We are currently in the process to adopt our son, Cristian Javier, from Guatemala. As you know, the international adoption process with Guatemala has recently seen difficult times and has left many families and would-be adoptive children waiting to be united. We are one such family and Javier is one such baby boy. However, as we write this letter to you, we are no longer awaiting the Guatemalan government, but the U.S. government.

We began the process to adopt Javier (by submitting form I-600A) in February 2007 and were approved for this adoption in July 2007 (by receipt of form I-171H, valid for 18 months from date of issuance). Now, 17 months after filing that first form, we remain in process to adopt our son.

Currently residing in Hong Kong (while my husband pursues a PhD), we arrived in the U.S. on July 8 for a 6-week stay—during which time we were expecting to make a trip to Guatemala to pick up our son. We found out on July 9 that the U.S. embassy in Guatemala had emailed us requesting an update on our fingerprints, and the subsequent issuance of a new I-171H form, indicating the updated fingerprints. This, they said, was the only remaining artifact necessary before we could travel and meet with them to be united with our son and bring him back home with us!!! We went as early as possible, on July 10, 2008 and had our biometrics (i.e. fingerprints) redone. This involved writing a letter of request for one free update on fingerprints. On this letter, we placed our current Hong Kong address. The attending officer looked at both our letter and our file and changed this address to align with our prior U.S. address. We didn’t think anything of it and went on to be fingerprinted. We then emailed an adjudications officer with USCIS, Louisville office to ask if she could please expedite processing on our case, as our son was ready to pick up—awaiting only the updated I-171H, detailing updated fingerprints. In this email, we asked if she could please send the updated form to our current U.S. mailing address. She replied in email format asking about our prior mailing address and if we were still living at that residence. We replied that we were not. Finally, we received an email from her saying that we would need an updated home study in order to continue. On July 15, 2008 we went into the USCIS office to meet with adjudication officer. We tried to explain our situation of currently residing outside of the U.S., and while in the U.S. staying with and receiving mail at our parents’ address. She basically told us our case was out of her jurisdiction and should now be in the hands of the U.S. embassy in Hong Kong. She said they would file our case away, not throw it away, but it was basically no longer the concern of her office. We had no idea that our adoption process would go on for 17+ months and that our home study, which is actually a document that details who a family is, not merely the physical layout of a home, would be invalidated by our moving. We were unaware that this would disable us from adopting our little boy who is now nearly 11 months old; we received his referral when he was just over one week old. He has been a part of our lives, though not physically living with us, for nearly 11 months. He has a new birth certificate and passport with our family name, Case. He is awaiting our arrival in a children’s home in Solola, Guatemala. We want nothing more than to go and pick him up and end this very arduous process in order to start our lives together! We plead with you to pray on our son’s behalf.

Our request of you: please pray on our behalf and that of our son. As stated above, we have spoken with and met with the USCIS adjudications officer. Our case is currently in her hands, and that of her superiors. We ask you to pray that God will intervene in our son and our family’s situation. Please pray that God will use Congressman John Yarmuth and Senator Mitch McConnel to be our advocates convincing the INS to update our case with the new biometrics, concurrently issuing a new and updated I-171H form. Once this form is in the hands of the U.S. embassy in Guatemala, we can bring our son home. We are not underhanded people; in fact, our honesty in this process is what has us in this situation in the first place! Please pray the USCIS officials understand that we are the same family they approved nearly one year ago! Our approval still stands. Changing homes does not mean changing values, beliefs, character, and ability to parent children, all aspects which a home study is designed to assess.

On my mom’s birthday we headed out to Huber’s Orchard for dinner.  The kids enjoyed the weather and the scenery (adults too).

Pics of Ezri enjoying Mom & Dads backyard, she can’t get enough of the “puppies”.  Also some pics of a vist to my (Jason) Grandma’s house and my good friend Brian’s to meet his son Cooper.

Ezri and her cousins head up to Iroquois Park to enjoy the new playground with water fun.

After an hour to and an hour in the airport in Hong Kong, a 5 hour flight to Korea, a 7 hour layover in the Korean airport, a 12 hour flight to Chicago, an UNEXPECTED 12 hour layover in the Chicago airport and another 1 hour flight to Louisville, we finally made it.  We all had many breakdowns along the way, felt and looked like zombies upon arrival, but we’re here and very grateful that we made it safely.  Our expert opinion is to stay as far away from Chicago O’Hare airport as possible and DO NOT fly American Airlines, it seems like they’re hiring anyone with a GED these days and cancelling flights with little regard for their customers.  Anyways, we got to fly from Korea next to a couple adopting a 10 month old Korean baby boy, so Melanie and I were watching and learning, trying to see how Ezri reacted to the baby.  She did good but somehow she’s confused, “SHARE!” with “Let go, it’s mine, don’t even think about touching it.”  We heard from the US embassy in Guatemala yesterday and they want us to get our fingerprints updated as soon as possible, so we hope to get an appointment made, hopefully sometime this week.  Well Ezri loves her grandparents “puppies” and enjoyed chasing the dogs around the house.  She also basked in all the attention from her grandparents and playing with some of her cousins for the first time.  I’ll try to post some pictures soon.  Thanks for checking in, the Cases

We’re wrapping up preparations to unite with our son! Things are quite busy and intense around here. We can always use prayer. We’ll add the health update as soon as we get it. Peace, Cases

So, we are a little anxious with this big trip to the U.S. coming up….lots to get ready for leaving here and bringing there….for a long 6-week holiday.  We are also excited…but when we finally hit American soil, particularly Louisville soil, we will have crossed a big hurdle in our trip:  getting from here to there successfully!  We leave here at 12:30am (midnight) on a Sunday to fly to Korea….spend 7 hours in the Seoul airport…fly to Chicago…round up our belongings and fly to Louisville…about a 26 hour trip…makes for a little anxiety flying with a free-spirited toddler who loves to run and get around!  But we’ll get there.

We’ve had some fun events over the past week:  Saturday was the opening day of Kung Fu Panda in Hong Kong; the IMAX theatre was showing it in English so we took Ezri.  She started shaking a bit when the screen lit up and the music started, so we moved to the top seats…still great seats.  She watched every minute of the movie and really enjoyed it, exclaiming, Bear!…Kitty…Bear! from time to time (she called the raccoon a kitty).  On Tuesday Ezri and I went for a play date to meet friends at a toy store called WiseKids.  They have an amazing playroom(s) area for kiddos and you can go to a given session of play there.  We took Sabrina (15 months) and Ezri (nearly 19 months) and the girls had a ball!  It was overload, really….so many things to see and play with and only 1hour 15 minutes to do it in.  They had a multi-sensory room with cool fiber-optics, dress-up, large block area, train-track table, a beach-fun area, a ‘house’ set-up, and even a sushi restaurant with everything mini…even costumes, so the girls could play chef!  Ezri wasn’t into the hat, but Sabrina wore one and looked soooo cute!  Then, today, Wednesday we went for a play date with Ezri’s good friend, Ka Ka (short for Kaitlyn).  We went to their house and played, swam, ate lunch, and made snow cones and played some more.  The girls play really well together.

On Javier, we should have an update and new photos soon.  Good news is that his new birth certificate has been issued and the passport has been applied for and they should have that soon, if not already.  We now await a second round of DNA testing and then a date for our appointment with the embassy.  We’ll keep you posted.  Also, several of the kids from Javi’s orphanage have chicken pox….so keep those babies that are sick and those that are well…and those caring for them in your prayers, please.

Well, just wanted to update you on the goings-on with us.  We depart for the U.S. in 4 short days!  Please keep our travel in your prayers!

—Melanie, for the Cases