We got our tavel dates yesterday and we are hurrily preparing to travel to Colombia to pick up our little boy. We will be leaving on June 13th! Yes, that is next Sunday! There are a lot of preparations to make this week, but I will try and post more of the details soon. God is good! And it is true that good things come to those who love Him and wait upon Him.

Thanks for all of the prayer and support! More information coming soon.

Awaiting His Coming,
Patrick & Mary Ann Mulvehill

Tayrona National Park, Colombia

We have finally reached the end of the USCIS paperwork, Cameron has been given permission to enter the United States as a citizen! This is the final approval (I-800) that we have been waiting for from the US Citizenship and Immigration services department. The application will now be sent to the National Visa Center and then cabled to the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia. After a few filings from our lawyer in Bogota, we should be set to travel in the next couple of weeks. We will let everyone know the exact dates as soon as we know.

In some ways we are feeling a sigh of relief that we made it through the past couple of months and are still being permitted to adopt Cameron. We truly believe it to be a God thing. Though we can’t understand the timing of it all, we know that we have to trust the One orchestrating the events of our lives.

Now we turn our attention to the next leg of our adventure, traveling to Colombia, South America. We are pretty much ready to go, but there are still a lot of details to be worked out in a very short period of time. We will need to make a day trip to Atlanta to get our travel visas from the Colombian Consulate. We thought we were going to have to travel to Miami or Chicago, but as it turns out, there is a Consulate in Atlanta that should be able to meet our needs.

In addition to travel visas, we will be getting everything together for our trip. Four to five weeks is a long time to be away from home. Thankfully, we are surrounded by wonderful, loving people who want to help in any way they can. My brother Dana has agreed to house/dog sit for us. Bama (our four year old English Springer Spaniel) is looking forward to spend some quality time with her uncle Dana. My parents, and several other dear friends, have offered to drive us to the airport (though as of right now, we are still not sure which airport we will be flying out from). So many of you have offered to help with travel expenses, and we know that the prayers have been continous. We are truly blessed to have so many friends and family that have helped us all along the way.

Thank you to everyone that helped get together the items that we need to have for Cameron once we arrive. We have had those suit cases packed for several weeks, but Mary Ann has gone through them again to make sure we have everything we need. All that is left will be to pack our own bags,…well, I mean “bag” since we only get one a piece without having to pay a small fortune to the airline for additional luggage. How in the world do you pack for a four week trip in one bag!?! Fun, fun.

Below is the list from the last update showing what has been completed and some adjusted dates (all still estimates at this point).

 

So please continue to pray that we get our travel dates this week and that everything else from this point on goes smoothly. We have all of the permissions we need from our government and the invitation from Cameron’s government to go and get him, so everything else should be formalities. Please pray that God will provide for all of our travel needs and for the preparations that need to be made in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support. God Bless!

Awaiting His Coming,
Patrick & Mary Ann Mulvehill

GREAT NEWS! OUR I-800A HAS BEEN APPROVED!!!

Through a series of events, our application landed on the desk of a very dear lady at the NBC who has been a tremendous blessing to us. We are very, very grateful to her! She will also be reviewing our I-800 and we are very thankful for that too. She is a HUGE blessing!

I have started and stopped this update several times this week. I kept waiting for good news and when some would come, bad news would follow close on its heals. It has been a roller coaster!

Since our last update, we have been frantically working to get our home study updated to meet Hague Convention standards. We found out after we filed the I-800a that our home study did not meet the necessary standards for a Hague adoption. Thankfully, our home study provider worked very hard, gathering all of the additional information for the home study. They turned around information in a day that should have taken several. It was amazing! Things like additional background clearances, psychological information, updated family information, and updated financial data all had to be added to the updated study.

The home study process is really an amazing process in itself. Everyone should go through something like it at least once just to the get a copy of the resulting mini-novel. When this is all said and done, the home study would make a great outline for the autobiography of our lives! Not sure it would make the New York top ten list, but it would be fun to work on.

So, where do thing stand? Here is a quick check list with some time lines that we are praying for. All of these dates are estimated, we hope things move faster than this.

Please continue to pray for us. The next several weeks will be interesting to say the least. Thanks for you continued prayers and support.

Awaiting His Coming,
Patrick & Mary Ann Mulvehill

Well okay. Now our adoption is officially a God-Sized task! I guess in some ways it has been from day one, but now it officially feels that way. For some reason I am more at peace with it being that way than just something I think we can do.

On Friday we were told that the home study we sent with our I-800a does not meet the standards required for a Hague Convention adoption. This is different from the information we got last Tuesday from our home study provider, but I guess we didn’t talk to the right person. Anyway, the home study provider is being very helpful in getting the home study rewritten to meet Hague standards. We are praying that this doesn’t hold us up too much.

We also discovered that in order to be eligible to adopt from a Hague Convention country we have to have 10 hours worth of training from an accredited Hague training source. Fortunately, this training is available online, so a few clicks and $100 dollars later, Mary Ann are cramming like we are in college. Were hoping to be finished with all of the training by the end of the weekend so that our home study agency can sign us off on the training for the I-800 filing.

So here is the big news. Talking with the adoption agency that is handling our post-adoption reporting, they have had clients that filed their I-800a and I-800 at the same time. They have also had clients that needed to do this and couldn’t. So the new God-Sized task is that we will be able to talk to someone at the National Benefits Center, which handles the processing of the I-800a and the I-800 applications, who will allow us to go ahead and file our I-800 with our updated home study. This could potentially be the time saving element that we need to ensure that we don’t lose the referral. We could potentially be approved by the end of April if we can find someone at the NBC who is willing to help us.

So here is the new prayer list:

• Pray that we get in touch with someone at the National Benefits Center who is willing to help us expedite our applications, allowing us to file them together.
• Pray that we get our home study updated quickly during this next week.
• Continue to pray that the ICBF won’t give up on us.
• Pray that we can continue to just trust God in this process and that the day will come when we will give Him the glory for the great things He has done!

Thank you for all of your prayers and support.

Awaiting His Coming,
Patrick & Mary Ann Mulvehill

We sure hope so. This week has been a very sad and difficult week. On Tuesday we learned that our paperwork was filed incorrectly. We had been told to file the USCIS paperwork under the Pre-Hague guidelines since we had started our adoption before the Hague convention went into effect. However, after several weeks of waiting on approval we were informed that we needed to file the I-800a instead. So we won’t be leaving today as we had hoped.

There was also a tragic accident at the school this week. A student passed away in a terrible car accident. It has been one of those weeks when you have to ask God the hard questions. “Why God?” Please say a prayer this week for the Dauphinee family.

So, we find ourselves in another holding pattern. The steps from this point will be the filing of the I-800a (done, minus another $900 dollars), the filing of the I-800, waiting for approval from the ICBF to travel, getting our visas, heading to Colombia. The miracle will be if it can all happen in the next 4 to 6 weeks. We really need it too.

Right now we are waiting for our I-800a approval to come back. We were able to send everything they need to approve us (home study, fingerprinting, etc), so hopefully we will hear back from them quickly. Once we get that approval we have to file an I-800 which is not supposed to take more than 30 days. We are praying that all of these approvals come back quickly. We don’t want the ICBF (the Colombian Agency who is responsible for Cameron) to give up on us.

Please pray for the following things:

• Pray that our I-800a will come quickly.
• Pray that we don’t have any problems or delays filing the I-800 once our I-800a approval comes back.
• Pray that the ICBF wouldn’t give up on us in the meantime. We waited six years for our referral, pray that they will give us the time we need to get our approvals and travel to them.
• Pray that God will meet every need financially for our travel.
• Pray for our sanity while we wait. It is very hard not to worry that things aren’t going to work out, even though we see God’s hand at every turn. Pray that we will have the faith to trust in a God who knows what is best for us and for Cameron.

Thank you for all of your prayers and support.

Awaiting His Coming,
Patrick & Mary Ann Mulvehill

Please know that your prayers are definitely making a difference! God did another miracle this last week that can only be attributed to His marvelous grace and your prayers!

Our adoption process has one unique twist that is not common to most adoptions, our adoption agency closed in December of 2009. We found out about the closing about a week before we got the news that we had been chosen to adopt Cameron. Because the agency (World Partners Adoption in Atlanta, Georgia) had walked us through the first half of the adoption, everything was good to move forward with the adoption. With the help of the previous director of WPA, we have been moving forward without problem.

Last week we discovered that the ICBF (the Colombian agency we are adopting through) needed a certified adoption agency to complete the post-adoption reporting required by the Colombian government. This newly discovered need sent me (Patrick) into a tail spin trying to find an agency that would handle this requirement. After two days of searching and contacting sixteen different agencies, we finally found a couple of agencies that were willing to help us. After evaluating the requirements of each agency and the additional cost of using a second agency ($1000+), we decided to get Bethany Christian Services, an agency out of Michigan, to help us with the necessary reporting.

We are very thankful that Bethany for their help in this matter. Just one more stressful rollor coaster ride for us. But it is just one more amazing way that God showed His mercy to us and reminded us that He is still in control. Thank you for your continued prayers.

So, where do things stand? Well, we are still waiting for our 171H approval form from the USCIS office in Atlanta. Once we have that we should get our invitation to travel. Then we can get our travel visas which will be from Chicago or Miami. After that, we should be off to Colombia. It is unlikely that we will have everything finished by April 9th, but we are still praying that it might happen.

Here is the updated prayer list:

• Pray that we get our 171H approval from the USCIS office.
• Pray that the approval gets filed at the US Embassy in Colombia quickly.
• Pray that we get our invitation to travel quickly.
• Pray that we can get our travel visas without any problems.
• Pray for Cameron, that he will be with us soon.

Thanks again for your continued support and prayers.

Awaiting His Coming,
Patrick & Mary Ann Mulvehill

Everything is still on track, but we really need your prayers. We found out today that everything is waiting on the I-171H approval form that will come from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Atlanta. According to the lawyer in Bogota, we need this piece of paper before we can travel to Colombia. The good news is, we are almost finished with the administrative portion of the process! They just need that final piece before they can offer the official invitation to travel.

We need a miracle. We need to get our approval soon. I have had personal contact with an officer of the USCIS and he has been very responsive to my requests for expedition. We are praying that this is a good sign and that everything will go quickly once they get our FBI clearance (which should arrive this week if all goes well). Please pray that everything goes smoothly and quickly with this process. If there are delays, it could delay our travel dates.

There is no question that this adoption process has been the most emotionally, spiritually, and even physically difficult process that we have every experienced. Both Mary Ann and I have lost family members to disease and death, experienced broken families as children, gone through the spiritual struggles of trying to know God’s will, and dealt with the pain and uncertainty of infertility, but I do not think there is anything like the peaks and valleys of the adoption process. It is like going through all of these things at once. Some days the news is good and you want to celebrate and some days think that maybe it is never going to happen. It is like having this promise from God, but it just never seems to come to pass. We have experienced at least two possible adoption situations that didn’t work out and years of failed infertility treatments. Sometimes the ups and downs of this roller coaster ride just seem like too much to handle.

Abraham had a promise from God, “I will make you a great nation.” But he went for years without seeing how God would fulfill that promise. Then when He did, God commanded him to kill the son that He had given him. I can’t imagine the full extent of the peaks and valleys Abraham experienced, but I am beginning to get the idea. We have prayed for a child for 14 years (as long as we have been married). God is giving us the desire of our hearts, but it is definitely coming in His time and according to His plan. We trust Him. We know He knows what is best for us.

The important thing is, whether Cameron is in our arms on April 13th or a week or two later, he is still going to be there. God provided a sacrifice for Abraham, He will provide our heart’s desire…in His time.

Thank you for your prayers and continued support. Please continue to pray for God to keep Cameron safe until he is in our arms.

Awaiting His Coming,
Patrick & Mary Ann Mulvehill

Well, the news of our travel dates has come with mixed emotions. Of course, we are thrilled to finally know when we will be leaving, but we had hoped to be with Cameron before his first birthday (March 31st). As it stands now, we will be flying to Bogota on April 9th and meeting Cameron for the first time on April 13th (our 14th year anniversary)!

As with every step in this process, this news also came with a few new twists. The first is the need to have our USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) approval before we travel. This is the document that allows us to bring Cameron back into the United Status and gives him his citizenship. We just overnighted the last piece of paperwork to them on Wednesday and they should be getting our FBI clearance by the end of next week. Our delayed travel date is giving them a little over 3 weeks to approve our application. I am still a little nervous about this process. We have e-mailed the USCIS office in Atlanta and are praying that they will help us by expediting the approval. Please pray with us that this comes quickly.

We knew that we would need visas to travel, however, we weren’t aware of the process that was required to secure the visas needed for adoption. It looks like we will be adding a trip to Miami, Florida to our list of things to do in order to get our travel visas. According to everything we have read, you have to apply for this special visa in person and you have to have already purchased your round trip plane tickets. We are still looking into it, so keep this process in your prayers. The good news is that the Colombian Consulate website says that the visa will only take 4 business days to process.

Our Current Needs:

1. Our USCIS application gets approved in time for us to leave.
2. We are able to find the best flights at the best price.
3. We can get our travel visas without any problems
4. We are able to raise the remaining travel funds (plus the additional Miami trip funds if needed)
5. Prayer for Cameron, that God will bless him and keep him safe.
6. Prayer for his foster family, that God would bless them for their loving care.

Thank you for all of your continued prayer and support.

Awaiting His Coming,
Patrick & Mary Ann Mulvehill

Well, we have done a number of yard sales in our day, but today’s sale tops them all. We began the day with lots and lots of stuff from our own home as well as a ton of things from the donations given by family and friends. We ended the day with $1600 dollars toward our travel expenses to Colombia! We are completely overwhelmed by the generosity of our community who were willing to shop and purchase items from the sale, not to mention the extra amounts that were donated above and beyond the sale prices. We serve a great God and are proud to live in a community where people see the importance of supporting your neighbors. Thank you to everyone who dropped by, shopped, and purchased at the sale.

We want to say a special thanks to everyone that donated items to the sale. We couldn’t have done it without your help.

Also we want to say a special thanks to the Fahning’s for their help during the day of the sale, and for helping with the clean up.

And we really couldn’t have made it through the day had it not been for the Maner family. They showed up to help me at 5 AM in the morning and stayed all through the day and for the clean up process! There is no question that Billy was our “yard sale diva” (for you Clean House watchers, you know this is a good thing)! He could sell just about anything at a great price! It was amazing to watch him work. The way he talked about some of the stuff, he had me wanting to buy it! We appreciate their help very much!

The proceeds from the sale have put us closer to raising the complete budget for the finalization of the adoption. We are looking forward to posting our travel date soon. We will never be able to say thank you enough to all of those that have had a part in this process.

Awaiting His Coming,
Patrick & Mary Ann Mulvehill