So here I go again trying to jump onto the blogging band wagon. I have always struggled with writing my life down. I can never keep up with writing a journal and I think blogging has fallen into the same category. But ladies and gents (whoever is still out there) this time is different!! It is different because I want to have a record of what is going on in our life (you benefit as well) and I want to keep everyone updated about our upcoming adoption!!
If I had been a faithful blogger, I would have told you about how January was the craziest month on the calendar by far in my history. I would have told you that we had to send our updated dossier in by the end of January in order to be looked at and that we barely made the date. And that it was the Lord who helped us get all of our necessary paperwork through and in Ukraine on time. But really, we seriously had a document that we, well, kind of forgot about.
If I had been a faithful blogger, I would have told you about how January was the craziest month on the calendar by far in my history. I would have told you that we had to send our updated dossier in by the end of January in order to be looked at and that we barely made the date. And that it was the Lord who helped us get all of our necessary paperwork through and in Ukraine on time. But really, we seriously had a document that we, well, kind of forgot about.
We moved mid December to a house with an extra room, you know, just in case we would need it. So we go home for Christmas and get back in January only to realize that we forgot to send in documentation updating our most important piece of paper, the INS approval form. It is basically is a piece of paper so important that if something is not right on it, the rest of the dossier paperwork is useless. So we were kind of freaking out to say the least. I got on the phone with our adoption agency and they informed me that in order to get that document updated they would have to come out and inspect the new house. I was like sounds great how soon can you come out?? Well they couldn't come out until the next week (Jan 12) and wouldn't get all of our home study updated until the middle of January(Jan 18). Yeah, talk about panic!!
In the meantime we find out that when we send in out updated home study to immigration, it takes them you know an average of 30 days to process the information. Ok so lets do the math...we were not going to get our updated home study until the middle of January and would not be able to send it in to immigration until then. So folks there are not 30 days after the middle of January and we HAD to mail in our paperwork to the Ukraine by the end of January to make our court date (Feb 11th). I of course had a melt down but then began to realize that if the God who created the universe from nothing, miraculously put Jesus in Mary's womb, caused Sarah in her old age to bear a child, and has helped us raise money to cover our whole adoption surely the Lord would not leave us in the middle of the process he has brought us through. So I began to pray continuously for the situation. While I am crying and praying in the car, Ken was on the phone with immigration and was told two times that our situation was impossible and that we would not get it in time. Well, Ken called one more time and a lady answers the phone, he tells her our situation and she tells him to overnight our updated home study when we get it and she would overnight it back to us!! Let me tell you that the Lord is so good and SO faithful!!! So in the middle of January we finally got our updated home study and overnighted it to her. She then updated our paperwork and we received the updated INS form with our updated address in 5 days not 30!!! We then sent in all of our paperwork by the end of January and it made it in time for our February 11th court date. The Lord is good!! On that date, they tell us if we are allowed to adopt or not from the Ukraine.
Well February 11th has come and gone and now we have to wait about 20 business days for them to let us know when we will travel. I don't think that date can come soon enough!! I am so excited for what is ahead!!
