through their adoption without any delays. These boys will begin a new chapter in their lives...one with bedtime kisses, huge high fives and a mommy and daddy to love them through all of life's moments! I am so happy for them.

I hate the huge lump in my throat in the midst of my tears of joy. I hate the questions that surface in my mind. I chase them away only to have them resurface. Why, Lord? Why. Why so many delays...and right at the end? This has been the longest nine months of my life. I don't think that I have ever been more raw emotionally.

I am not one bit angry at the Lord. I know that He wins in the end. I know that the delays are not orchestrated by Him. I know that He will use this to create something beautiful. I just don't feel at this moment that I am feeling very beautiful in the midst of my pain.

I move through my days trying to keep my focus on the present. I have such a beautiful family of five home with me. I have the incredible privilege of loving and being there for them each and every day. My loving husband and my adorable children are my everything...almost. You see...that is it. I find joy with them in all of the little things. Watching Aftyn and Haley hug last night...the best of friends sharing the first days of their summer together, cheering on Aiden as he nailed the baseball at tonight's game, giving snuggles and soft kisses as we said our prayers and I tucked the kids in to bed tonight. Precious. I soak up every moment.

But tonight, Craig is away on business. Once the lights were out and the sweet dreams begun for the kids, this Mama's heart began to ache. It is just me now. Me and my broken heart. You see, I want for my boys to be home with every fiber of my being. It is a breath-stopping, chest-aching, throat-clenching, head-pounding sort of pain. After tucking in Aiden, I walk past the twins' bedroom. I glance in and see their names on the wall, the stuffed animals in the bin, and the Haitian Bible on their dresser. By myself tonight, I let myself cry.

I hate to even write that, and I am tempted to erase this post, but it is true. I want people to see the beauty in adoption because it is truly beautiful. However, the reality is that our world has caused parts of adoption to be truly painful.

We wait...and wait...and wait. We give the same responses...over and over and OVER again! Oh, how I long to be able to tell the first person that our file has been approved for Visas, and we are planning our homecoming. There are days when it feels like that day is never going to come...but I know in my lonely mama's heart that it is.

We were told last Monday that our paperwork was going to be picked up and would be turned in to USCIS by last Friday. Hmmm....well, that never happened. Thursday came and surprise!!!  I guess our adoption decree attestation was not ready yet. I guess they must have overlooked that on Monday when they told us that it was ready. Arrrgh....such disappointment!

I don't like how that news broke my heart and filled me so full of anger in that moment. I have been wrestling with doubt, anger and pain ever since that moment. I can hear the Holy Spirit giving me words of encouragement. Reminding me that God is in control and He has this! Then the pain rises up and my heart wrenches all over again. I have asked for my ladies' bible study to pray for me, pray for our family, pray for the twins, pray that this insanity will stop and the boys will come home.

This week we have not received any updates of progress. We did get a few sweet pictures of the boys from our agency and from the family that just came home today...but no news of progress.

We have notified our international adoption counselor that we absolutely need this to be our LAST submission to USCIS. Our documents NEED to be correct. Our hearts simply can't keep going on like this. Will we give up?  NEVER, but are we pressing hard for accuracy and finality? YES.

We are having another lawyer look at our paperwork prior to being submitted this time. Please pray that the director of our orphanage will turn our paperwork over to him. Please pray that there will be no errors, but that if there are, that he will find them and they will be fixed quickly.

Please also pray for patience in our long-suffering. I need your prayers every day! I truly don't know where I would be without them. I can feel my heart struggling with the spiritual nature of this battle. I need all of my prayer warriors in FULL force right now. I have seen Craig struggling a bit more

 too. He is amazingly strong...and I know that he somehow manages much better than I do, but the edges of his emotions are beginning to fray as well. As for me, I am just strings held together by your prayers.

If you get a chance and can send me prayers, call me to pray with me, or drop by and pray over me or our family...it would mean so much to me. If you know of another family going through adoption, domestic or international...pray with them. This is a battle, and you all can help us to win the fight. I think it is more about the spiritual battle than the paperwork battle.

Frayed but Clinging to God,
Rebecca

Inching Closer?

I apologize for not being very prompt with these latest updates. The last few weeks have been anything but normal. Craig and I decided that it was not healthy for me to take only two days of vacation in one year. So several weeks ago, we purchased tickets so I could join him on his work trip to Las Vegas. I spent five days with three other wives soaking up the sun, getting exercise in the pool and walking to see the sites. The rest and time together with Craig was just what I needed to mend my spirit. It also provided us many opportunities to reflect on this emotional journey we have been on.

Just before leaving on our trip, we received a brief update that our new court minutes had been issued for both of the boys. This is the first step in repairing the remaining errors. The orphanage director was able to get the twins' birth father to return to court with him which is a huge blessing. We have requested copies of these documents so we can review the new dates, but we still have not received them yet. (We hate to be cynical, but after being submitted twice to USCIS with so many errors remaining, it is impossible NOT to be cynical at times and protect against ongoing errors.)

The last full day that we spent in Las Vegas, we received a message from Sarah, our international adoption counselor informing us that her last day would be April 11th!!! That was a big bummer, but somehow getting that message as I basked by the pool refreshing my spirit made it a little easier to take. Sarah has been wonderful. I really think that she has been pivotal in getting our case moving forward these last few months. I connected well with her over the phone and had complete confidence that her heart was in the right place. She even called us several times after hours so we would not go without updates. She will be missed greatly.

After returning home from our trip, we didn't know how quickly we would get an update from the new counselor...our fifth one in three and a half years. We received an email on Monday introducing Tihana to us. On Tuesday I decided to give her a call to introduce myself.She was familiar with our case but communication with Maison was minimal this week. By early Friday (today), we still had not heard an update. I decided that meant it was time to call again. This morning, Tihana still had not heard anything from Pierre on our case.

Craig confided to me earlier this week that he is beginning to feel restless about the adoption. I told him that it was about time! I have been feeling that way for a long time now. I shared with him that I had begun to wonder if I was just an insane worrier, if he was amazingly strong, or what...and he said, "Maybe I am just an idiot and should be more concerned." I don't know what the right answer is, but it is nice to be on the same page. This morning on the phone with Tihana, I shared that we are struggling with this wait. Eight months is much too long to be waiting for submission. The transition time from passports to the Visa process should have only taken the time to physically transport our dossier from one office to another. However, because of the all the errors and delays, we are over eight months. It is truly unbelievable. She seemed to understand and said that she would keep trying to get updates.

Well, late this afternoon we did receive an update. Tihana says that Pierre was unable to submit the dossier this week,  but he says, "This dossier is almost done. The Lawyer is working on getting signatures for the judgments and decrees. I think it will be finished in two weeks."

Craig and I were together shortly after receiving this update and our response was almost identical. We both sighed and thought, I hope this is true. We had a long talk about how this process is affecting our ability to trust and increasing the time it takes to become excited about any step of the process. I hate to be a cynic about anything...but I find myself thinking, "well, I hope so." I am guarded to share the good news because we have not seen any hard copies of the corrections. We have gotten our hopes up so many times before and the last fall was very painful. So forgive us if we guard our hearts for now.

Craig says that he will get excited when we get on the plane with the boys and the jet leaves the runway. I am quite sure that I will be ecstatic long before that. Big surprise. I think that the moment for me to begin to hope and dream will be when we have USCIS inform us that all of the errors are fixed and they have approved our dossier and can proceed with the Visas! Oh, how I long for that moment. I can't wait to tell the first person that asks me if we have heard anything new that we actually have a REAL timeline!!!!!

Craig and I were visiting with some close friends of ours, and we were discussing patience in our adoption process. I commented something about how difficult this has been and what a struggle it is emotionally at times. The husband said that he thinks that we have moved from the process requiring patience to it being a journey of long-suffering. It was almost like the wind was knocked out of me. Long-suffering. I have never thought of it like that, but that is the most perfect way to express what this is like. Long-suffering.

It is amazing how at certain times in our lives the Lord uses so many different methods to communicate His love to us. He certainly speaks to us at times through our friends and family, but He has also been speaking to me this week through a bible study that I have been working through. A group of women from my church are studying a book on parenting called Give Them Grace...Dazzling Your Kids With the Love of Jesus. There have been some wonderful nuggets of truth in this book but this last section I have read has really shed some light on our adoption journey. I am going to share some of these little insights:

"Would our chosen path [in life] ever lead us to the valley of the shadow of death with our children? If we spend our whole life trying to avoid that valley, how will we ever experience His comfort while He sustains us by His grace in the valley?"

"Do we see these trials as God's gifts to us? Do we see our children's struggles as our Savior approaching us in love to make His grace strong in our lives? Do we believe that we must have this kind of humiliation so that Christ's grace will flow through us to our family? Do we want His grace that much? Do we really want to glorify Him? Whether or not we like it, whether or not we understand it, it is kind of the Lord to demolish our confidence in our own strength, abilities, and cherished methods."

"Our weakness is the place where we learn to depend on His power. When we're stripped of everything that we thought we could trust in, when we're absolutely desperate for help, the Lord moves into our circumstance and demonstrates His power. Sometimes He shows us His power by changing the circumstance, miraculously accomplishing what we could never accomplish. At other times He shows us how His sustaining grace enables us to endure situations that otherwise would crush us. Sometimes He makes us feel His strengthening arm upholding us in the trial. At other times He teaches us to walk by faith, believing that His arm is there even though we don't feel it. It is in these varied circumstances that we learn of His greatness, His sustaining grace, and His ability to glorify Himself in ways we would never have imagined."

...And sometimes He asks us to do all of these things!



I have bumped into so many people over the last several weeks. I have had hug, after hug, after hug and words of encouragement from so many family members, friends and acquaintances. We have been lifted up in prayer from at least three continents and many different states! I was stopped in the grocery store today by an Augie classmate of mine I hardly ever see and she's been praying. I get messages from people that read this blog that I have never even met that identify with what we are going through and are praying! This journey is truly remarkable!

I would never change my mind about embarking on this journey even if I would have known that it would be filled with so many bumps. The valleys are hard, but the growth in our spirits and in the structure of our family is incredible. I have never dreamed that our lives would be this beautiful. It is a incredible thing to trust the Lord, even in your own heart-ache, pain and long-suffering. I give God all the glory for bringing us to this place. I know that without Him and His grace, this situation would have crushed us.

Praise God for His love and faithfulness!!!

Holding On,
Rebecca



 PS. Enjoy these beautiful photos of our boys courtesy of another adoptive mom from our orphanage!

We Are Nothing Special...

I have been thinking about writing on this topic for quite some time now...but was drowning in emotion and had difficulty thinking of how to word exactly what I wanted to say. Since our prayer session at church, I seem to be in a much healthier place emotionally and decided that there was no time like the present to share my thoughts...

Craig and I are nothing special. It is that plain and simple. So many people have made statements to Craig and me over the last few years about our adoption journey and how amazing we are...or how our strength is so great....or how incredible our faith must be...or how they could never go through all of this waiting and pain. Well, we are nothing special.

If you recall in the Bible, there are many Bible heroes that we are shocked to find never felt prepared to do what God was calling them to do, and they were afraid. God called to Moses, gave him a job to do and Moses remembered his past failures and felt inadequate for the task. Jonah, a prophet of God, literally fled the opposite direction of where God was calling him to go. God enabled a nobody named Gideon to win a battle even though he was hiding when the Lord's angel came to him. Of the four women in Jesus' lineage, one was a harlot, the second a Gentile, another an adulteress and the fourth another harlot. God can and will use anyone! He uses us in our weak state so that HE ALONE can be glorified. The point is that God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things. We are nothing special, but we faithfully follow an amazing God who is anything but ordinary!!!

Ever since the beginning of this adoption journey...I have had times where I struggled with doubts and fears. Let me tell you...when we were in Haiti on our mission trips, God's voice and calling to adopt was so clear. However, when we returned home...it was almost like slipping back into a sort of spiritual slumber. It is so easy to fall back into lukewarm living. Our culture has so many ways to fill time with things that really don't matter for eternity...Facebook, television programs, music, sports, and even entertaining our families. These things are not bad in and of themselves...but when they consume so much of our time that we find ourselves lukewarm and doing nothing that is out of the ordinary for the Lord...we have lost our testimony!

When we committed to the adoption, we abandoned our lukewarm status and headed into uncharted territory. Like Gideon, in the beginning there were days that I wanted to hide myself away and was filled with fear over the decision that we had made. Believe me, any questions that our friends or family members shared with us, were questions that we had already wrestled with multiple times. "Is this really what the Lord is calling us to?" "Will our biological children adjust to the changes well?" "Will we be able to afford it?" "How will we ever help five children with college." "How will I handle juggling five kiddos and a job when I get anxious already with three?" "Will the boys have special needs that we won't be able to handle?" And so forth...

Over time, I have seen the faithfulness of our Lord! Oh, what a beautiful thing it is!!! I really do feel like the Lord has chosen a weak vessel...me. I can tell that through this experience He is doing an incredible work in me. I am nothing special in and of myself...but with His help...we are doing something amazing! I give Him all of the glory because on my own...I would not be on this journey.

"God has used the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty." 1 Corinthians 1:27

If you think that God can't or won't use you, think again. His glory shines the greatest through the weakest of vessels. If the Lord has put a tender heart toward adoption in you, it is likely because He has a plan to use you in one of the most remarkable ways...if you will let Him. That is the key. In our lukewarm society, it is so easy to rationalize why the decision to adopt simply does not make sense. It is too expensive, too time consuming, too emotionally taxing...

We are forgetting that adoption is so beautiful!!! It gives a lonely and broken child a home. It causes spiritual growth in the adopting family and their support system. It tests faith and allows an incredible love to bloom. It creates a connection between cultures and helps us to see our family grow beyond the borders of our own country. It allows the Lord to do a work in our lives that we would never be able to accomplish on our own.

"For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?" says the Lord in Isaiah 43:19

We are nothing special...but the Lord is faithful! He has begun this work in us, and He will bring it to completion!

As I write this...I have not had a new update. Several families received updates today and all of them were good updates. Praise God for that. Many of us adoptive families have been really hurting lately and have been noticing more than ever the emptiness of our arms. Tonight I snuggled my three kiddos on the couch and knew that as wonderful as it was...a key part of the family was missing. We long for our families to be complete.

Please continue to pray for our family and other adoptive families.I really believe that your prayers make all of the difference in this spiritual battle. Without your prayers...I am sure that we would have had a much different journey.

Also remember in prayer tonight all of the people that the Lord has placed adoption on their hearts but for whatever reason...have decided against it or are questioning the calling. Help them to know that it doesn't matter if we have weaknesses, if we are still growing our faith, or if we think we are too weak to handle the waiting and pain of the process. All that matters is how BIG OUR GOD IS...and if HE can handle these things. I assure you, He is a very big God!

Thank you so much for your faithfulness!

The Weakest of Vessels,

Rebecca

4.2.14 - Added links of interest from Craig: (please talk to Rebecca or me if there is even a glimmer of questioning or interest in adoption before you let the world speak!)
What percentage of Christian's would need to adopt to care for all of the orphans of the world?
http://abbafund.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/how-many-christians-would-it-take-to-adopt-all-the-orphans-in-the-world/

http://www.toomanymillion.org/

Trusting is Difficult

Since my last entry, we have received a number of updates.

We had been considering looking into a new lawyer to assist with our paperwork to help speed the remaining process up. We have been requested to wait until April 7th to allow the director to try to fix the errors and resubmit the paperwork. We have heard that if we hire a lawyer prior to this, we will have to move the boys to a different orphanage. So, we have taken a deep breath and are trying to see where the Lord will lead us.

We then received an update from USCIS.  The US Embassy requested that our orphanage director and his lawyer come to the Embassy to meet with them to discuss a plan for remedying our situation. This appointment was scheduled for the 24th of March, but it appears that they actually met yesterday on the 25th.

We have been informed that after speaking with USCIS, the new orphanage lawyer believes that he can fix our paperwork in the way the Embassy is requiring in approximately two months. Then the paperwork will be submitted to USCIS and will be processed for Visas (for the third attempt.)

The most difficult part of all of this is trusting. Trusting that the lawyer understands what needs to be repaired, trusting that we are a priority at all, trusting that the director has any real plans to finish our adoption and lose his monthly support checks, and most of all trusting that the TWO MONTHS is really TWO MONTHS. We have been informed that the passport process should take 1-2 weeks and ours took 4 months, the process of moving our dossier from passports to the USCIS should take a day and ours has taken over 7 MONTHS! Yes, trusting is difficult.

So Craig and I are spending much time in prayer and are waiting on God's answer for what direction we should go. We are still contemplating whether we should travel to see the boys in the near future. We are also trying to determine if we can trust to move forward with the current lawyer processing this paperwork. We are hoping for a clear answer to this.

I know that we have the God of the Universe on our side! I trust Him completely! He is watching over our boys this very minute as they sleep on their metal bunks in a tiny room in a broken building with a dozen other toddlers and two nannies. I pray that He is moving in the hearts of all of the individuals from the Haitian government and from our orphanage that will need to be a part of piecing all of the remaining documents together. I pray that God would move mountains and this would be completed MUCH faster than 2 months.

I have had an extra dose of patience this week and attribute that to all of your prayers. I am so thankful to you and I love you all so much.

Resting in Truth,
Rebecca

Restored Through Prayer

This has not exactly been the easiest week...we went from receiving devastating news on March 11th...to waiting for OVER a week to have another update. The time in between was not without pain. I have learned many things in the last week.

One thing that I have learned is that when adopting...it is not wise to get your hopes up. When we thought we had a timeline of weeks...I began to daydream and plan. This is clearly dangerous business because it is the reason that when the next glitch surfaced, I felt as though the rug was pulled out from under me completely. Craig, on the other hand, admitted yesterday that he did not feel as crushed because he guarded his heart when we received the information that it could be only weeks remaining. Hmmm....I will try to work on that...but I will likely fail miserably at controlling my emotions. Sigh.

I have also learned that as a Christian, we need to be extra careful with how we use our words when talking to someone who is hurting. I have learned that it is not healing to be told that the circumstance "is a part of God's plan." I think that it is more helpful to think that the circumstance "will be used by God to grow our faith or to be a testimony to others."

I have also learned that sometimes we think that our friends can understand what we are going through...but actually it is impossible for others to understand the depth of the emotion that we are experiencing without having experienced it themselves. I had a situation this week that knocked me to my knees emotionally. I don't want to go into the specifics of the situation, but it really helped me to see that for our friends and family, it might be difficult to identify with the fact that we are adopting two real little boys...flesh and blood...not just pictures. Of course this is easy for us to grasp because we have held them, fed them, giggled at them, bathed them, changed them and slept beside them. When we struggle with the distance, it is because we have known them as our boys since they were three months old, been able to spend less than two weeks with them and have now been apart for more than a year. A very large portion of our hearts is truly in Haiti. Even on a good day, our hearts are broken. So, when we consider traveling to Haiti on an extra trip and hiring a lawyer, it is because these boys are a part of our family and we have already missed too many moments with them. Two years and almost three months worth of memories since we received our informal referral. So, if the need arises, and we have to find a way to hire a lawyer to bring the boys home, please understand at this point, we will do anything to get them home.

In the last week, I have also learned how important it is that when we begin to struggle emotionally, it is best to reach out for help. I have been struggling with feeling anxious ever since this weekend. I have been anxious about our finances. I have been anxious that the adoption could come to a screeching halt; the paperwork might not be repaired in a timely manner;  that Aftyn, Haley and Aiden might be affected negatively by all of this waiting; and that our friends and family won't understand the choices we make as we move forward from here. So many things on my mind and the anxiousness began to take control of me. This weekend I decided to open up to our Bible Study group about it and boom, three days later we have a prayer session scheduled at our church!!!

I know that many people have been praying for our adoption since the moment we shared our intent to adopt with our family and friends in February of 2011! We thank you so much for your love and thoughtfulness! I truly do not know where we would be without all of you. It is interesting though...when the anxiety begins to take over, somehow knowing that people are praying for you simply does not feel like enough. I needed to HEAR it. I needed to HEAR the words leaving the lips of those that love us and are lifting us up before the Lord.  There were about twenty five or thirty of us in the conference room at our church last night. We shared a bit about where we are in the process and what the current issues are preventing the boys from coming home. Craig and I had prepared a list of prayers and petitions to help update everyone who was there. Our pastor opened with prayer and then we broke up into small groups to pray. Within seconds, the rumble of voices began. Many beautiful voices pleading with the Lord for His mercy and grace. I could just feel the tension begin to leave as the tears began to fall. My broken heart could not be fixed, but my wounded soul was being pieced back together. Praise God for the gift of being able to come to Him in prayer and petition, and praise God for our church family who so loving and rapidly put together this time of prayer.

Just one day later, I find myself experiencing a renewed peace. I am restored through prayer. I know that there will continue to be ups and downs, but I have learned to ask for people to pray for me. OUT LOUD. I want to encourage and challenge you that the next time that someone you know is broken with the circumstances of life...pray with them...THAT VERY MINUTE. They need the angels to fight the fight for their soul right that minute. If you are shy about praying...believe me...that person won't care if it is the clumsiest prayer ever uttered...in such a broken state...those details don't even matter. Let the Holy Spirit do His work through you!

So...we received an update today from the US Embassy via Senator Thune's office...and I am not sure how to even summarize it. I'll just say this, the Embassy is aware of many families from our orphanage that are hurting. Please, in your prayers for us, remember all of the others that are going through the same process.

We were also informed that there is a scheduled appointment for the orphanage lawyer to meet with USCIS/Embassy on Monday, March 24th to clarify what needs to be repaired in our paperwork. Apparently, he must have missed his appointment last Thursday morning. So, please pray that this lawyer would make it to the appointment and would understand thoroughly what needs to be repaired.

That is all for now. We love you!

Blessedly restored,
Rebecca