Thursday, March 24, 2011

I800A submitted

Our adoption took another baby step forward this week!  Our homestudy  was completed and sent to our placement agency late last week.  So this week our application to the USCIS for permission to bring a child into the country could be submitted.  Next we'll receive an appointment for finger printing, which must be done before they will approve our application.  We're a month behind where I thought we'd be right now, but I am reminding myself that God's timing is perfect. 



Monday, March 7, 2011

God goes ahead - another Memorial Box Monday

Into the Memorial Box today goes a house.
 


Or many houses.  We have moved many times in our married life.  Many of those moves have been God-led.  We opened our hearts to His will and we found ourselves headed to another state.  Time and again we have been blessed with gifts from God in each new place we have lived.  He's at it again.

In the midst of this adoption, we find ourselves led to another move.  You may recall the story of God's provision after months of job hunting, here.  That new job is taking us to yet another new state.  In the middle of an adoption.  But we know this is where God wants us to be next, so we are not afraid.  We thought we'd start looking for housing in our new town in the Spring and move after the school year ended in June.  But God had other plans.  We had our first home study meeting with our social worker in late January.  She expressed a great amount of concern about us adding a third child in the small house where we currently reside.  It was frustrating at the time and I fussed more than I should have about the  'very American attitude about individual bedrooms for every family member'.  But following that meeting, DH decided to just 'look and see.'  We weren't in any hurry.  We wanted to get the home study and dossier done before we made any big changes.  But that very week there was an advertisement for a large house right in the neighborhood with the elementary school we'd seen great things about.  So he inquired.  You can probably guess where this is going.  Without any effort, we found ourselves with a new home to rent in our new town.  Fully furnished.  And I mean fully.  Not only furniture, but linens, cleaning supplies, dishes, and food in the cubboard.  Crazy furnished.  I've been shaking my head in disbelief for three weeks now. 

And then today, I opened my Bible to Deuteronomy and was reminded twice again how God prepares the way for us.  Deut. 1:30, "all through this you did not have confidence in the Lord your God, the one who is constantly going before you to find places for you to set up camp."   (Boy He has outdone Himself for us this time!)  Then again in Deut. 2:7, "All along the way , I, the Lord your God, have blessed your every effort.  I have been attentive to your travels through this great wasteland.  These forty years I have been with you.  You have lacked for nothing." 

So true!  We surely lack for nothing.  Praises to God for all these years of going before us.  Praises for showing us again this time how He goes before us to find places for us to set up camp. 

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Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Bumps in the road

Our home study process is taking longer than originally projected.  We have another meeting with our social worker this week.  This was a surprise to us, since we're alum's at our agency and were told we'd need just one visit with the SW.  But we are trusting in God's plan.  We know that God's timing is perfect and there's a reason that our paperwork is still not complete.  It's hard to be patient, but we're learning.