..::I Swear We're Coming Home One Day::..

I am going to start with the good news because it outweighs the bad news! The good news is that God has blessed us with an amazing little guy, Daniel, that after almost 4 years, we can now officially call our son. Daniel is a “God send” and has changed our lives in awesome and crazy ways. The other piece of good news is that God has blessed us with a community of family and friends in the US and Uganda that have surpassed any expectations we could ever have hoped for by supporting us financially, praying for us daily, giving us free places to stay, allowing us to borrow cars for months on end, and throwing enormous garage sales in order to support our transition back to the US, just to list a few!!

Now for the bad news…

As many of you know, today we had an appointment at the Embassy to file for Daniel’s immigrant visa and unfortunately found out that we will not be getting it anytime soon.

I am going to back up a little and explain a few minor details about our situation. When we initially decided to adopt Daniel, we were planning on doing an “in-country adoption” which requires us to reside in Uganda for 3 years or more with Daniel so our legal guardianship order, which allowed us to immigrate with Daniel to the US did not allow us to adopt in the US. After our petition for a green card earlier this year was denied we needed to come back to Uganda to finalize the adoption.

Four months after arriving we finally had our court date and our adoption was finalized. We were so blessed by God’s perfect timing with this because we received our official adoption decree from the courts a day before the courts went on their month long holiday! We were so excited that we had passed all of the hassle dealing with the Ugandan court system and we were confident that we were only weeks away from coming home. We knew that dealing with the US Embassy would be much more straight forward. We just needed to get an appointment, file our paperwork and then wait the 2-3 weeks that it normally takes to receive Daniel’s visa.

In our blog post earlier this month I wrote, “The one good thing is that the remaining paperwork will all be filed through the US Embassy and if they say it will take 2 weeks…it will take 2 weeks!” Well, this week we found out that the form we need to file for Daniel can no longer be adjudicated on outside of the US and all cases must be submitted directly to USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) with a money order or check from an American institution (which we don’t have here) in order to process the paperwork. The really bad news… Since last year, the processing time for this service, has been 10 months! To think that we were so close, only to find out that we could potentially be here another 10 months has been a bit overwhelming.

Let me tell you…this has been a week full of tears. And when I say tears, I mean the uncontrollable, can’t catch your breath, feel like you are going to be sick, kind of tears. You know, the really good ones! So what is next…we have no idea! We have been so amazingly blessed through this entire process and we are confident that God is not going to just stop blessing us because we have to extend our trip. We are also confident that God’s timing is perfect and whatever He is planning for our family’s future must be pretty big, because He is pruning us like crazy right now. We are reminded every day when we look at Daniel that there is nothing we would not do for our little guy (who is not so little anymore!) and as long as we are faithful to our call to be his parents, we know that God will continue to bless our family. Our biggest prayer right now is that God would be incredibly clear as to what path we should take as a family as we move forward and that God would speak to both  Jamesdon and me in the same way so that we are united in whatever decision is made.

Our choices as of now look something like this…

A). We continue to allow God to bless our family financially through our friends and family and church community.
B). Coryn returns to the US by herself, leaving the boys behind, (even typing that makes me feel sick to my stomach) and return to the job that God has blessed us with at home.

As you can imagine, it is an incredibly difficult decision to make! I am sure any parent could relate, just take a second and think about it!

As of now, Jamesdon and I are on two different sides of the fence. I have an overwhelming sense that I need to go home to work in order to provide for our family, which makes me feel like a horrible mother (tears again, ahh, because what mother would choose to leave her children behind). Although I feel like I should be fighting to stay with my family, I feel like my job at home is a blessing from God and it gives us the ability to provide for our family. Jamesdon has a completely different mindset and it is that God has blessed us so much (we were literally praising Him with happy tears a week ago for all that He continues to do) and that we should not limit what He is capable of doing, both financially, and with the process as a whole. Jamesdon has also had an overwhelming peace about this whole situation, definitely standing firm in God’s word and  reminding me of how big God is in the middle of my meltdowns! Let me say that although we are on opposite sides of the fence, it is not dividing us! We have had some awesomely honest (and emotional) conversations the past week and if anything it is bringing us closer together. We just know that this is not a decision that we can agree to disagree on because what follows will have its challenges and we need to be united when it comes time to face those challenges.

As for now, we have to get our visas renewed to stay in Uganda, which may involve a trip to Kenya! My parents have offered to fly Jamesdon out for his sister’s wedding the second week in February (they also offered to fly me home for my mom’s 60^th birthday cruise, but I declined for the simple fact that I cannot leave my boys for a week or two knowing that I may have to turn around and leave them for an unknown period of time soon after.)  After a few days of fasting and praying, we still do not have any answers on how to proceed beyond that time, but God has given me much more peace with the situation. 

As you may expect, we earnestly ask that you continue to pray alongside us as we seek what God would have us do next and for increasing peace during this time!

If you’d like to unite with us in this undertaking you may send your financial blessings to: C/O Andrew Galbreath 354 Avocado Street #16 Costa Mesa, CA 92627 Please make checks payable to "Jamesdon and/or Coryn Kissling"