Malaria..............a silent killer of millions.  Today, my son has malaria, but he is not a statistic.  He is a living, breathing, loving beautiful boy.  It killed me today to talk to him, you could hear the weakness in his voice.  I told him today that in America we don't have malaria.  I told him that the next time he was sick I would take care of him.  I hope I can keep those promises.  I hope.

I am somewhat discouraged.  I have heard nothing but negative regarding the situation in Uganda.  I have so had my hopes on getting Joseph home by summer.  If things don't clear up, I don't know what is going to happen.  Time is not on our side. I wrote to the consular at the US Embassy in Kampala and did not hear back.  I've sent a deposit of $2000 to an attorney in Uganda who never answers my e-mails.  I'm just plain worried.

They're off.  All 250 pages of documents are gone, out of my hands and into FEDEX's.  I kissed them and said good-bye, Peanut was with me and she kissed them (a little too long) and said good luck.  I feel like my life was in that box.  Now, the waiting begins.....................

Two hundred and fifty, yes, that's right, 250!  That is how many papers we are sending to Uganda.   There are 90 documents totalling 250 papers!  It feels like we are sending a tree! We had the bank notarize everything (no easy task) and I had everything ready to go on Saturday with the exception of our homestudy.  I new it would be there with the mail and then the plan was to combine it with the other documents and Fedex the package of papers to Uganda that day.  But, it was not to be.  It's a good thing that I did a "proofread" on the homestudy.  The last page said Ethiopia instead of Uganda.  Can you imagine!  I almost sent the papers to Uganda and they weren't even correct. Not only that, but USCIS (immigration) is waiting for a copy of the homestudy and if they received it with a mistake like that it would delay our I600a!  I'm a little frustrated as I was very anxious to get the docs mailed on Saturday, now it will be at least Tuesday.  There's nothing I can do, so we are just pushing forward and trusting.  There are many things going on in Uganda that could lead us to believe that this may never happen.  We are choosing not to believe that, and are moving forward with faith that Joseph will be able to come home.

Today we talked to Joseph.  The connection was poor, so the call was cut off during Shawn's conversation with him.  I wonder, how is feeling................his English isn't so great, so having deep conversations via the phone is never easy.  One thing he can communicate and does every week is the question that is haunting me.  "When are you coming to get me"?  I don't know Joseph.  We are waiting too.  Waiting for our homestudy, waiting for our fingerprints, waiting for the visa issue to get taken care of in Uganda, waiting, waiting, waiting.  But, we are coming.  We promised you................................

Received a notice from D of HS last week saying they received our I-600a and that we should get a fingerprint appointment shortly.  Well, on the letter they sent, my name had a typo.  Being that fingerprinting must have our correct names I called the customer service number.  After many, many transfers they finally said that they would send an e-mail to wherever my application is at and notify them.  This could delay things.  Yuck!

Two weeks ago I sent off our fingerprints to the FBI.  It normally takes 3 months+ to get back your criminal clearance, time we don't have.  Well, yesterday, I got our clearance!  It took them 2 weeks exactly.  Yipee!

Also, I have every document done and returned to our social worker for the homestudy.  We have our last visit with her next week and then she will write it and we will be done.  She said it's about the fastest homestudy she has ever done.  I should say so!!! Now I'm awaiting word from immigration and hoping to get the I600a processed quickly.