Hello! Thankfully my lapse in writing will spare you any of the ups and downs of the last few months, but I will try and recap some of it for you:
Our Homestudy session went well. After it was completed, we still needed to get a clearance from the country in South America where my husband served as a missionary for the Lord before we were married. Our HS worker was having a difficult time getting anyone from the consulate to answer her calls or messages, so we took it on. After a week of calling and getting bumped around, we were finally able to find the right person, my husband spoke with him in Spanish, and the clearance went into the mail. (I later heard from my mother that she had been praying and fasting for us that morning. So grateful that her and our prayers were answered!)
Afterward, our HS should have been sent to us within two weeks, but our HS worker got delayed with personal matters, and it wasn't until the middle of November that I received copies of our HS in the mail. That was a hard wait, mostly because I had geared myself up for us to have our dossier prepped and sent to the country we are adopting from before they reached their long winter holiday time. That way our travel would be in Nov/Dec, which somehow felt so right to me. With our HS coming so slowly, our petition to the US gov't to adopt internationally was delayed, and it became clear that we would miss all end-of-the-year deadlines. This meant spending money to redo some paperwork as well that needs to be as current as possible. After some internal angst about it, I slowed down and thanked the Lord that at that very busy time of our lives we weren't also trying to throw in international travel, major decisions, and all of the adjustment that will come with bringing new children into our home.
I puzzled a bit over the urgency that I felt all summer, because in reality we could have approached this whole process a lot slower, but I believe that the Spirit was rushing me so I could complete the bulk of the heavy paperwork before my children got too busy in school and needed my attention. Perhaps also I needed to hurry because the Lord knew that others would have delays. For whatever reason, I cannot deny that I was thrown into a rush by forces outside myself and that the "rush-rush" feeling left by the end of October. We put everything about the adoption mostly on hold, made plans to drive to visit family for Christmas, and I determined to reinvest myself in adoption paperwork when we came back from vacation.
Our Christmas time was holy and glorious!
Since January, I have begun again in earnest, but we still have a lot of waiting to do for things out of our control, and I am more relaxed about it this time. My biggest questions surround how we will know which girls are ours, how the Lord will link us up with them, and what things He needs me to do to prepare. What a process!
Here is where we stand:
*we are expecting USCIS approval any day (this is the US allowing us to adopt internationally).
*we sent off our fingerprints to an FBI channeler that will get them to the FBI to be checked. This form will probably come to us in about 1 1/2 to two weeks. Then we will send it out again to another organization that will have the state department in D.C. apostille it (with an international stamp that verifies authenticity) and send it back to us.
*we are waiting to receive our marriage licenses back from the state that is apostilling them.
*when it looks like all of the above have arrived, we will get income statements from our employers.
*at that point we can take about 30 items to be notarized.
*then everything has to be taken to our local state department to be apostilled.
*Finally we can start prepping for the journey, turning our adoption savings into crisp $100 bills (since those exchange for a higher rate), and working out all of the details surrounding being gone for a while (like stocking the pantry/freezer, creating a health power-of-attorney for my parents who will come to care for our children, automating any uncared for bills, etc., etc., etc., etc.) Lots and lots still to do that doesn't involve paperwork.
For now, we are mostly just praying that the Lord will help us to know what we need to know when we need to know it. And trying not to worry too much.
Jacob in the Old Testament created a monument to remind the people of the Lord's merciful guidance and help and said this: "That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the Lord your God for ever." (Joshua 4:24)
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