Next step done.

James received his emigration permission from the Korean government on 5/22/08.

The EP is the Korean counterpart to the I-600 approval here in the U.S. These documents represent the Korean and US governments' approval for James to emigrate from Korea to the US for the purposes of adoption. The approval is great news because it indicates that our child's adoption process is moving forward.

Typically, children are ready to travel between 1 and 3 months after they have received this approval. Next, three key steps will occur in
Korea: Holt (the adoption agency) will obtain a passport for our child; then he will receive a visa medical exam by a U.S. Embassy-approved doctor, and lastly an entrance visa to the U.S. will be issued.

Then we can go get him!

His birthday is July 26, so keep your fingers crossed.

Update

Hi everyone,

We've received word that our approval Form I600 has been received by The State Department's National Visa Center and forwarded to the U.S. Embassy in South Korea where the adoption interview will take place. This is needed for one of the last steps in the process of James Ji-Hun to get his Visa, but still doesn't give us a time frame on when we will be leaving to get him. We did receive an updated photo today (shown above) in the mail with his foster mother and some things that we sent them last month.

In other news, Andrew hit his first home run in little league tonight. Way to go Andrew.