Surprise Update

Francis had a successful trip to Manila last week for his passport. We are now anxiously awaiting Monday, when his passport will be ready and his visa appointments can be scheduled. While we are waiting, we are especially lucky to have received some new pictures of Francis! The letter that we mailed him in early June finally arrived, so our agency's liaison in Manila hand-delivered it to Francis when he met him on Thursday. The result of that meeting and Francis openings his letter was a few great photos. It does make the wait much easier.  The other bit of news that we received from the agency's liaison was that Francis is a "very sweet and charming boy" and he is "happy and excited" to meet his mommy and daddy. Obviously, this gives us a good feeling and we are happy and excited to meet him, too.

Passport Appearance Scheduled

We just got the terrific news that Francis’ passport appearance has been scheduled!  Fortunately, it didn’t take a very long time to schedule after we initially heard of the delay.  Francis and his caseworker will be flying into Manila on Thursday the 19^th, having the passport appearance the 20^th, and flying back to Ligao City the 21^st.

In an ironic twist, I also found out quite randomly that one of the major cities not far from Ligao City will be opening their own DFA (passport) office in early September.  One of those, “oh, that figures – ha, ha” moments.

It will take 10 days to process the passport, at which point it’s all systems GO to schedule Francis’ visa appointment.  It looks to me like that should be anytime after July 31.  I’m still focusing on September with “late August could be a miracle,” but we’ll see what happens.   We’re getting closer!