Spent another day at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti on July 25th. I am sure it won't be the last! This was the fourth time I have been to the Embassy in the past few months. They seem to know me now. One of the officials called me up to hand me a letter they were holding for us because they didn't want to mail this one. Let's just say that their circle of colleages now knows what mail fowarding is after our previous conversations about that. This time Eric and I were both there to be refingerprinted. This is the fourth time we have been fingerprinted in our adoption process. There are many things I have come to understand and accept about this process but refingerprinting by the same organization in the same process is not one of them. Is it possible that our fingerprints were swapped overnight or sometime in the last year...four separate times??? Does anyone understand the reason for this? There was some confusion about whether or not we had to pay for this set and waited to find out for around 30 minutes. We were told that we owed the U.S. gov $170 for this set of fingerprints. We went to another window to pay and the cashier had left a sign that they would return in another 30 min. We waited for 30 min and asked if someone else could help us. That someone told us to "be patient" to wait to pay. Eric said, "how's 2.5 years of patience?" and the woman said, "well, your almost done now". That's what they said 6 months ago! Then after we had forked over the $170 we had to "be patient" again for someone to take the receipt and put it in our file or they might ask us to pay again. Just in case anyone thinks all this nonsense is just Haiti, this is how it goes for the U.S. side of things too! We were also informed that we will have to reapply for Esmée's I-600 (for her visa to be granted...eventually) and that will cost us another $720.
The longer this process takes the more we have to pay. We have already spent everything we fundraised for our adoptions and are praying about how we will come up with the money for all of these unexpected future expenses. We have paid for Elita Marguerite's passport which we have been told we will have soon! Had to throw some good news in there! Praying that the U.S. will not ask for further evidence before they grant her I-600 approval so we can move right along with getting her visa.
We are not really up for doing more fundraising for our adoptions since we are already struggling to raise needed support for our family as missionaries in Haiti. But if anyone feels led to give or has any other ideas to help us with this, we are praying for help at this time. This has been such a long journey. We are so tired. But we are so thankful that God isn't finished with us yet!
The longer this process takes the more we have to pay. We have already spent everything we fundraised for our adoptions and are praying about how we will come up with the money for all of these unexpected future expenses. We have paid for Elita Marguerite's passport which we have been told we will have soon! Had to throw some good news in there! Praying that the U.S. will not ask for further evidence before they grant her I-600 approval so we can move right along with getting her visa.
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| Pray we can get Elita Marguerite's passport and visa soon! We would love to get at least one down! |
