Fingerprint Appointment - Jackson, MS!

When adopting a child internationally, you deal quite a bit with USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Service). This is who we work with to obtain official citizenship for our child. And it can get complicated. A few weeks ago we filed our initial application with them, the I600-A, or Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. Once they receive and approve this initial application, they send you fingerprint appointments to be obtained at your nearest Department of Homeland Security. Ours just happens to be in Jackson, MS!  After these fingerprints are cleared, they mail you official I600-A approval. It can take several weeks/months for these fingerprints to clear and receive this approval. It's just a lengthy process, like everything else related to adoption :) Once you receive it, if you have a referral, you can send in your 1600 form, or Petition to Classify Orphan as an Immediate Relative. See what I mean? Complicated. But we are just taking it one step at a time to ensure we are doing it correctly. And the latest step we took was traveling to Jackson for our fingerprints! Our appointment was scheduled for 8:00 a.m., and our form stated how incredibly important it was for us to be at this appointment and be on time. So, we drove in the night before to ensure we would be there. I definitely enjoyed a night of peaceful sleep!

They don't allow phones are cameras inside the building, so we snapped a picture in the car before going inside.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is located inside this federal building. It really was a neat place!

We were in and out very quickly, and then headed to Highland Village to meet a very special lady for breakfast!

Alison has the blog Lovin' Much and is adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia! She is from Jackson, and she and I have chatted through email some, so when I found out we'd be traveling there for our USCIS appointment, we decided to meet for a visit! She is just a precious person and is such an encourager. When she and her husband began the process, they were given an estimated time frame of 12-18 months from start to finish. They are now going on 3 years, and have officially been on the wait list for over 24 months. But her faith is so strong! She has such an evident love for the Lord, and is waiting patiently for Him to reveal their daughter to them. And they are so close now! They are in the top 5 on their wait list! Please join me in praying that get that coveted phone call very soon and finally get to see their daughter's face!  They also have 3 young biological children, and felt the Lord calling them to expand their family through adoption, so we had lots to talk about!

After we said our goodbye's, we drove on into Vicksburg, did a little shopping, and ate lunch at our ol' standby...Cracker Barrel! We know. We are old souls. We really are. And we are totally fine with that :)

It was a fun relaxing little trip, and it was so nice to get to do something productive for our sweet baby! These fingerprints may have only taken us 10 minutes, but knowing they would be used to help obtain our child's United States citizenship, made us feel a bit more connected with our sweet baby still so far away.