Friday, October 23, 2009

Hopeful News!

This is our one year anniversary of leaving to get the kids from Liberia. It also is the day that we heard from the USCIS office in Accra, Ghana, about Abraham's case. The last we'd heard was in June that the file had been sent from Washington, D.C., USCIS office to either Rome or Accra.

Ruth Lincoln from the Office of Children's Issues has been a great help tracking down the case and reported that it was in Accra about a week ago. We then sent the file with the doctor's evaluations of Abraham's Mercy Ship xrays to the Accra USCIS office since they were reviewing the Consular's denial of his visa. Today we heard back that we needed to update the paperwork to more accurately reflect his age i.e. a sibling group under the age of 16. Then we need to update the I-600A with the Jacksonville USCIS office and get the updated paperwork to Accra to "reflect approval to adopt a child of Abraham's age".

SO...I THINK this means that they intend to approve his visa!!! Now we need to continue to lobby Liberia to open their borders so we can bring Abraham home with the other 30 or so kids that already have their adoptions completed.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers. We're getting closer....closer than we were all year!

In the meantime, Abraham has been with a foster family attending school in Liberia. He is having a struggle since he is so far behind his class in his schoolwork. We know he is still hopeful that he will join us in America, though, so keep praying for him and for the officials to get him home.