Good News & Bad News

Thank you thank you to all of you who continue to ask about Allie and pray for her safe homecoming. We received quite a bit of news today regarding her situation and wanted to share this with all of you. As time has been going by, we have becoming increasingly worried about the situation and why there has been such a big delay in getting her home. The good news is that our agency reassured us today that they continue to expect that she will get her paperwork eventually and will be coming home to join her family. The bad news is that right now it's looking like it may be early June or later. That seems like a long time away to us right now since we thought she'd be home in April, but we are very relieved that things are still expected to get processed as they should.

Basically the Korean government has to approve her to travel and issue her passport and visa before they can book her a flight home. They have slowed waaaay down on this process (we are not sure why) and all the orphanges and agencies are upset with their government right now because of this. So we wait as patiently as we can for them to get around to doing these things for us. Our agency told us today that the agency we work with in Korea, which is called Korean Social Services (KSS), gave them an estimate today that they thought she could be ready to leave Korea in early June. So between now and then they have to get her approval, passport and visa. There are several babies in this same group and same situation with her. Our agency told us that we are very fortunate that she should be coming "soon" because there are some families who will have to wait until next year for their babies to come home, since they only issue so many passports a year. Luckily, Allie is in the group that should receive one.

We asked if it would expedite the situation if we went to Korea to get her and were told no, absolutely in no way would that bring her home sooner, and in fact they probably wouldn't allow us to do that. So they are still planning to escort her to the Detroit airport when the time comes. So we continue to wait. We are worried that the Korean government has all the power at this point, but are very thankful that our agency continues to be very hopeful despite the delay. They also told us that early June is just a guess until some of the paperwork starts to get approval. In early June she'll be 11 months old; I am very hopeful that she arrives before her first birthday June 28th.

We appreciate your continued support. One of the hardest parts of all of this has been our lack of control in the situation, but we continue to have faith that God has a plan for Allie and that she will come home when the time is right. We are also sad that we are missing first teeth, possibly first steps, first words, etc. It's also been heartbreaking to see just how excited Ben and Sam are to finally have their sister home. But we believe that all this extra waiting will just make it that much sweeter when she is finally in our arms!!! We will continue to keep you posted.
Love,
Jen