Court Documents Coming In!

On Monday, we received the formal adoption document stating that we are now officially the parents of Samuel! It was SO exciting to read through this and the other documents to see it all with our own eyes! Among other things, the document reads:

In the Superior Court of Judiacature
In The High Court of Justice
Accra, Ghana

Inter-Country Adoption-Order

It is herein certified that under and by virtue of the Children’s Act of 1998 (Act 560) and the relevant regulations made thereunder, the child Samuel Agyei be adopted by the said Jacob William Sullivan and Janel Christine Sullivan as their lawful child for all purposes whatsoever legal and equitable.

Name of child after adoption: Samuel Agyei Sullivan (!!!!!!!!)

Can I get a Wah-hooooooooo?!?!?! Come on, let me hear you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am just praising God for this today!

So, we still have one more document that we are waiting on, and that is Samuel’s new birth certificate that will reflect his new last name of Sullivan. :) I just love how that sounds….Samuel Sullivan. Normal processing time to receive this document from Ghana is 2-3 months. But, there is a faster option available in which we can pay extra to have the document expedited which would get it to us in a few days. We are looking into going that route.

After we receive Samuel’s new birth certificate we then can file our last and final document that we need approval on before travel. That document is titled the I-600 form: Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative. This form is filed with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). This form will classify Samuel as our immediate relative and allow him to enter the United States (I just got goosebumps when I typed that!). We have already been approved by USCIS in that we are able to ‘furnish proper care to an orphan’ and this approval came by way of the I-600A form that we filed with USCIS at the beginning of our adoption journey. That form basically got us advanced approval and it also let USCIS know that we were planning on adopting, although a child hadn’t been identified for us at that time. Once we file this last form, it basically is notifying USCIS that we now have a child identified for our adoption and that we have all the proper court documents from his country regarding the adoption. Got it? For awhile I was getting so confused with these two forms, but now I think I have it all straightened out.

Processing time to receive I-600 approval is 2-3 months. So, my hopeful target of traveling to bring Samuel home in April is still in sight….just barely….but it is still there! We will see what the Lord has planned.