Wednesday, February 15, 2017

The nearly un-crackable email

So, as I suspected we didn't get the approval letter in the mail by the date the USCIS officer anticipated we would - so I called to let him know (like he instructed me to). He agreed to email me a copy (thank freaking goodness), but he let me know that they are required to encrypt their emails and then send a separate email with a password to unlock it. I'll just skip to the end of the drama and say that after an hour of googling how to do this and attempting to open it we were finally able to open it. Mark had to download a program that would process it and open a prompt for us to put in the password. So! We got the blessed approval letter that we needed Chareyl to take down for our file! Praise the good Lord.

We were able to bring the approval letter to Chareyl's home (along with letter/pictures for Nelie, the little girl who we have the pleasure of sponsoring her education with Haitian Roots). Chareyl left for Haiti today and promised to follow up on our file (and each of the other families who are waiting for a referral). She did mention to me that she did receive a referral for another one of her clients that very morning! Not only does that make me happy for that family, but it is encouraging to me to see that referrals are being issued. Things have been a bit quiet on that front on the message boards.

The other thing that Chareyl told me tempered my prior frustrations with our previous email situation. Apparently Chareyl has a family who have a match ready for official referral, but they are waiting on the updated I-800a (just like we were). They needed Chareyl to take it down with her when she left, but it hadn't arrived in the mail. When they called to ask about having it emailed to them they said that they absolutely could not email it. I obviously don't know all the details about this situation...and perhaps USCIS was only willing to do this for me because I had to have things re-done because of their mistake, but either way I feel extra grateful that she has ours in hand. I'm sure this family will get theirs in the mail and be able to scan it to Chareyl to print in Haiti and it will work out, but it's just nice to know that ours is handed off and will for sure be updated in the next day or two.

I try not to hold my breath, but I'm hopeful that Chareyl will come home from Haiti with some sort of news for us on our file. I'm hopeful that we are close to seeing our daughters face. Not holding my breath of course, but hopeful.

In the meantime I'll be anxiously awaiting photos from Haiti while Chareyl and the Haitian Roots volunteer trip are down there. Knowing that some of these photos will be from the orphanage where our little girl is living...and that they are all being taken from that beautiful, heartbreaking island of her birth.

No comments:

Post a Comment