Update on Investigation

The investigation that was supposed to be just a routine thing is turning out to be not so routine. Based on the information we have received, it has, in fact, turned into a possibly devastating situation. According to the embassy, Thai Nguyen province is under investigation. For the record, 1) the embassy did tell one of the families at the first interview that there was going to be an investigation and 2) they are investigating the group as a whole.

A report of the situation is being prepared by staff in Hanoi for USCIS in HCMC. The report should be delivered to HCMC today or tomorrow, and a decision / ruling will be made on the report next Tuesday or Wednesday. The possible outcomes of the investigation are 1) that everything is fine and we can go home or 2) everything is not fine and none of the children will be given visas to the US. If the children can't come to the US and our visas expire to stay in Vietnam, the children can be sent back to the orphanage. We don't know what we're going to do if it's #2. Needless to say, we are all terrified right now.

If all goes well it looks like we'll be out of here late next week. We will be changing hotels as a group (our reservations here run out on the 10th) since we've found that being together makes it a little easier to handle. We're each getting little bits and pieces of information, so we've started afternoon information sharing meetings over drinks at Highland. So far the embassy is our only source of information as we have not heard from anyone at our agency in over a week.

This sitution is starting to have a pretty serious impact on all of the families here. My vacation time runs out next week, and after that I would have to do unpaid leave. All of the families are in the same situation -- we have jobs and families that we're supposed to be returning to, and other people back home have put their lives on hold to babysit, dogsit and housesit. We need to go home.

Thank God we have each other because without the other wonderful people in this group, I don't know how we could stand what all is happening. Keep thinking good thoughts for all of us. Hopefully we'll have something positive to report soon.

Dennis & Tami