Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night...

As we make the final preparations for another Christmas, and what we hope to be the last Christmas with just the two of us, we look towards the coming year with anticipation of the unknown as we come towards the climactic end of our journey towards completing our family dream. Will we really be traveling as soon as February? Do we have everything we need and everything in order? Will it be a boy or a girl? Will it be one child or a sibling pair? Are we really ready to travel half way around the world?

In our weekly email from our caseworker she shared the following Christmas song about adoption that pretty much sums up our feelings this Christmas and our hopes and dreams of next Christmas, not to rush things since time flies already. Please copy and paste this link into your web browser to hear the song on Youtube titled “Merry Christmas” by Third Day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAwYBBuXIyM

The lyrics are below if you would like to follow along:

"There's a little girl trembling on a cold December morn
Crying for momma's arms
At an orphanage just outside a little China town
There the forgotten are
But half a world away
I hang the stockings by the fire
And dream about the day when I can finally call you mine

It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

As I hang the tinsel on the tree and watch the twinkling lights
I'm warmed by the fire's glow
Outside the children tumble in a wonderland of white,
Make angels in the snow
But half a world away you try your best to fight the tears
And hope that heaven's angels come to carry you here

It's Christmas time again but you're not home
Your family is here and yet you're somewhere else alone
And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms
And tell you from my heart I wish you Merry Christmas

Christmas is a time to celebrate the holy child
And we celebrate his perfect gift of love
He came to earth to give his lifeAnd prepare a place for us
So we could have a home with him above

It's Christmas time again and now you're home
Your family is here so you will never be alone
So tonight before you go to sleep, I'll hold you in my arms
And I'll tell you from my heart, and I'll tell you from my heart
I wish you Merry Christmas"

The end of this year has brought all sorts of suprises regarding the adoption. Once we found out what region we were assigned to we joined a message board of families who have already adopted from Taraz or like us are headed that way. We have made contact with a family that may be traveling the same time as us and two who have recently adopted from there. One of the families actually lives in Ellicott City not far from us. How nice it will be to know that there is another child from the same region in the area for our child or children to connect with.

Last but not least, as we attempt to learn the Russian language before our trip, not going so well, we discovered that a friend of ours has a daughter-in-law who is from Russia. They just moved back here to the area this summer. It looks like we may have a tutor/translator to help us out here at home.

May you all have a blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

Celebrate this special season with a special gift

As we prepare for Christmas this year our thoughts are upon the children in the baby houses and orphanages in Kazakhstan. We look forward with anticipation to the thoughts that next year there will be a young child in the house. There is something special about witnessing the Christmas season through the eyes and wonderment of a child. It makes it extra special.

Our International Adoption Agency, Adoption Ark, supports children overseas in multiple ways through out the year. Recently they sent out an email listing ways that others can assist them in their efforts during the holiday season and throughout the year. If you are interested in helping with the effort to assist the children in the baby houses and orphanages below are some of the ways they suggested.

OPTION 1
“What if Adoption ARK earned a penny every time you searched the Internet? Or how about if a percentage of every purchase you made online went to support our cause? Well, now it can! GoodSearch.com is a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations add up!
GoodShop.com is a new online shopping mall which donates up to 37 percent of each purchase to your favorite cause! Hundreds of great stores including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, ebay, Macy's and Barnes & Noble have teamed up with GoodShop and every time you place an order, you'll be supporting your favorite cause.

Just go to www.goodsearch.com and be sure to enter Adoption ARK as the charity you want to support. And, be sure to spread the word! visit GoodSearch or GoodShop .


OPTION 2
Happy Holiday, Kid

Those who work in adoption field know for a fact that perspective adoptive parents mainly desire to adopt young kids: babies or toddlers. Kids who are 4 and up are considered for these clients to be ‘too old’. Please think about it! Even combination of such words as ‘kid’ and ‘too old’ is an awkward combination. However, many orphans who dream about parents might never have an opportunity to experience family life because perspective adoptive parents consider them to be ‘too old’. At the age of 5, a kid might be too old to be desired by a loving family!
Adoption Ark’s mission is to help orphan kids, especially kids who need it the most – special needs kids and older kids!

Adoption Ark proposes a new program “Happy Holiday, Kid!” We think that it is a good time to be reminded about orphans who might never have a chance to be adopted and might never experience holidays shared with caring family members! We invite everyone who might be interested in making an orphan’s life a bit brighter, to participate in the program!
Here we have some older kids’ photos and IDs. We propose that you write greeting cards to one or a few of them (you can choose as many as you want) – on major holidays the child of your choice celebrates in his or her orphanage, in his or her home country.

How does this program work? You can choose one or a few kids and sign up to participate in the program. The process of signing up is easy, quick and absolutely free. You will receive the child’s first name (only! please be informed in advance that there is no possibility for us to release any confidential personal information about the child) and a list of MAJOR holidays in his or her home country.

The only thing you will have to do is to send greeting cards to us (to Adoption Ark), addressed to the kids you want to support and we will forward your cards to the regional representatives, who will bring them to the specific orphans to whom they are addressed. A few simple words of care, a funny picture on a greeting card, a smiley face, a silly drawing, anything of such nature may bring a smile to the child’s face and brighten his or her day.

We want to state it clearly: we will not accept any monetary donations or any gifts for the kids. This program is designed to put the message across – that we, adults, do care for orphan children regardless of their race, regardless of their nationality, regardless of their ages! This program is designed to raise awareness of older kids who grow and live in the orphanages.
Participation in the program is absolutely voluntarily and you can stop to do it at any time – no questions asked. Adoption Ark will not send you any reminders or any requests for cards --- it should be your pleasure to write a few words for the orphan of your choice.

If you have never met an orphan, you can not even believe how happy the kid might be when he or she receives a greeting card from abroad. Think about these kids –affectionate or reserved, polite or mischievous, proper or funny, active or shy – they all need attention, love and care! Please consider your participation in the program. We promise to deliver all cards to the kids of your choice. A simple holiday greeting card can brighten a day for a kid in a foreign country. They all look up to the sky. They all see bright stars. They all make wishes. Let’s just send them our greetings and hope that their wishes will come true. Happy Holiday, Kid!

For the full list of kids and for the free application to sign up for the program, please inquire at kids@adoptionark.org


OPTION 3
Christmas Projects 2008

During the holiday season Adoption ARK receives many calls asking "What do the children need this Christmas?" The answer depends on the country the children are living in and the condition of the orphanage. Adoption Ark, with your help, would like to make The Winter Holidays extra special living in orphanages around the world.

Project #1 Our Annual Celebration of the New Year For Orphans In The Ivanovo Region
Every year Adoption Ark is commited to bring the holiday spirit into children's' lives. Last year we sponsored a huge celebration of all orphanages in the Ivanovo region. In addition we provided gifts for orphanages that became special for our team. This year we would like to raise $2000 to support a celebration the New Year for our dear older children residing in this region. The usual celebration is a concert with children and adults participating. The funds are needed to help buy costumes and decorations; in addition we will provide each child in the sponsored orphanage with a gift.

Project #2 Help for Special Needs Orphans in Russia
Special needs houses for older children may be a sad place to visit. While children's' basic needs are met, they often times do not receive any formal education. However the situation is changing. One special needs orphanage in Pscov had their first school year with a program designed for special need kids. Adoption Ark would like to raise $1000 to buy educational materials and sports equipment for kids in Pskov. In addition we would like to make donations to other special needs orphanages.

Project # 3 Helping Orphaned Children that have Cancer
We want to help orphans who have cancer to collect money for their treatment and medical care. We know of such orphans living in Kazakhstan, Russia and other countries. Those who want to donate to the project 'FIGHT CANCER' please put a note on your check that the money is to be donated towards this project.

Project #4 Kazakhstan Orphanage needs Basic Supplies for the Children
Two Kazakhstan orphanages asked for the donation of: 8 vacuum cleaners for groups of kids and 1 steam vacuum cleaner for musical center and sports room. glass-wooden case for medical supplies 8 cvarz lamps (lamps that clear the air) Special oven for making bread and other pastry Sports equipment Total requested $5,000 Adoption Ark donates $1000 towards this project. With help of our sponsors we have collected $3,500 but we still need to raise $1500 to meet this goal.

Project #5 Christmas Presents
Adoption Ark raised funds for Christmas gifts for older Bulgaria orphans. We will appreciate any donation for this cause.

Donations can be made through Google checkout by clicking on the "Donate to Orphans" button or you can mail your contribution to:

Adoption ARK
830 Buffalo Grove Road,
Suite 103
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089

PLEASE WHEN YOU SEND A CHECK INDICATE THE PROJECT YOU WOULD LIKE TO DONATE TOWARDS. IF WE HAVE REACHED OUR GOAL FOR YOUR INTENDED PROJECT, PLEASE INDICATE IF YOU ARE WILLING FOR YOUR DONATION TO BE APPLIED TO ANOTHER PROJECT THAT HAS NOT YET MET ITS INTENDED GOAL.

Warm thoughts go out to all of you this special time of the year. Thanks for all your support and prayers as we make our family a reality in 2009.

Still anticipate a February vacation to Kazakhstan

The latest report from our caseworker is that they still expect us to travel in February sometime. What once seemed like it would never be a reality has suddenly turned into a light at the end of the tunnel. We are now at a point we feel we aren't being premature in making out lists of what to take and starting to gather items for the trip.

We have little by little picked up things as we have come acrossed them. I think we are pretty set on electronics, battery chargers, converters, surge protectors, adapters, etc.

The tradition is to take items to give to certian people as token of appreciation for assisting us in country and caring for the children. We have been picking up items here and there that we thought might make good gifts. I guess it is time to go through all the items that we have collected and just stuck in the closest for later and actually see what we have accumulated and what we still need.

Our caseworker gave us pros and cons of turning the 2nd and 3rd visit into one long visit. I think her best advice was to wait until after the 1st trip and then decide if we would rather make 2 more long round trips or stay for a 5-9 weeks and only make one more long round trip at the end. Obviously the more time we spend in country after the first trip the less time we may have to spend at home when we get back before we have to return to our jobs.

Hopefully santa will be generous to us this year and bring us the coveted LOI for Christmas so we can actually set a travel date.

Belated Happy Thanksgiving News

We learned today that our dossier has evidently made it through the MFA and has been assigned to the region of Taraz. See the link to a Map and Fun facts about Taraz on the lower right hand side of this blogsite. We're not sure if that means we cleared the MOE yet or not. But at least we have a region so we know a little more as to where we are going. Don't know the actual city or town yet. They anticipate we should be traveling in February of 2009. This region assignment, like any of them, comes with pluses and minuses. On the plus side, it is in the southern part of the country just west of Almaty which is where we would leave from on our final trip. Is a little warmer in the winter than the northern part of the country which boarders Siberia. The minus side of the equation is that it is one of the regions in which court dates can be hard to come by and delay the process. It also may require 3 trips. On the plus side, each trip is relatively short compared to the original forecast of 6-8 weeks on the first trip. Our agencies guestimate based on timelines over the last year is the following:

Bonding period - 2 weeks (plus a couple extra days for travel and paperwork)
Time waiting for court – 3-6 weeks
Court – trip lasts about 1 week
Waiting period after court – 15 days (this is mandatory appeal process)
Paperwork processed for child – 2-3 weeks
Parents can pick up child – trip about a week long or child can be escorted home

Word on the message boards is that the time waiting for court is very unpredictable. A family from our agency that traveled over the summer only had a 3 week wait but there is another family (not sure if they are with our agency or not) that has been waiting for 11 weeks for a court date.

From what we have been told it looks like it will most likely be a boy between 2-3 years of age. Nothing is definite. So we still don't know exactly what to do about fixing up our new childs room.

Since it is the holiday season time seems to be moving more quickly with all the activity so February will be here before we know it. Hopefully the new year will bring the coveted LOI (letter of invitation) which gives us the stamp of approval to travel.

One Month Since Our Dossier Headed Overseas

Well, it has been one month since we were told that our dossier was headed to the MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and no word yet as to whether it is still there or it has moved on to the next ministry. Not that we were necessarily expecting it to. Maybe we will hear something by Thanksgiving as to some movement. From what we have been told and what we have read on various Kaz adoption message boards things slow down some during the holiday season. I guess in some regards winter holidays are quite global in nature.

For the time being we will just keep practising our Russian and getting organized for our travels. We have been gradually buying items we will need for traveling with limited luggage and converting our electronics for Central Asia along with other items we will need while we are there. And I guess we'll need to prepare for the upcoming holidays as well. That should help make the time go by faster!

Another major milestone

Our AA caseworker sends out an email to all her families every Friday. She keeps us posted on the latest news regarding our countries process and the status of the families in the process. She also emails us separately with any news on our own process. We have become fanatic checkers of email, especially on Fridays, looking for an email from AA. That was how we received the good news about finally making it to the Embassy.

No email today, instead we got a phone call. It has been exactly 30 days since we arrived at the Embassy and without any requests for updated documents or revisions we have cleared the Embassy and our dossier is off to the first of 2 ministry departments. Our next stop is the MFA (ministry of foriegn affairs). Once it clears there it is sent to the MOE (ministry of education). After that we will be notified our our region assignment. We were hoping to travel before the year is out but they don't anticipate our getting an LOI (letter of invitation to travel) until early in the 2009. Nothing like going close to Siberia in the coldest part of winter! I'm a little bummed it won't happen before the year is out but at least we are moving and it actually seems like it might become a reality sooner than later.

Guess we better get cracken on that Russian. We will probably be posting more frequently now that we actually have something to write about other than waiting and waiting and still waiting.

September 11th takes on a new meaning

YEAH...we made it to the Embassy! We finally heard word from our caseworker that our dossier was submitted to the Kaz Embassy in DC. As we celebrate the somberness of this day in history it will have a brighter meaning for us in the future as another hurdle has been completed.

Of course the other irony of this timing is that our MDs renewed license came in the day after we sent the other updated documents off to Chicago. We sent it off to Chicago right before they submitted the dossier. Now we wait and hope they approve us without anymore updates or changes to our paperwork.

It's time to get back on task with preparations. We got very lax about studying our Russian or making any other plans regarding the adoption since it didn't seem like we were going anywhere with the process. Only God knows his timing and I'm sure it will be made clear someday.

Can't everything happen at the same time?

As luck would have it, still no movement with our paperwork and now we are on our 3rd set of medical reports, 2nd set of FBI fingerprints and clearance and our MDs license expires the end of September. We got smart this time and had two sets of fingerprint cards done so we will have them on hand the next time they expire. Of course we just resubmitted the local agency license a couple of weeks ago and our MDs new license hasn't come in yet. Wayne's dad was kind enough to take them by the SOS office for us which saved us another trip to Annapolis. If they don't go in before the end of this month it will be another trip just for the medical license.

More documents expire and we still wait for good news

They are still waiting to submit our dossier and now our local homestudy agency license has expired. We sent off the notarized, authenticated, apostilled papers today. This time I had to go to the Baltimore County Court Clerk for the authentication and then to Annapolis to the SOS, again. It took me 2 hours of driving around Baltimore and Annapolis to spend all of 5 minutes at the court house and the SOS getting signatures.

Needless to say we are getting a bit frustrated at this point and at times just want to throw in the towel. It seems like it is never going to happen for us. Fortunately we haven't both hit the bottom at the same time so when one is down the other tries to keep a positive outlook.

3 months and still waiting

It has now been 3 months and we are still waiting for our dossier to be submitted. The new Embassador is reviewing the current process and getting his staff situated. So they have not been taking many submissions so far this year. The agency hopes it will pick back up soon. Until then we wait. We have moved up in line but it is disappointing just the same. We were hoping it would clear the Embassy before the summer was over and that we might travel in the fall. I'm not sure that is going to happen if we don't hear something soon. We continue to practise our Russian and gather things for when we will be traveling.

We haven't really done anything about our future childs room since we don't know if it will be a boy or a girl or even how old s/he might be. There is a big difference between setting up a room for a baby versus a pre-schooler.

The clock is ticking and no movement

Well, the dossier hasn't been submitted yet and our medical reports expire July 1st. Soooo, in order to be sure they are still valid when the papers are submitted if they go in July we we had to update our medical reports. They can not be any older than 3 months when the documents are sent in to the Embassy. At least it was only 2 documents and we used our Howard County notary. Then I took a lovely drive to Annapolis to visit the SOS and have them apostilled. Once all the copies were made we sent them off to AA. Lets hope it goes through before anymore documents expire.

We are trying to keep busy by learing Russian. We are using Rosetta Stone and after the first couple of lessons I don't think we will be speaking fluently but we hope to at least be able to read signs and menus and understand enough to buy things and communicate with our child while in Kazakhstan.

From translation to submission assembly

We finally got word that our dossier had completed the translation phase and was now being arranged for submission. They will let us know when it gets sent to the Embassy. If things stay on track with the previous timelines it should go to the Embassy in late June or July. If it doesn't we will have to update some documents as our local homestudy agencies license expires in July and we will have to submit the renewed license to be inserted and update or medical reports. We're hoping we don't have to go there.

National Asian Heritage Festival - Fiesta Asia 2008

We learned that the Kazakhstan Embassy was participating in Fiesta Asia 2008 in Washington, DC this weekend and decided to go down to DC and check it out. They were selling items native to Kazakhstan, we were able to sample some authentic food, meet some native Kazaks and be entertained by a local musical group from Kaz. Their costumes were quite elaborate and beautiful. I'm looking forward to experiencing the culture first hand and picking up some trinkets to bring home but obviously anxious and nervous of the unknow at the same time. While at the festival we also met a very nice woman who helped start a group called Kazak Aul. An Aul is basically a community or village of people. She herself has an adopted daughter from Kazakhstan. Kazak Aul is a non-profit that was founded by Kazakhs and Americans dedicated to preserve, develop and support Kazakh cultural heritage and promote Kazakh culture in America. They are based in Rhode Island. Every summer they have a week long camp for the adoptive parents and children on Kazak culture. It sounds like a lot of fun. The website for the group is listed in the "Links of Interest" section of this blog. Check it out. Here are some photos from the festival....

This is one of the main stages. The folk group playing is from Kazakhstan.



This is one of the musicians who performed.


Here's a little snippet of the the folk group playing.


This was their booth.




Some of the Embassy staff enjoying the festival. I think the embassador is one of the two gentlemen on the right.


We decided to take a stroll by the Embassy, as well, since we were in the area.

Off to translation...

Yeah, our package arrived and our caseworker gave it her blessing of approval. It is not being sent off to be translated. This could take up to a month. There are over 4o documents and each one has to be translated exactly and the translation has to be and exact copy of the original document in text, images and layout. It's nice to have it out of our hands. Now we just sit and wait until our papers begin their journey to Kazakhstan. Once the documents have been translated the Agency waits for the Embassy to tell them they can submit the dossier for review and approval by the Kazakhstan Consul. The current timeline is 1 month for translation and 2-3 months for submission.

Special Delivery to Chicago

We have spent the last several months gathering and filling out papers, submitting forms and getting approvals. Today our package has left Eldersburg and is headed to Chicago for review by our caseworker prior to being sent for translation. Hopefully everything is corrected and done the way they wanted it. We cleared just about every document with our caseworker before having anything notarized to be sure it was done properly. We are hoping our due diligence pays off and we won't have to re do anything.

Putting it all together...

Well, we are in the home stretch. Now that we have everything gathered, notarized, authenticated, apostilled and photocopied in quintuplicate we are ready for the last step in the dossier process. With our trusty, multiple page checklist and instructions from our caseworker we are ready to assemble our dossier. One original, 4 exact copied sets for the agency, one set for us and a few extra original documents to take with us when the time comes. Included with the package is our payment for the next part of the process. Everything is neatly packaged and ready to be overnighted to Chicago. It's quite the stack of papers, around 7lbs and about 3-4 inches thick!

Visit to Secretary of State Office

After getting our documents authenticated by the court clerk we spent quality time with the photocopier make exact original looking copies of all our documents, notarizations and authentications in preparation for sending the package to the SOS office for apostilling. We had to make 5 complete sets of the original documents. Wayne's dad has an office in Annapolis so Wayne met his dad's assistant bright and early this morning on her way to work to hand off our package of documents and a blank check for the SOS. Our package was then hand delivered back to us this evening by Wayne's dad. One more step closer to completeing our dossier and sending it off. Back to the copy machine to make our 5 copies of each apostille.

How many documents do you need notarized?

We spent a lovely hour with our notary signing all of our papers and trying to keep them all in order and the correct number of original copies. I think it was some where around 50 pieces of paper total. At least it seemed that way. Each document had to be signed the exact same way and the signature has to match the way you signed your passport. We even had to have photo copies of our passport picture pages notarized! Next stop, Howard County Court Clerk's Office for certification and then on to Annapolis.

We're on a roll now!

Friday we got our USCIS approval and today, just 4 days later we received our FBI clearance back in the mail. Next stop the notary!

Good Friday

Inspite of this day being a somber one in our church life it was definitely a GOOD FRIDAY in our adoption life. USCIS in Baltimore has been excellent in this whole process. Inspite of sending our homestudy report back on the 14th we received that sacred approval letter today in the mail. I had to laugh when it arrived because the return address on the envelope was Office of Homeland Security and the envelope wasn't sealed. So much for secure documents! No all we need is our FBI clearance letters and it is time to head to the notary.

A little hiccup in the process

We learned that USCIS sent our homestudy back to our local caseworker for a minor revision of wording. Of course that means it has to be sent to our IA caseworker for approval before she can re-submit it to USCIS. Thank goodness for email and the internet so this can be done quickly.

Coming down the home stretch

Our homestudy is complete! Yeah! It has been reviewed by our IA caseworker, approved and sent to USCIS by our local caseworker. We are sending off our FBI print cards so we will be ready to finalize our dossier when the clearance comes back. We have all our other documents in hand waiting to be notarized and apostilled. The papers provided by our local agency came notarized and we have already had them certified since that notary was from Baltimore County. We will have the rest notarized by a Howard County notary so Wayne can take them to work to be certified. We have been learning all sorts of fun legal terms. All the documents have to be notarized, then the notary has to be certified by the Clerk of the Court of the county they reside in. After the documents are certified they then have to go to the Secretary of State's Office to be apostilled (certifying the certification basically). Never a dull moment!

Fingerprinting round 3

Today we went to have prints done the old fashion way with ink and paper. Print cards are required for our FBI clearance for our dossier (fancy way of saying a huge stack of papers proving who we are and that we are fit to be parents). We will eventually be sending these off to the FBI in order to have a background check done and receive a letter stating we are not on their most wanted list for anything. Since this clearance expires every 6 months for the purpose of our dossier we will wait until we are almost ready to submit our dossier to send this off. Another item checked off.

Saturday trip to USCIS in Baltimore

We received our letter notifying us that we could report to the USCIS fingerprinting office in Baltimore City anytime to have our clearance for our I600A Petition for Foreign Adoption. This will be the second set of fingerprints to date. We had to do them at the state level for our Homestudy. The process this time went much quicker. We signed in and were done in probably 30 mins. It took longer to drive in than it did to get printed. Now all we need is for our homestudy to be sent in to USCIS to complete the application. One item down....lots more to go.

And the winner is.....

After a great deal of research and discussion we finally settled on Kazakhstan and Adoption Ark International Adoption Agency. We were leaning strongly towards Vietnam but with changes in China's program felt a lot of people were going to be switching to the Vietnam program. In hindsight it turns out we were smart to change our choice of country. Not only did the Vietnam program become more popular but there are grumblings about the program being put on hold temporarily. All we can do is hope and pray that we have made the right choice. We submitted our USCIS I600A application on Jan 9th and have officially selected Kazakhstan...so, unless there are some major issues, there is no turning back now.

When the time comes to go to Kazakhstan, we will have a “blind travel” process. This allows us to meet several of the children at the orphanage (they call them baby houses) and discover who we feel a connection with. This will be tough, but we feel it’s a more natural process, and many parents say that the child actually chooses them! We like that Kazakhstan requires a bonding period, where adoptive parents routinely visit with the child in the orphanage for 2 weeks before taking custody and going through the court process in-country. This initial trip can last up to 6-8 weeks from selection to court date for approval of the adoption. We are required to stay in country until that time. Once the adoption is approved we will come home while they do a mandatory appeal process that lasts 2 weeks and our in country coordinator processes the bulk of the in country paper work. We will then travel back for a second trip (6-10 days) to pick up our new addition and process the US paperwork at the US Embassy.

Be sure to check out the Links of Interest section and the information on Kazakhstan in the bottom right section of our blog.

USCIS I600A application

We still have not decided on a country but file our I600A application in Baltimore City at the federal building