Greetings All Loved Ones of Micah,
This past Thursday, Albert and I, along with our immigration attorney Christine Poarch, received another orphan petition denial from USCIS. This left us shaking our heads because Christine had requested that our case be held into abeyance until we received the Guatemalan judge's order. We do have the documents from the hearing, declaring Micah adoptable, but the judge's order has yet to be received. This usually takes three days after the hearing but for some reason we still do not have this document. So now USCIS claims we have 30 days to file another Motion with an additional fee, this will be the fourth one we will have paid. Oh, did I mention the Motion has to be filed at the Embassy in Guatemala along with the fee? Hopefully, Christine can get the fee waived since USCIS was not suppose to adjudicate our case until we heard back from the Guatemalan court.
Let us emphasis that Micah is an abandoned orphan in every since of the term. Albert and I are the only people who have never abandoned this child. We are the only ones who continue to support him, making sure his needs are met. We have been paying his foster mother each month, consistently via Western Union since November 2008. Whenever we visit, we bring him clothes, jackets, pajamas, socks, shoes, underpants, tshirts, books, toys, and even a potty chair, to make sure the money we send for his foster mother does not have to go for these necessities. We want that money to go for food and to help pay for his shelter. Whenever we visit, we take Micah to a wonderful pediatrician who gives him a checkup, just like the checkups my three other children received at his age. At 21 months, we took him to a fabulous pediatric dentist in Guatemala City, where he filled and capped 10 of his cavities. When Micah suddenly falls ill, like children tend to do, his foster mother calls us, so we can call our good friend Luis who will go and pick them up and take Micah to receive medical treatment. We have made sure Micah has received and now is caught up on all of his immunizations. We are explaining this information to all of our friends and family because we want everyone to understand that we are the sole financial supporters of this child. We do not want any gratitude or recognition or pats on the back, Micah is our precious child and we love him dearly. He was relinquished into adoption at 22 days old. His birth mother has not inquired, nor tried to locate him. At two years four months of age, we have never abandoned him. We have always provided for him and made ourselves available to him and his needs; Micah thrives today as a result, and that is blessing enough. Dear loved ones, these are the facts.
Sometime within the next week, we should have our letters written. All we ask you to do is to sign the letters and mail them, and to please forward them to your family and friends. We appreciate everyone's continued thoughts and prayers. Our family lives for the day that Micah is home with us. Micah has a village, right here in Jacksonville, Florida, where he will be adored and cherished by many. We will be in contact soon. God Bless!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Monday, October 5, 2009
Micah IS Adoptable!!!
This morning, Albert, Micah, and I appeared in a Guatemalan Courtroom, along with a few other key players. Albert and I were both physically ill as we waited to go inside the small courtroom where the hearing was being held. The bottomline, Micah is an adoptable child and the judge stated that we could be through with the Guatemalan side before Christmas!
Now it is up to the US to identify him as an abandoned orphan, which the Guatemalans did today, so we pray this is enough!!! We will be in contact as soon as we receive the thumbs up from our immigration attorney about our letters to Secretaries Clinton and Napolitano.
Prior to this meeting, our US attorney had put us in contact with a translator here in Guatemala, Carolyn Minera. I had spoken with her three times before meeting her yesterday. She is my new bff! This woman is a certified court translator AND has dual citizenship with the US, her mother is from New Orleans. So, she and her children´s English were as good as ours! Not only that, but we discovered that our families are very similar. Carolyn, her husband, along with their three children (2 girls and a 2 year old son) picked the three of us up yesterday and took us to this beautiful mall to a section in Guatemala City we had never been. The mall was as nice, if not nicer than The Avenues Mall in Jax or The Mall in St. Matthews in Louisville. And we could not get over the American influence! Half of the stores were American, plus the shirts had English-American phrases. Micah had a ball watching all the activity, especially the Karate demonstration given by several children in the center of the mall, their routine choreographed to American music! We took him to the Lemon Tree, a little cafe with a toddler´s jungle gym, equipped with slides and hundreds of yellow and green plastic balls! Poppa and he slid down the slides and threw the balls at each other, I´m not sure who had the best time. There was also an Applebee´s, a huge IMAX theatre, Sears, Radio Shack, I swear, if I did not know I was in Guatemala, I could swear I was in Jacksonville, Florida! Micah, Albert, and I had such a wonderful time together thanks to the warmth and genorosity of Carolyn and her family!
It finally looks like our prayers will be answered. Even though, we have embarked upon a horendous journey, we have encountered some genuine and amazing souls. We could have never gotten through these past two plus years without the love, prayers, enthusiasm, and moral support from our family, friends, and colleagues! We love you ALL!! GOD IS GREAT!
Now it is up to the US to identify him as an abandoned orphan, which the Guatemalans did today, so we pray this is enough!!! We will be in contact as soon as we receive the thumbs up from our immigration attorney about our letters to Secretaries Clinton and Napolitano.
Prior to this meeting, our US attorney had put us in contact with a translator here in Guatemala, Carolyn Minera. I had spoken with her three times before meeting her yesterday. She is my new bff! This woman is a certified court translator AND has dual citizenship with the US, her mother is from New Orleans. So, she and her children´s English were as good as ours! Not only that, but we discovered that our families are very similar. Carolyn, her husband, along with their three children (2 girls and a 2 year old son) picked the three of us up yesterday and took us to this beautiful mall to a section in Guatemala City we had never been. The mall was as nice, if not nicer than The Avenues Mall in Jax or The Mall in St. Matthews in Louisville. And we could not get over the American influence! Half of the stores were American, plus the shirts had English-American phrases. Micah had a ball watching all the activity, especially the Karate demonstration given by several children in the center of the mall, their routine choreographed to American music! We took him to the Lemon Tree, a little cafe with a toddler´s jungle gym, equipped with slides and hundreds of yellow and green plastic balls! Poppa and he slid down the slides and threw the balls at each other, I´m not sure who had the best time. There was also an Applebee´s, a huge IMAX theatre, Sears, Radio Shack, I swear, if I did not know I was in Guatemala, I could swear I was in Jacksonville, Florida! Micah, Albert, and I had such a wonderful time together thanks to the warmth and genorosity of Carolyn and her family!
It finally looks like our prayers will be answered. Even though, we have embarked upon a horendous journey, we have encountered some genuine and amazing souls. We could have never gotten through these past two plus years without the love, prayers, enthusiasm, and moral support from our family, friends, and colleagues! We love you ALL!! GOD IS GREAT!
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