APPROVED!!!!!!!!!!

I just got off the phone with our USCIS Hague Adoption Officer and WE ARE APPROVED!!!!!!!!!  He said our approval should be in the mail tomorrow!  I am soooooo glad I called!!!!!!!

SO What Happens Next?
Our paperwork will move on to the National Visa Center! Our officer will mail our approval to the National Visa Center by 2nd Day UPS Air. However, the approval isn't always mailed out the same day it's approved, so applications can take up seven days to arrive at NVC. Upon receiving our approval, the National Visa Center (NVC) will enter our information into their computer system.  Within 1-3 business days, the NVC will "cable" (basically emailing/sending electronically) our file to the US Embassy in Guangzhou, China. This is approval of our visa petition.  Upon doing this, the NVC will then mail us a letter stating that our petition has been forwarded to the Embassy. Unfortunately, this letter can take up to a few weeks to arrive in the mail. Once the NVC letter gets to our agency, they will deliver this letter to the US consulate in China. Once the consulate has our NVC letter, they will issue your Article 5 in 2-3 weeks. The Article 5 is the consulate pre-approving our boys for an immigrant visa. Our agency will have a courier pick up the Article 5 and take it to the CCAA (China Center of Adoption Affairs).  Then the CCAA receives the Article 5 and issues our Travel Approval. This takes around 2-4 weeks.  Once TA is issued, our agency will ask the consulate for an appointment date and will make travel arrangements for us to go get our boys and bring them home!!!!!!! So they are saying that May travel is the most likely.

Unfortunately we still have to get the money in place and we have a lot going on in May- prom, graduations and recitals so it looks like June travel is most likely for us.  It will be pretty cool to have our boys on Father's Day - one year after this journey began. 

 

A Picture of our Family

 

ABBA FUND

Many of our friends and family have asked how we could afford 4 adoptions in 5 years and the truth is that it is a strain to be able to come up with all the needed funds in such a short time frame. God has blessed us in amazing ways and He has given us His assurance that what He has called us to do He will provide for us to be able to do. The last few months have certainly stretched our faith as we paid a big round of fees in December when we sent our paperwork to China and then another big round just one month later when our Letter of Acceptance came from China. And the past few weeks there have been US filing fees and visa fees. And now we wait for the US final approvals so that China can issue travel approval in the next 6-8 weeks and then we will need the $10,600 donation to the 2 orphanges as well as all the airline and hotel costs. So after much prayer we decided to send in an application to the ABBA Fund which grants interest-free loans to adoptive families to help with the upfront costs of bringing children home. It was a humbling experience asking for help, but we trust that God will use this to His glory. Please pray that they can help us or that God will provide in some other way so that we will not have to delay travel to bring our sons home. Thank you for your prayers for our family!