One more puzzle piece

If I had started blogging earlier you would have seen many ranting posts about our home study agency. They have been the bane of my existence for the last few months. I thought that when we finally received our completed home study (3 months later than it should have been), that I could move on and not think about that anymore.

Wrong! I received an email from the head of the home study agency a month ago asking me where we submit our paperwork for USCIS. For those of you not in the adoption process, this is the paperwork that we submit to the US government to be approved to adopt a child. Living overseas makes this process different than when you live in the States. For us, we had to take our paperwork to the US Embassy in Tokyo and they send it on to the USCIS office in Seoul, Korea.

When I received the email from her I immediately sent her the address to the Embassy in Tokyo and asked why she needed it. She told me that their license expired and they needed to send an updated copy for our paperwork. This has me concerned about getting our approval back in before we leave for summer vacation.

I tried to contact the Embassy in Tokyo to find out more information about when our file was sent and where they sent it to so I could give that information to the agency. I found out that you have to pay $20 to call and ask any questions to the immigration office at Tokyo. I found that incredibly annoying since I don't think American citizens should have to pay to make a phone call, but had no choice so we called and got the information we needed.

I then tried to contact the Seoul office. I have sent 4 emails in the last month. One a week and received no response at all. I looked at their office hours and they are open 9:30-11:30 and 1:00-3:00 Monday through Friday. I teach from 7:30-3:00, so calling is out. Since the office is in Korea I cannot call from school or use my cell phone.

This weekend I signed up for a fax via email service and sent them a fax. Please pray that they receive the fax and respond back to me. This is really the last piece of the puzzle before we receive our referral and I would really like to have it to send to our placement agency before we go home for the summer.