I have been trying to keep this blog as updated as possible to let everyone know what progress is being made on our case and how to pray specifically. In my last post I told you that we submitted to the PAIR process on April 9th and that we received RFE's on April 30th. We were then waiting for documents to get back to us from Ethiopia to respond to the RFE's. We were able to finally do that on May 20th. Our case was then forwarded on to the Embassy portion of PAIR, just 7 days later, on May 27th. On May 29th our I-604 investigation was opened. This is an investigation by the embassy to verify all the details in Nati's file. We were so excited to see things moving so quickly in the right direction and at this point we were still praying for a lightening fast Embassy portion that would allow us to travel before rainy season to be with our little guy.
However, on June 2nd we received an email from our adoption agency reminding us that it was time for us to update our fingerprints for our immigration paperwork. I thought we had more time because they do not expire until August 5th but our agency said that it is required to submit 2 months early to give USCIS time to process. As I read her response I immediately felt tears running down my face and called Brandon. The reason for the tears was that I knew if we applied for our fingerprint appointment USCIS would not issue us our PAIR letter until after our fingerprint appointment which would likely still be a month or two away. This would force us to face what we had been trying to ignore. Nati might be spending an additional 2 months in Ethiopia without us during rainy season closure.
I don't think I have mentioned this here and I need to. While we were waiting for our PAIR documents to be collected the first time we asked you to begin praying for our immigration officer. We didn't know at the time who that was but we were trusting that God did. All I can say is your prayers have been felt and God has provided. Our immigration officer ROCKS!!! Both times she has had our documents she has reviewed them within one week. She has talked with me on the phone and always responds to my emails within 30 minutes. She is friendly, patient and very helpful. We have been so blessed by her and are grateful that God allowed us to cross paths during this part of our process.
So of course I contacted her immediately to see what we could do to prevent this from being more of a mess then it already was. She said that she would not be able to act on our behalf until she had received the forms we needed to fill out. I had already done the math and even with paying overnight fees to get it to her quickly it would have taken an additional week to reach her desk. Thankfully she encouraged us to just attach them to an email so that she could get started as soon as possible. She also said since it was our free reprint she could attempt to just refresh them in the database which would only take 2-3 weeks instead of 1-2 months! I was so thankful for her willingness to work with us to try to race against the deadline we were facing.
Today we woke up to an email from the the embassy in Addis. Instead of reading that our I-604 investigation was completed it said that they had determined the need to schedule a birth parent/finder interview to finish the investigation. This happens a lot. It is not a big deal in itself.
This will just take time, more time...time that will cost us not weeks but months.
At this point we feel like we can share with you in full confidence that it will be later this year before we travel to Ethiopia. These are hard words to type out to you and to admit to ourselves. We so desperately wanted those extra months with our boy. We have prayed hard for that everyday. We want to be clear that this is not a lack of faith in what God can do. If God chooses we completely believe that He could move mountains and make a way for us to go. It seems at this time like that is not in God's plan and we are trusting His timing. Many times during this process God has allowed circumstances to remain the same and has instead changed us. It looks like this time will be no different and rather then fighting it we are choosing to embrace it as His good and perfect will. At this point we would like to ask that you would pray that everything in our process would continue to move forward and that we would be able to travel as early as possible this Fall.
This brings me to my final part of this post. I have saved it for last for a reason. If you do not remember anything about timetables, deadlines or anything else I wrote in this post that is ok. Above all that we would like for you to remember this...
There is a little boy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A little boy that is fearfully and wonderfully made.
He will turn 4 next Monday.
There will likely be no celebration or indication that it is a special day for him. He doesn't know that he has a family half way around the world that loves him like crazy and that is fighting to bring him home. To him it will be just another day. But to us it will not just be another day. It will be the second birthday we have watched pass without him home. It will mark another year of his childhood that we have missed out on. It will mark another year where he had a family but he didn't know it. On days like this the injustice of it all can be overwhelming but we know we serve a God who will not allow justice to be delayed forever and we are thankful for that.
So on Sunday night before you go to bed we are asking you to say an extra prayer for Nati Solomon. Pray that he gets extra cuddles and kisses from his nannies. Pray that year 4 will be the year this boy comes home to his forever family. Pray that he will continue to get stronger and remain healthy.
Pray that somehow he will know just how loved he is.
Birthday number 5 is going to be the biggest celebration you have ever seen!!!
We have some catching up to do!!! ;)
