Looks like we will be on our way back to Prague soon!!
This has been a great, but very long time stateside!! We've had a great time with family, made some great friends, eaten WAY too much American food. Ha!! But, it is finally time for us to return.
What was suppose to be a stateside that was 13 months turned into an almost 16 month stateside because of the long and tedious process to make our oldest daughter, Karis a citizen. Our understanding was that we would not be able to obtain a US passport for Karis without a certificate of citizenship. So, we were kind of stuck since her Czech passport was expired (their passports for children are only good for one year).
The end date to receive our notice for Karis' certificate of citizenship (CoC) was March 3rd. We made a phone call to inquire about it on March 4th & were told we should get a letter in the mail soon. We waited about a week hoping it would come & decided we would go ahead and make an appointment at the local USCIS office. To even make an appointment to inquire about the process took almost 2 weeks! That appointment FINALLY came this past Thursday!! But let me back up a little.....
About a week ago, someone we know told us that their daughter had a US passport but not a CoC. Our understanding this whole time based on the passport application & what USCIS was telling us was that we could not get a passport without a CoC. I was finally able to get through to the National Passport Center this past Tuesday (3/17) to find out if this was true & possible without the CoC. They confirmed the documents that we needed to have for them to process, which we had. It was exciting to get this information, but also frustrating that we did not know this sooner!!
So, off we went to apply for a passport on Tuesday. The guy processing our paperwork at the post office also seemed confident that we had everything that we needed & said they would call if they needed something else. We paid to have it expedited. He felt we should have it in 2 weeks or less. So, Tuesday we started making mental plans for our return to Prague on April 7!!!
Thursday, we got up bright & early to head to the USCIS office, dragging Karis out of bed to take with us. She was a trooper!! And a plateful of pancakes for her afterwards was quite a bonus! Ha!! We happened to get a very nice lady who listened to our case!!! She heard our need to leave the country ASAP. We shared that we are missionaries & needed to get back to work. Her department head was not in the office yet (our appointment was at 7:30 am!!) and promised to call by mid-afternoon. She knew that the next oath ceremony (which is a requirement, even for children) would not be until April 15, but was going to ask if they could make an exception & do it for us sooner. She was a Christian & even stated to us "It's in God's hands & He'll make it happen if it's meant to be!" Amen!!
Well, that call came that afternoon & she informed us that it was approved and we can return to the office next Tuesday (April 24) for Karis to take her oath!!! =) Yay!! That means that we should be able to stick with our departure date of April 7 as long as there are no hang ups with Karis' passport application. Worst case scenario is that they tell us they have to have the CoC and we have to wait a few extra days to get that to them. We'll see!!
This next week is going to be a whirlwind of activities with her ceremony on Tuesday as well as packing up our crate on Thursday & Friday!!
We want to thank you all so much for your prayers & keeping up with us through this whole process!!!
Blessings to all of you!
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