USCIS

Yay! Good news on the adoption front today. Our social worker contacted me yesterday to let me know that America World (our agency) had approved our homestudy write up. The magic line in the homestudy "Brendan and Katie Jamieson are approved to adopt one female child from Ethiopia, from 0-18 months old" is what we've been waiting for! The homestudy was done by the local Catholic Social Services office. It's been a long road folks- and we have a lot longer one ahead. We had the hold up with our paperwork going to the wrong office and not being forwarded on to the right office back in December. We were about a month behind where we hoped to be at that point and almost four long months later, here we are. To think that we really began this process last May, is crazy. It was last May that God really began to speak to us that this was the time for adoption in our family. We have known since we got married that we really wanted to adopt a child from Africa, but last May God confirmed that calling and this timing! To think it will be another year is hard, but we are so thankful to have jumped through this loophole.

At this point, the homestudy has been sent into USCIS today. We are waiting for a fingerprinting appointment and then the I-171 form that clears us to classify an orphan as our immediate relative. The timeline on their website says the wait can be 3 months for this form which we need to have to submit our paperwork to Ethiopia. It's been known to be less in other cases, but not normal. If you feel led, please pray for us, that this government office would have favor on us- our application has been sitting in their office for 4 months now- and that by God's mercy, we would move more rapidly through this process. We know that in all this God has the perfect child at the perfect time for us, but honestly, we are so ready to hold her in our arms and be her family.

Thanks for the encouragement and the prayers. We'll keep you updated as we know more!