We are so excited!! The Golden Ticket has arrived!! I went to the mailbox yesterday, as I do most days, kind of hoping but not allowing my heart to really "go there"; and right on top of the stack was a letter from the Department of Homeland Security. I ripped it open, expecting to find a certificate with fancy font, bright letters, flashing lights, etc. but instead it was this strange little letter stating "Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition". Huh?!? Is this IT?? So I called our agency, and YES! this is what we've been waiting for! We thought it would take about 3 months; but it only ended up taking 2. So cool! SO, now we have all we need to move forward.
On Monday I'll take all of our notarized documents to the Department of the Great Seal (yeah, that's really a government office .. who knew??) to have all our documents sealed. Then we'll bundle them all up, and overnight them to The Assistant Stork (I'm not making this up) in Washington DC who will hand deliver them to the Ethiopian Embassy & the Department of State to be translated & authenticated. After that, our documents are sent back to our agency, to be sent to Ethiopia. Surprisingly, this whole process takes only about 1 week.
So, the bottom line is this, in about 2 weeks time we'll be officially waiting for our referral (the picture, medical history, etc of our child). The next step will be finding out WHO he is! Our part of the work is almost complete, and we'll be waiting for THE moment everyone talks about. The picture!
It's all becoming very real. It's all a little scary. But it's exciting too. We're moving forward and praying with each step.
We'll keep you posted!
6 comments:
Paul and Jessica,
So excited for you! This past week I have been checking your blog several times a day waiting for this, thinking that with patterns I've been seeing it would happen in October. Whew! You made it. God is good!
Congratuations paul and jess - very exciting news!!! :)
Congrats!!! I remember that day- so exciting!
Kelli
Congrats!! We will be praying everything goes smoothly!
such awesome news... we cannot wait to meet the newest hoekstra either!! we'll keep praying for him and all of you...
love, delynn
Paul, Jessica, Noah and Ella - what GREAT news!!! The Lord is watching over all of you as well as your new son. This next week will hold lots of anticipation upon the arrival of your next package. Hopefully, you will be able to sleep!!! Thanks for the news and we look forward to next update! Tom and Suzy
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