Thanks for joining in on our journey towards creating our forever family...

This is the place you can come to witness the adventures we experience as we adopt our child from the beautiful country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We hope you will come back often to learn about where we're at in the process, the culture of our child, our hopes and dreams, and to leave comments of encouragement.

Also, be sure to check out older posts by clicking on the link at the bottom of each page titled "older posts".

HOW OLD IS OUR PRECIOUS ASHA NOW???

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Thursday, January 15, 2009

A COURT DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN THE NEAR FUTURE...

We are truly grateful and appreciate all of the support we have received. All of you are so excited and want to know when we can finally bring Asha home to Canada. Many of you probably aren't too familiar with how the whole process works when adopting from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, so we thought we'd take the time to fill you in.

When you adopt from SVG, before your child is "officially" named as YOURS, certain guidelines must first be followed. After your child referral, an adoption board in St. Vincent must meet to sign papers to approve that we may in fact adopt and bring home a child from their country, to Canada. We spoke to our lawyer in St. Vincent and she said that the meeting is just a formality and that she expected the board to meet by the end of January. After the adoption board has met, our lawyer requests a court day. We found out today from our agency CAFAC that our lawyer in St. Vincent will be calling them with an official court date on Monday! Court is not the same here as it is there. In St. Vincent, court is primarily a time to authorize our paperwork with the stamp of approval from their government. With court being completed, that means we are one more step closer to bringing our little peanut home!

After court, the speediness of the process rests in the hands of immigration which is through the country of Trinidad. Many ask why we can't just bring her home after court. Well, in order to get approval to bring her to Canada, we need to wait for immigration to issue Asha an exit visa and her Canadian citizenship first. This can often be the most time consuming part of the whole process. We are hoping that immigration does not lose our paperwork and that her documents are processed through sooner than later. We have heard as well that by having a member of parliament contact the embassy in Trinidad, it can and has sped up the process. We have been in contact with our MP for our area and now just need to pray that things go smoothly from here on out.

So, hopefully Monday we will know the day of court and then it will all come down to immigration. Since we first saw Asha, we have known that she was ours and that she was chosen just for us by God. It drives us crazy to think that by next month we could technically be with her if we moved to St. Vincent for a couple months before her paperwork is processed through immigration. Either that or we could take a quick trip, pack her in our suitcase and fly right back...well we can dream...

Will keep you posted.

S. and D.

4 comments:

The Turgeon Expansion said...

Wonderful news!! I'm waiting with baited breath to see when your court date is :)

Ricki said...

Oh my goodness....my mom talks about you all the time, haha! They live in S'toon and she banks where either your mom or your husband's mom works. I have heard all about your sweet baby girl and how cute she is....and now that found your blog, I've seen the pictures for myself! Congrats on your little girl, I can't wait to hear when she gets to come home!
Ricki

Anonymous said...

Rhonda, I think waiting for court has been the most difficult thing yet. I know we will both feel so much more relaxed when that part of it is DONE!

Ricki - crazy! It truly is a small world. It is Scott's Mom...she works at the Royal Bank at the Goodwin location! Too funny that you heard about us because your mom heard about us because my mother in law talks about us!!! Congrats to you as well.

I truly wish both of you all the best and let me know when you hear word for a date to travel.

Love,

D.

Anonymous said...

Hi Des and Scott,

We are so anxious that all goes well and that Asha will be with you soon. In a Bible study I was at this week we talked about faith as seen in Abraham's life (Romans 4). May you be filled with that faith as you wait.

Love,
Carol Baerg