Charleston & Visas!

Yesterday we had to take a pretty sudden trip to Charleston, South Carolina to be re-fingerprinted to update our 1-800 A (permission to bring an orphan into the US). We had to redo this because our adoption process has taken a little longer, and so this part of our paperwork had to be updated to keep us eligible to bring an orphan into the country. We have known for a couple months we would have to go back to Charleston. The fun part is, they don't tell you when you can go (you have to wait for an invitation) until it's time to go. 

So, as soon as we got our invitation, we dropped everything and went. We are trying to avoid delays due to holiday closures. It was also urgent that we get to Charleston right away, because updating our 1-800 A, is slowing down our I-800 (permission to bring a specific orphan, Michal into the US). 

We called the only number available for USCIS which is a national office somewhere and ask what the hours were for the Charleston office before we left Savannah yesterday. We also ask if there was a number to call the Charleston office directly…NO was the answer (our tax dollars at work)! We were told the office would be open until 4 PM. 

When we arrived at 3:20 PM the security officer told us the office had already closed at 3 PM… 

The security officer was kind enough to go and ask the people that do the fingerprinting if they would be willing to let us come in, and by the grace of God they were willing! So, we were able to complete our fingerprinting and paperwork yesterday!! Woo hoo!!

While we were in Charleston, we decided to take advantage of the Tanger Outlet Mall's. We bought some scratch and dent luggage for a pretty good price!

Then today, I arrived home to find a FedEx package on my front door that contained our Visas for China!

We should be able to check in to find out about our next layer of paperwork, which is contacting the national Visa Center by at least this Friday (we could have checked sooner if it were not for Thanksgiving closing things down).

We have to contact the National Visa Center (NVC) to get the numbers we need to complete our DS – 260 (Application for Michal's Visa). Then all of that will be sent to Guangzhou, China!

Please continue to pray! 

Please don't forget the iPad raffle (drawing is December 6th at The Sycamore church).Tickets are $10 each. 

Also, the T-shirt sales. 

Shirts are $15 each. 

Thank you and God bless!