He's got the whole world....

I've been putting off writing this blog entry for a few days. I am still sorting out my own feelings. On Wednesday we heard from our agency on a few questions we had asked them. We had been waiting to find out if Radu had made a match for us on his trip to Ethiopia. He hadn't. He told us it would probably be about 4 months before we find out who our child is. In the world of international adoptions this is still VERY soon, but it was hard to hear when I had been expecting to find out who she was any day! When we signed up for the program the wait time between submitting the dossier (paperwork) and receiving a referral was about 9 months to a year. So 4 months is AWESOME!!! But, it's still 4 months.

Aaron and I have been having a rough couple weeks in general. There is a lot going on in the school district that we both work in right now. It looks as though I will for sure loose my job since I am not tenured and they are making major cuts. This isn't the end of the world, as we were planning that I probably wouldn't be working once we get Sophie anyway, but if it is longer than we expect then I am going to have to find work in the in between time. Our big concern is Aaron's job and salary. The teachers are going through contract negotiations starting this spring. The superintendent's saying that if they do not take some major cuts in salary and benefits then she is going to have to make major cuts in jobs, tenured people included. Since Aaron hasn't been tenured long (only 1 year), this could mean that his job is in jeopardy. I am not too concerned about this, because even if he did get cut, he is an amazing teacher with many, many principals who have said they will recommend him (since his school has had a different principal every year). I know he will have a job next year, but he is stressed! And there is concern about the teachers having to go on strike... usually this wouldn't be a concern, we would live on savings, but that has all gone to the adoption.

There have been many nights of concern in our house, but I keep coming back to Matthew 6:26 "Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them! Are you not much more valuable than they?" I feel that this last month (and probably the next year), is one big lesson on trusting God's provision and plan. Some days I feel as though I am getting an 'A' in this lesson, but then the next minute my grade slips to a big fat 'F'. I will not give up, I may get discouraged, but I will keep pressing on. The Lord is with us, He will not fail us, He will not let go of us through these hard times.

As I write this I am reminded of a Swedish song we used to sing at Holsby (the bible school I went to in Sweden):
Du omsluter mig pa alla sidor
och haller mig i din hand.
Du omsluter mig pa alla sidor
och haller mig i din hand.
It comes from Psalm 139:5 "You hem me in - behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me."
The Swedish translation is: You surround me on all sides, and keep me in your hand.

Known by God

A devotional I read today by Kerry Hasenbalg:
"The Lord will work out his plans for my life - for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. Don't abandon me, for you made me." Psalm 138: 8

Statistics like "143 million orphans worldwide" and "every 14 seconds another child is orphaned by HIV/AIDS" can be overwhelming and paralyzing. Yet, it is critical to remember that God knows each one of these children individually - knows their specific circumstances- and that He has unique plans and desires for them. Thinking that helping one child will not do much to alleviate such great suffering is a lie. It makes a profound difference in that child's life and affects everyone whom she touches. Let us imagine God's perspective. When someone adopts one of these orphans, it is as though God is saying, "Little one, you are so special to me. I knew where you were, and I picked you out and placed you here - I knew you would be here from the beginning of time."

The King of  kings is serious about being the father to fatherless. Orphans are members of God's royal family, and He has a plan for each one of his princes and princesses. The nameless and faceless orphan found in statistics is by no means nameless and faceless to God! In the world of adoption, we can be confident that nothing surprises our God, and what may look like "plan B" for us or our children may in fact have been God's "plan A" all along. 

I loved reading this today! It reminded me of the fact that God has a plan for Aaron and I, and our little one. The timing will be perfect. The specific child will be the one God wanted placed in our family! Even though there are so many things that we can sit and fret about: timing, money, paperwork, government agencies etc. There is really no point to worrying. As scripture put it: "who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Who of you by worrying can add a single dollar to his bank account, or a single thing to help speed up the process, or a single way to identify the child sooner. What can my worrying do? Only cause me to be miserable throughout the process (and others around me for that matter!). So today, instead of worrying about all of this, today I will simply thank the Lord for bringing us this far in the process. I'll praise Him for having the timing and control in His hands, and rest in the fact that there is nothing I can do! God's got this one...

Our paperwork made it...

So our dossier did arrive on time! The next day I got an email from our agency saying "call us." I was a little worried that something was wrong with our paperwork. Sure enough, they had a problem with 2 things not being authenticated. One was my birth certificate (my birth cert. is weird because it's issued by the federal gov since I was born outside the US). I explained that the state here in IL wouldn't authenticate it since it's a federal doc. They said that was fine. The other was our US immigration clearance. Our agency had told me 2 weeks before that it didn't need authentication, but I guess they had told me wrong. Since it was their mistake they are taking care of it. So our paperwork has been cleared by them. They are going to send it off to go through the OR senate, and then on to D.C.!

Pray for our adoption person Radu, who is traveling to Ethiopia. He leaves tomorrow and will be there for a week! Pray that he is able to get our process moving quickly and that the Lord will have His hand in picking our child!

Tracking our dossier :)

I know it's silly, but if you would like to join me in tracking our dossier:
Fedex # 874638674035

It's currently on schedule and in transit... sorta fun!

We sent off our dossier...

We got it all in the mail today, everything that we have been working on since May. Aaron was able to get the last few documents authenticated in Chicago. He had a bit of a hiccup (they weren't notarized correctly) but he was able to get it all worked out and finished. He then went and had everything overnighted to Portland! We are hoping snow delays don't affect it, it should be to Portland around 10:30 tomorrow morning. We are so relieved that this part of the process is done. Hopefully all our paperwork will be accepted the first time around and everything will go quickly and smoothly. I am so thankful to Aaron for his help today!

I keep praying all along this journey... Lately though I feel silly asking God to help with every tiny step, because He has been in control this whole time and I trust He will continue to be in control. Over and over it's like He's saying "don't worry, I got this one!" It was, after all, His plan in the first place. Even still, I will continue to lift every detail to Him as we continue down this path because we are called to pray!

More to come!

Biggest rejoicing day yet!!!!

"Oh my dear!" As my nephew would say! Today has been so crazy! We were waiting to hear if we could use the old license from Lutheran Social Services in order to get our dossier sent out tomorrow.... I called Radu (our placement agency contact person) to see if we could, and he said no. They actually needed both the expired license AND the new one. He then asked me if I could get our dossier to him before the end of the week, as he was leaving for Ethiopia and wanted to start getting it processed. I was bummed to tell him that I didn't think it would be possible.

I got off the phone and called our social worker right away to see if by some miracle the license had come. She answered and asked if I had received her emails. I said no, and she said "well I sent you one this morning letting you know that the license hasn't come, but then I sent you one a few minutes ago saying that we just got it!!!" You can imagine my joy... So I hung up with her and called Radu back. I told him we'd over night it Tuesday after we get the last few things authenticated, and he would have it Wednesday (Lord willing). I asked if that would be enough time to get things started before he left. His response? "Oh ya, that's not really what I'm concerned about. It needs to go to the Oregon senate first which takes a few days, but I really want it in order to take photocopies of the dossier with me to Ethiopia." Translation: identify a child for us while he's there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanted to scream and cry and who knows what else. But I played it cool and then burst into tears as soon as I got of the phone! WOW!

I spoke with my social worker about it later today and she said that even if they do match a child to us next week (NEXT WEEK!!!!) we still may not hear or know anything until all our paperwork has jumped through the hoops and it's an official referral. But still, wow! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please Pray:
-Tomorrow goes smoothly for Aaron
-Our paperwork gets to Oregon on Wednesday
-God's hand is in Radu's trip next week and the possible match!
-Our paperwork goes through OR, DC, and Ethiopian embassy quickly and smoothly

US Immigration done!

Wow! So we got our US immigration clearance about 3 weeks ahead of schedule (thanks to our local Congressman's office)! We are so excited! Actually, I am still in a bit of shock... We had a nice evening last night, we went out to eat, registered at Babies R Us and then came home to find our clearance in the mail! I thought Aaron was pulling my leg when we he told me there was an envelope from US immigration.

So here's the scoop. In order to finish our dossier we need a copy of our home study agencies license (Lutheran Social Services). Sounds easy right? Of course not! They have a license of course, but it expired in December. Don't worry, they submitted their paper work for renewal back in November, but guess who has to renew it.... DUN DUN DOOOOOON:   DCFS!!! The bane of our adoption process. They are the local child services org. that can't get ANYTHING done in timely manner (or take seriously child abuse notifications, but that's a whole separate teacher issue that I won't go into). So it's January and Lutheran Social Services still doesn't have their new license.

I've emailed our placement agency to find out if we can use the expired one in our dossier, since it was still valid when they were doing and completed our home study. We shall see. If that works then here is the timeline of what's to come:

-Monday 1/10: get expired license from Lutheran Social Services
-Tuesday 1/11: Aaron takes off work to go to Chicago to get license apostilled
-Tuesday afternoon: finish photocopying our dossier and overnight it to Portland OR
-Wednesday 1/12: Agency in Portland receives and reviews our dossier
-Fingers crossed they send it ASAP to Washington D.C. to get authenticated
-A courier hand delivers it in D.C. to get it authenticated and then hand carries it to the Ethiopian Embassy
-Ethiopian government accepts it and we become a waiting family
-Some unknown amount of months later we get a referral of a child (could be anywhere from 2-9 months)
-4-6 weeks later we travel to Ethiopia for court
-4-6 weeks after that we can bring Sophie home!

Please continue to pray for each little step. Especially this license hiccup we are dealing with currently!