After our embassy debacle, in which our representative in the Congo failed to drop off our paperwork, we were hopeful that our agency would remedy the situation with a heavy dose of apologies and persistence.

I was told more than once that our paperwork had indeed been dropped off, only to find out later that it hadn’t been.

Finally, I believe that the paperwork was dropped off. Truthfully, I’m not even positive when because I heard several different stories, but it has been done.

Ordinarily, interview appointments are scheduled 4 days after the paperwork dropoff. Once the interview appointments are complete, the final investigation into whether the children qualify for visas takes place, and then visas are issued. Then we get our visas to travel, which takes about a week, and go!

Unfortunately, our interview appointment (which was missed on June 18) was not rescheduled for 4 DAYS after our paperwork dropoff. It was scheduled 4 WEEKS after the paperwork dropoff — the LATE paperwork dropoff. This was after waiting for 7 weeks for the first set of appointments. We were sent to the back of the line again due to no fault of our own.

And now, rather than visas taking 1-2 weeks to be issued, they are now taking much longer. It’s hard to even give an estimate because many have not been processed in the last month, but it’s looking like it’s going to be at least 6 weeks after the embassy interview appointment. 

So, 3 weeks ago, we were planning on travelling the second week of July. Now it’s looking like we’ll be lucky to travel by September. Maybe even October.

Our agency is trying to get our appointments moved up, as well as the appointments of some others that are in exact same shoes. We’ve all been waiting nearly a year to get our children home. We’re tired of them being in an orphanage. We’re tired of paying hundreds of dollars in monthly fees for them to get substandard care. We’re tired of reaching every stage and being told that it’s going to take longer than expected. Would you pray for all of us and our children? We need divine intervention, probably more than you know.