I800 Provisional Approval

Today we received our paper copy of our I800 provisional approval!  I called on Thursday just to check on it and the officer told me she completed it that morning and then it came in the mail today!  Woohoo!!  An I800 is an application to classify an adoptee as an immediate relative.  So now I could use this approval letter to move on to the next step which was the DS230 which is Ranjit’s visa application.  HOW EXCITING!!  I asked this week what they thought our timeline would be.  I have a guidebook that tells us but since we slid in under the old guidelines but still have to do the paperwork of the new guidelines it’s hard to tell.  She said that we should hear about this 1-2 weeks after sending it and I’m hoping to send it on Monday after I have it reviewed.  If things go as planned, which you never can tell, we should be able to travel in 4-6 months.

We have been SO blessed as far as paperwork goes so far (well except having to start over!!).  We see so much of God’s hand guiding us to Ranjit.  We had to have another paper notarized today and Jack and I were talking about that.  We literally squeezed in and had it been two weeks later we would not have been able to be matched to our son.  If we didn’t have a friend who could notarize like crazy or if my grandmother hadn’t passed away which brought me home for a week and if we hadn’t lost the little boy in Ethiopia right when we did, we would not have been able to be where we are right now with this process.  From what I’ve read, with the new guidelines India is only excepting 100 families a month to be registered on there waiting list.  Our agency has staffed people in the late hours to try to register families right when they open it up and the spots are filled in 5 seconds because it is a worldwide registry.  We could be waiting months and months just to get registered and even then they would have no control over which orphanage we’d be assigned to or what child we’d be matched with.  I just know God has big plans for this little boy and for us and I can’t wait to see it unfold.

Thank you for praising and praying with us.  The next approval we’ll be waiting for is called an Article 5 if you’d like to pray specifically by name.  Should hear about it in 1-2 weeks.