I604 Investigation Complete

The investigation is complete.  In 14 days, the investigation is complete.  This was supposed to take 1-3 months.  I can not believe it, 14 days.  Now we have to wait for the official letter to arrive and we can apply for our court date.  Ethiopia here we come!

MOWCYA Letter - We got it!

The 2nd piece of information we need to get a court date is here!  We recieved our positive MOWCYA letter.  For those of you who followed Daniels journey, you might remember this was a big source of pain.  We didn't pass about 6 court dates because they had not written the letter.   The last thing we need is the Pair approval letter.   

It is funny in the adoption process how you go from waiting, waiting, waiting to things moving so quickly.  It is definitely an emotional rollercoaster and exhausting.  I love watching how our lives have changed and how God is working.  Daniel the ever growing big brother is so proud.  He has his own photo album and every time we get an update with new pictures he adds them and shows them off to his friends and teachers at school.  I can't wait to see both of my boys together!

Happy Gotcha Day - Daniel

5 years ago today our lives were changed forever.  This is the day we got to take Daniel into our home and lives forever.  I thank God every day for the opportunity to be his mom.  He is the light in our life.  

I remember this day so vividly, getting up and packing the bag to take to the Transition Home.  And leaving that Transition Home in the van with Daniel on my lap knowing that this was the day I became his mom!  My heart was so happy for our family and ached for those nannies who stood waving and crying as we all left the place that Daniel had called home for almost 1 year.  I remember getting back to the room and playing on the floor with him and all of a sudden looking down and he was sound asleep on my lap.  I remember not wanting to put him down and rocking him to sleep.  I will always be eternally grateful for this day.  The day he became our son.  

“Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth” – Isaiah 43: 5-6

I604 Investigation Started

Once again I can not believe I am typing this, I just got the email from the embassy in Ethiopia our I604 investigation has started.  We just turned in the information from the RFE yesterday.  The wonderful agent we had at NBC sent our stuff on its way the day she requested the evidence!  Praise God.  We are even closer.

The next steps are the I604 investigation can take 1-3 months.  Once that is complete we will wait for the arrival of the pair letter.  We also still need our MOWCYA letter.  Please pray for both these pieces of the puzzle.  Once we receive them we can apply for our adoptive family court date.

Praying Matthew home one step at a time.

"Seek the Kingdom of God above all else and live righteously and he will give you everything you need." -Mattew 6:33

RFE Complete!

I can not believe I am typing this!  Our RFE is complete and everything should start moving to Ethipoia within a week or 2.  Thank you for praying.  God truly can move the mountains if you ask!

RFE- Request for Evidence

I got the email for the Request for Evidence, which we were hoping not to get.  Good news, while I was driving Daniel to his dentist appointment I got a call from Lauren at our agency.  They had requested 3 pieces of information, 2 of them were a misunderstanding the agent read the paper wrong and the third was just a request for a more legibile translation.  We should have everything requested by the end of the week!  And the agent processing our request has been kind enough to allow Lauren to email the updated translation.  This usually doesn't happen, usually you have to mail in the paperwork. This will save us 2 weeks of processing time in the mail.  Praise God.  Thank you for praying, keep praying the orphanage gets the translation quickly. One more step closer to Matthew.

Also, we have decided that we will be taking Daniel back with us to Ethipoia.  We will meet Matthew as a complete family.  While this is exciting there are a few things that have to happen.  The biggest is Daniels passport arriving.  We have turned in the application today.  Please pray they process it quickly.  We will hopefully be travelling in July so there should be plenty of time to receive the passport.