picked up

Our file has been delivered to actual people in Rwanda. Our agency staff will make a couple of copies and then take it to the government office in Rwanda. Whew.

no timelines ever again

Someone please remind me not to post potential timelines on my blog. Obviously even when I believe I have given enough cushion I am still way off. We paid to have our documents overnighted to Rwanda. One would think that this means that they can be where they need to be within 3 or 4 days. But o contrare! FDX has tried to deliver our package to our agency representative in Rwanda since last Thursday and have not been successful. Today was their third delivery attempt. My attempts at getting in touch with our casework on the stateside isn't going well either. I have called and emailed to tell them to let their Rwanda staff know that the package is available for pickup but am not getting a response from anyone. And... until our agency staff in Rwanda picks up the package and takes it to the Prime Minister's office in Rwanda nothing can be done. Frustrating! So...I am NOT giving a timeline. I will not say that I suspect our package should be on the Prime Minister's desk this week because clearly I have no clue :)

Flying to Rwanda

Buster and I are not flying to Rwanda... yet.. but our paperwork is!!! So, within the next 36 hours or so a picture of our family, along with our entire book of personal paperwork, will be hand delivered to the minister of family promotion in Rwanda. Hopefully things are running smoothly in their office and they can approve our file without too much delay. (although we are pretty used to delays at this point and if they happen they happen :) ). We've seen families get approval from the ministers office in as quick as three weeks and as long as three months, so we really have no idea about time frame. Once they approve our file then the orphanage gets to match us with children. Once they find a match they have to do various health tests etc., which can take a few weeks. Once all of that is completed they will send us our referral with pictures. When we accept the referral we have to then pass court (a lawyer will represent us) in Rwanda, and will travel a couple weeks later to get our baby(s).
We are so excited that our family picture is flying to Rwanda and look forward with great anticipation to getting to fly there ourselves... hopefully within the next 3-6 months!

Good News

Hi All... I only have a little bit of time but OUR FILE IS APPROVED!!!!! After nine weeks of waiting our file is officially complete from the embassy. It will be overnighted to our agency tomorrow and then overnighted to Rwanda on Monday. Hooray!!! What a process... it feels like we are finally on our way to getting our babies. Now two more hurdles. 1. Approval from the ministers office in Rwanda and 2. Pass Rwandan court AFTER we get our referral.

Yeah. God is good!

closer

Well... little by little our paperwork is nearing the great continent of Africa. The processing guy at the embassy had committed to pushing our paperwork through when it hit his desk again, (since they changed some policies after we had already submitted, which resulted in the long almost eight week delay for us). The dossier is now officially back on his desk and we're hoping he will indeed get it approved asap. But, of course, we are not holding our breath... (although it is a little like walking on pins and needles hoping that there are no more hurdles to cross before our dossier can cross the ocean on its way to Rwanda). Any timelines that we imagined are long gone and out the window. Now all we can do is pray for Rwanda and wait for God to ordain the next step.

no posting

Hi all,
Sorry about not posting anything for awhile. But, I decided to wait to post until we have some good news to share. Right now we are still in the middle of unending delays. I am hoping to post good news in the next couple of weeks.