Moving Forward

One step closer! We got our fingerprints done and approved last Wednesday and while we were there we were able to put in a request for them to expedite the paperwork. Because the final piece of paper we need before we can get our travel dates is the all important I-171H which is issued at a later date - basically whenever immigration gets around to it. The way things were trending with our local office, it was taking 3+ months for them to process the I-171H after fingerprints.
After almost a week of not hearing anything back about the expediting process we decided enough was enough and called our congressman. That was on Wednesday and they said we would have a call back yesterday, which we did not get, so Mike called again today, but the lady was out of the office. With in 15 minutes of him leaving a message for her we received a call directly from the head "Orphan Officer" in our local immigration office. He just needed to verify that we had indeed paid for our processing fee and he said he would be processing our paperwork this afternoon or Monday! That should put the I-171H in our hands sometime early next week. Yeah! As long as we get that by next Friday our agency said we will most likely be traveling Oct. 14th. We will be traveling with a group of 8 other families as it stands right now.
A few more days of wait and see, but we are so much closer now! What a difference a day makes. I was pretty down yesterday about the lack of answers and just frustrated with the whole system. But I guess if we didn't have all of these delays and discouragements along the way there wouldn't be any reason for God to show up. And show up He has all along the way. So many times I didn't think I could go another day, and He would show up with exactly what I needed to keep moving forward.
When I chose the name of this blog I did not have any idea how accurate it would be. We have had to walk by faith every step of the way, never knowing timelines, resources, who, how, where, or why. All I can say is every single step has been worth it. Painful, uncomfortable, scary, crazy, exciting, wonderful and horrible all at once. I wouldn't change a single minute of the last 3 1/2 years.
Thanks so much for all of the prayers they have helped to get us this far. Don't quit now - we still need all of the prayers we can get. Tune in next week!:-)