Today is the one year anniversary of our Elita Marguerite receiving her U.S. Immigrant Visa. Eric and the boys hopped on a plane right after the visa appointment heading to see Mom and Dad Ream in Illinois. Elita and I joined them a week later and spent 5 weeks in the states waiting for her Certificate of Citizenship to be issued so we could return to Haiti. Eric returned to Haiti and Esmée after I arrived stateside. He only got one day with Elita in the states. This was an immensely bittersweet time for us all and especially for Esmée who was left behind when (in a world of justice) she should have been able to go too. For the past year she has continued to hear about all the places and people we visited during those 5 special weeks...weeks she missed. Today I thought about what Esmée wrote to explain her feelings during that time. She was imagining all her family being reunited when her sister arrived in the states while she was left behind. Cultural note: People in Haiti kiss when they enter a room and greet each other.
Elita kissing Ethan and Evan
Just Esmée you not kiss
My mom kissing my dad.
Ta kiss Ba
Mema kissing PaPa
Esmée kiss just God
By Esmée
November 17th, 2012
One year later we are believing Esmée's time is coming SOON! We received the following message 16 days ago on October 29th. "MOI" stands for "Minister Of Interior" and the timeline expectation for this stage according to our facilitator and current processing times is 1-5 weeks. We are 2 weeks and 2 days into that timeline.
"Great news! Delenda's file has completed the attestation signature and all legalizations and will be submitted to MOI today to begin the passport process.
I will let you know as soon as MOI approves her file and goes into Immigration for passport printing."
The passport printing will be expedited and we are expecting it to take a few days to a week to get processed and picked up. Then the dossier's complete contents will be translated into English from French. Then I will pick up the passport and original and translated dossier documents from our facilitator and submit it to the Embassy. Then we will wait for the USCIS (United States Citizen Immigration Services) to approve our I-600. Then they will schedule a visa appointment. Then we will complete her visa medical and bring those results to the visa appointment. Then we will get the visa and then the IBESR exit letter. Then our "soon" can finally happen.
When you have already been through this complete process once (twice now up to MOI for Esmée...praising God we are now past where we were when we had to start over) and waited nearly 4 years, "soon" can feel a bit relative. Our family and friends have been hearing the hopeful sound of "soon" for a really l-o-n-g time. The Embassy told me "soon" six months ago. We thought that was funny. The Embassy has also said that they do not expect that they will need to ask anything else from us upon receiving the completed dossier with passport and will approve our I-600 this time. However, we know there can always be changes in policies, practices, and persons regarding such and we know that they could still ask for something else in our daughter's extensively reviewed case. That would not be funny. Also in the category of not funny but laughably ridiculous is the fact that Eric and I just traveled to the Embassy for a 6th set of re-fingerprinting last Friday in order to keep our U.S. approval updated. Eric may have to redo his fingerprints for a seventh time if the machine malfunctions on his clumsy prints once again if "soon" doesn't happen before December 17th when his fingerprints officially "expire". If "soon" doesn't happen sooner than December 10th for filing with the Embassy then not only will we have to file for another extension on our case but "soon" will certainly not have it's debut before Christmas because tickets would be extremely unaffordable for all of us (unless someone has a couple hundred thousand American Airline air mile credits they want us to take off their hands). The kids are really hoping for Christmas. Me too. But we are just happy to be together and look forward to the hope of whenever our soon happens.
"Soon"
Soon I will have my passport
Soon I will have my visa
Soon I will fly
Soon I will go to America
Soon I will see the rest of my family
Soon I will see my friends that were in the orphanage with me
Soon I will play with you all
And I will eat a lot of meat
And I will watch movies..awesome movies
Soon I will go to new places
Soon I will go shopping with my grandmas
And I will watch more movies with grandpas
Soon I will make new friends with my sister and brothers
Maybe I will go to America for Christmas
By Esmée
November 2013
Sidenote: Esmée loves meat and movies. I think she might find at least a hundred other things she loves but from her current standpoint she can't imagine much better than meat and movies, being with family, old friends, new friends and of course shopping. From my current standpoint I can think of only a few others. Like not sweating, getting my hair done, taking a hot bath, and kissing my nieces a million times for all the time I have missed!
Please pray for our long awaited soon! And while you are praying for us, please pray for adoptive families who are separated from their children and don't want to spend another day (especially the holidays) without them.
Here's to soon!
