Whew! Today was a crazy, stressful, glad it’s over kind of day! We did get passports; huge deal because they don’t hardly ever expedite them. We first went to the U.S. Embassy to fill out some paperwork that will be forwarded to the embassy in Addis Ababa where they will issue American visas for the kids. A new consular has come to the embassy since the last group of adoptive families were here, and she does everything by the book (Sidenote to AWAA families: make sure you bring your receipt from filing your I-600A. If you don’t have that tiny piece of paper, you’ll have to repay that fee. So literally, that receipt is worth $670! Thankfully, I saved every adoption related receipt, but I would have never thought that was something we would need). She wanted to see all the kids’ passports, which we couldn’t pick up until 1:00 p.m. … the same time that the Embassy closes for the day. She agreed to stay until 1:30 for us. We hurried over to the Immigration office to wait for the much desired passports. Right at 1:30, we got them and made a mad dash back to the consulate. I got there first, sat down to wait for the consular and starting looking through Moses’ passport … only to realize that his date of birth was wrong! Aaack! My heart fell to the pit of my stomach! We talked to the consular about it, and she said we had to get the passport reissued. No way! There was no way we thought we’d get another passport by the end of day, and it was Friday. I didn’t see any way that we were going to be able to get on the plane to Addis Ababa on Sunday. Justin ran back over to Immigration to see what they could do. Moses and I waited at the consulate. By this time, the consular had also agreed to stay until 3:00 and finish processing everyone else’s paperwork for them to hand carry to Addis. Miraculously, Immigration agreed to make a new passport that afternoon, and just as miraculously, it got done before the consular had to leave. She was able to process our paperwork and everything turned out ok. Oh my! We all feel emotionally wrung out tonight, but we’re all so grateful that it’s over. And we even got to spend Sept. 11 on American soil (even though we would have rather only been there 1 hour instead of 5).
The picture that I posted is of our guide Nyanja and her 3 year old son Solomon. She is amazing and we love her!
Oh dear! I am so glad for your sake that that part of the process is over! We are continuing to pray for you. Love you!
ReplyDeleteHeidi,
ReplyDeleteI just saw the note about the sisters at the genocide on my blog... I did not know that. Wow!!!!! I just found the pic on a random site somewhere.
I hope your adventure is wonderful.. can't wait to hear/see more. :)
Congratulations on getting all of your paperwork accomplished in Rwanda! Everything you've been through sounds oh so familiar! Ethiopia should be slower paced for you all. We just had a doctor's appointment, where they did a blood draw- not fun. And then we went to get the visas the next day. If you have T as your guide, please say hi from us. We really enjoyed hanging out with him. Our driver, David, was awesome too. Traffic in Addis is ridiculous, but he got us where we needed to go safely every time.
ReplyDeleteWe've been praying for you guys and are so delighted that Moses is bonding well with you. Thanks for keeping up with the blogging in the midst of the hectic pace!
Oh my I was almost in tears reading this...but when I saw that it all worked out I thought whew! God is in control of this and of course its all going to work out! :)
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