Skip to main content

Where we are now... an exercise in waiting

SO, last week was a big week.  It's been crazy, but I've finally found a few minutes to update...

 After what felt like a million delays, our homestudy was FINALLY ready, so last Monday (8/17) I went to pick it up. Since the homestudy agency is in the OKC metro I took the bulk of our dossier to be apostilled at the same time.  An apostille is a state seal, where the state verifies that the notary is valid.  Anyway, we live about 4 1/2 hours from the homestudy agency & state capitol, so we drove up to take care of it in one day.  We saved probably about 2 weeks of mail time that way. 

 My mom went with me (BLESS HER!), which was awesome because it was a very stressful day.  We had a couple of hiccups, a lot of driving across the OKC metro, and a crazy day, but at the end of the day, this is where we are at:

 Our completed homestudy was overnighted to USCIS to catch up with the application that we filed last March.  They have had it over a week now, so we are hoping for a letter giving us a fingerprint appointment soon. 

 Our dossier is about 90% complete and is now in the hands of the facilitation team in Eastern Europe.  We basically lack 3 sets of documents - one of which is our USCIS approval.  The other 2 sets are in the works & will be easy to finish up.

 SO, what does that mean?  Now we wait.  Which I obviously love.  But, besides that...  We are in a holding pattern, waiting on an approval from USCIS, so that we can have our dossier submitted to her country.  However, PRAISE THE LORD FOR PROGRESS!  Seriously, I can't get over the fact that the homestudy is DONE, and we are finally able to make some progress!

 Our next big step is to fundraise while we wait.  We'll crunch numbers this weekend and post an update, and maybe even a cool thermometer or something if I can figure it out!  Ha!  In the mean time, please pray for us as we continue this process, and for our daughter as she waits. 

 For those of you just now following our story, please check out a couple of my posts that talk about what we are doing and why, written back when I had more brain power! Haha.  I recommend: 

 http://15milesfromnowhere.blogspot.com/2014/04/were-adopting.html

 and

 http://15milesfromnowhere.blogspot.com/2014/05/dont-you-have-enough-kids-already.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Special Needs Parenting Part 1: The back story

I have sat down a million times to explain WHY we would specifically adopt a child with special needs & what special needs parenting means to me. But I just can't explain it without the back story. So here it is... the beginning of our journey in special needs parenting. I remember vividly when I was pregnant with our baby girl and we were choosing names.  My husband liked a lot of cutesy little girl names, and I kept saying that we need something strong.  Something suitable for a strong, fierce woman who could someday be a doctor, lawyer, or President of the United States!  She needed something that would look good on her PhD diploma.  At the time I worked for a university, and one of my tasks was printing diplomas, and my argument was that you rarely see a "cutesy" name on a doctoral diploma.  We settled on a "cutesy" name, with a long version. You know, for her PhD diploma some day.  We settled on a name that to me, spoke of kindness, gentleness, b...
Post a Comment
Read more

radical obedience, holy desperation

I sit here in this place of radical obedience to God's call - where my entire life is laid out on the altar for what He has called us to do, and the thoughts whir... Here's the thing about radical faith that you don't realize until you dive in over your heads - this is a holy place. This place where I can't possibly finish this on my own, where God HAS TO show up, it's a holy place. It's a place that can make you want to turn around, walk away, and do something sane with your life; but it's also a place that can drive you to your knees. This place can show you God in a way you've never seen Him. All of the sudden you NEED Him. I live a comfortable American life. How many times do I need God? Sure, I need His grace and love every day, but when was the last time I needed Him to handle the logistics of my daily life? It's not very often. My life is pretty smooth. But this place - He HAS TO show up or these kids aren't coming home. It isn't e...
Post a Comment
Read more

Don't you have enough kids already?

Why Adoption? Why on earth are they adopting? Don’t they have enough kids? I’m sure these are the top questions on most people’s minds right now.  So I’m going to go ahead and put them out there and answer them. YES, we have enough kids!  We have 5 beautiful, vibrant, wonderful kids.  Two are mine from a previous marriage but 100% loved by my husband as his own.  One joined our family through a temporary guardianship and we later had the joy of adopting him.  Two are ours together.  The 7 of us are close.  As tight knit as any biological family, and I would venture to say more tight knit than many.  We are strong.  We've weathered challenges.  We've seen God’s glory.  We've cried, praised, worshiped, and conquered together.  We've learned that blood and genetics do not define family – love does.  YES, we have enough kids!  Our house is full, and our ban...
2 comments
Read more