People ask "how do you do this?, how do you wait?" I have no idea. I can only say sometimes I close my eyes and repeat the lyrics of a beautiful praise song that simply says, "Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord".
Last week was her birthday and we celebrated with a phone call spanning 1400 miles. Again. The past 4 months have been long and trying. Each week we would get news that we should hear something next week and again next week. In early July, we finally got her passport to the US embassy, only to find out the translations hadn't made it. A week later, the translations were delivered and we were finally in into US hands. We received one email from the embassy on her birthday Friday, July 27 requesting the second page translations of 3 documents. We knew we had turned everything in but we didn't realize there was a 2nd page to 3 documents we never received for translation. It took us about 3 hours to get this complete and returned to the embassy. Then we wait. Again.
Three families with girls from the same orphanage who have walked this path alongside us will be home on Thursday, only 2 days away. Maeva, Berline's buddy is one of these. Merline, another little girl whose family has been in this process for 28 months, will be home on the 17th of this month. I have continually ask God to bring this beautiful girl home to her family. They have struggled so much along their journey. We hoped we would hear soon. It was our turn. It was Berline's turn now. As other families got visa appointments and doctor appointments and made airline reservations home, we wait. Again.
Yesterday at 3:09 we received an e-mail from the embassy stating we were approved and the appointment for Berline Jeudy Cummings is Monday, August 27. Finally, there is an answer to the magic question "When is she coming home?" Finally, our family will be complete.
Between now and August 27, Berline will have a doctor appointment from an Embassy doctor which includes a tb test before her visa appointment. After the Visa appointment, we will need to wait about a week for her to get an authorization to travel from the Haitian government and a couple of days for the US embassy to print her visa.
We aren't booking plane tickets yet, but we hope we will have our girl home the first or second week in September. For now, I will wait. Again. But this time I can breathe a little easier.
