Fingerprinted!

Today we had our fingerprinting appointment at the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) office in Grand Rapids.   We are one step closer to submitting our dossier and getting on the waiting list!  Our fingerprints are sent to the FBI for clearance in order to get our Immigration paperwork approved.  We are hoping to get the approval in the mail in the next 3-4 weeks.  At that point we will put a few finishing touches on our dossier and send it in.  We love making progress in this sometimes long & daunting process.  The end of the paperwork is in close sight...which means the beginning of a long wait.


At this point we do not have any idea how long the wait times will be to receive a referral.  With all the changes that are going on around the Ethiopian adoption system, our agency (Bethany Christian Services) is doing what they can to keep us informed.  They are not able to give approximate wait times until families go through the modified process - the process seems to be constantly changing. We received an email today stating that the Ethiopian court must obtain a letter from the police, hospital, family, etc. proving the orphan's status.  We think this is a positive step in cleaning up some of the problems in the system and hope and pray this will be beneficial for the children.  


I follow several blogs of families adopting from Ethiopia.  It is encouraging to see the process working and moving forward in many cases during this time of unknowns.  Families are currently getting referrals, court dates, Embassy appointments and bringing children to their forever homes.  We are dreaming of that day!