Roni & Stephanie Bhullar

Updates

• Update 17

  

  Ultramarathon today!

  June 13, 2026

  Roni ran his first marathon in 2015. Before that, he had only ever run a 5K. It was used as a fundraiser to help build the Hope House in Haiti where we lived a few months later that year until 2020.

  In Haiti, Roni ran some challenging marathons including his hardest one in the hilly, chaotic streets of Port-au-Prince and another in rural northern Haiti where many of us living in there and visiting from the States followed him around on motorcycles offering good spirits and even fried chicken along the way. All of these were used as fundraisers for Children of the Promise to support the costs to run the Hope House under the name “Roni’s Race”and even had a t-shirt one year! His most recent marathon was two years ago in Pittsburgh which was another fundraiser for Children of the Promise along with his friends at Uptown Works.

  Today is a different kind of race. He didn’t publicly announce it in any way, and he didn’t tie it to a fundraiser. However, he did mention it felt different not doing a fundraiser. We have had very low bandwidth lately balancing work, our two kids, foster placements, and more adoption and grant paperwork. Despite this, Roni has continued quietly training and planning for his very first ultramarathon today. He is running a 50K (31 miles!) through the Laurel Highlands.

  Roni plans to call a couple times throughout the race to check in. I know the last 12 miles will be the most challenging due to no more refreshments and not having anyone there to cheer him on along the way. I think the best encouragement would be knowing he DOES have people cheering him on and surprising him by making this count with a fundraiser after all!

  We have been so busy filling out grant applications for our adoption and have already been awarded $9,500 in grants. Our fundraising amount is set assuming we will receive $15,000 in grants so we still have a big gap in funding with unpaid invoices. If you are able and willing, please make a donation in any amount and leave Roni a message here.

  I will read these to him along the way and at the finish line. Thank you if you’ve read this far!

• Update 16

  

  REFERRAL ACCEPTED!

  May 26, 2026

  We have BIG news to share! We have accepted a referral for a boy living in Haiti! We cannot share anymore details publicly due to adoption laws, but we are so excited (and relieved!) to finally know who will make us a family of five.

  We have been busy applying for grants and have already been awarded one grant for $2,000 paid to our agency. However, we do still expect a gap in funding and have increased our total fundraising goal to $35,000. There are always unexpected expenses along the way, especially towards the end of the process.

  We do plan to go back and fill out puzzle pieces and finally assemble our puzzle that we can display in our home, so please follow along for updates on that. We had a temporary foster placement and did not give this page much attention during that time. We hope to keep things more updated now.

  Thank you all so much for joining us in this journey! Our kids are overjoyed to know who their new brother will be. Please pray with us that he will get to come home sooner than any of us can expect! (Tentatively, we are hopeful to have him home around May 2027, but we know God can make any timeline happen.)

• Update 15

  Restricted Visas

  January 8, 2026

  Hello everyone,

  We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. We have been quiet on here, and we would like to break that silence with an update that you may or may not have heard about in the news.

  Due to a recent presidential proclamation that went into effect on January 1, visa issuance from Haiti is fully restricted, including adoption visas that were previously exempt. We needed some time to process this and speak with our agency, and we still aren’t 100% clear about what this means for our case specifically. Part of the proclamation states, “It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from foreign nationals who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security and public safety, incite hate crimes, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes.” We are not sure why adoptees have been removed from the previously existing exemptions, as in our minds, they do not pose a threat to our country.

  We hope to know more soon and will update with transparency as we learn more.

  So what steps are we currently taking? In December, we called an immigration attorney personally recommended to us who knows the law on both the US side and the Haiti side. We have a consultation set up with her in early February. We have also contacted our federal elected officials in Pennsylvania and opened a formal case with one of them who is advocating on our behalf. We are awaiting the next response, but we have been very reassured in how much communication we have had so far in this process.

  Where are we at in the adoption process? We are still awaiting our I-800A approval. We sent our application to USCIS more than 90 days ago, had our biometrics appointment at USCIS in November, and are hopeful to get approval any day now. Our adoption agency is still planning to send our dossier to Haiti as soon as that approval is received so that we can be formally matched as soon as possible. Things can continue to proceed in Haiti as we try to sort the visa restrictions out on this end. If you care curious for our full timeline, we sent our application to our agency 241 days ago!

  How can you help? Please pray with us that we will receive our I-800A approval very soon. Please also pray for a waiver/exemption that would open up a clear path to a visa in our adoption case and for all others that are caught up in this restriction. There are many families we know of who are so close to bringing their kids home from Haiti and now face uncertainty about their children coming home even if the adoptions are fully completed in Haiti. If you would like to take action, we would strongly advise contacting your federal elected officials via phone or email. This site makes it easy to look your officials up and even provides a sample letter you can use: https://adoptioncouncil.org/advocacy/action-center/#/31

  Thank you all for continuing to support us through the ups and downs of this adoption process! We will get back to having fun with posting some challenge videos soon. We cannot thank you all enough for donating and following along!

• Update 14

  

  Getting closer!

  November 20, 2025

  Last week, Roni and I successfully completed our biometrics appointment with USCIS in Pittsburgh. Our application was accepted into there system on 10/20, and their website is showing an average 3.5 month timeline for the I-800A approval. Please help us pray that things move FASTER and without any requests for more information or corrections.

  Our dossier documents are all with our agency— fully authenticated, organized, and translated into French. Once that I-800A approval is at our agency, they can send our big file off to Haiti!

  The remaining hurdle is finances. We owe our agency $8,550 prior to sending our application to Haiti (hoping for January/February). We have been filling out grant applications and hope to hear back from some of those organizations soon, but we will still owe this $8,550 before any of those would be sent to our agency on our behalf. If you’re reading this update, that means you’ve likely already donated, but we would appreciate prayers and sharing with others who may be led to give.

  We will be in touch with our coffee winners and get those sent out soon! Thank you all for continuing to follow along.

• Update 13

  

  Puzzle Update

  November 1, 2025

  I am not sure why, but the photo did not attach to our previous post. Here it is!

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