Haitian Consulate

I just want to say a word about the paperwork...

Quick guide for the dossier process:
all documents notarized, then..
all notarized documents need State Certified by Sec. of State to authenticate the notaries, then..
some docs go to translation for Haiti to be able to read them (they read French), then...
some docs go to Haitian Consulate in Chicago so they can authenticate the State Certifications, then....
All docs (dossier) go to Haiti.


We completed all notarizations on Sat. the 21st for the Dossier. The normal process is to then have all papers State Certified by the Secretary of State, send them to our agency in AZ. They then find a translator, have them translated, the translator sends them back to the agency in AZ. The agency then sends the docs to the Haitian Consulate in Chicago to get authenticated, then they are returned to AZ. The agency then sends this completed Dossier to Haiti.

We get a referral on the 22nd (the next day), with the dossier in our kitchen, not Haiti. The gal who I'm talking with and runs the orphanage but lives in CA, is at the orphanage now visiting and just had a little girl show up needing a family. She has talked her friend, who also runs the orphanage, into "holding" this little girl for us until our Dossier gets there. (She knew we were close to having it complete!)

So, fast forward....cut out all mailings completely. So, that night, the Dossier and homestudy are scanned/emailed to a translator in CA who will then email back the translations by April 1st. The Haitian Consulate in Chicago tells me on my first phone call that it will take a week for my documents to get authenticated. So I figure, 2 days to get there, a week to authenticate and 2 days back to me. We don't have that kind of time!! I call again today and offer to fly over to Chicago, hand deliver...can they get it done any quicker, like in 2 days? Her answer, same day! She even said if I overnighted the documents, they would work on them the same day and send them back overnight to us. That's a 3day turnaround! AND I don't even have to wait on the translations...she said I can email those when I get them. God is Good.

The only wait now, though, is that the Psychologist had to re-do our letter. He had made one letter for both of us, instead of a letter for each of us. He has the letters done, but hasn't contacted me yet as to when I can pick them up. Once I pick them up, I need to run over to the Secretary of State (trip #4), then add that doc. to my other docs to go the Consulate, then overnight them.

Now it's just a matter of how to get this Dossier safely to Haiti.......Anyone going to Haiti? :)