{Insert Screaming Here}

Pam ~ It has been a confusing couple of weeks since we mailed our dossier on Monday, December 20th.  We had been praying that we would be DTE before Christmas (well, I had been praying that.  Nathan had been praying that it would happen before the end of 2010.), and we were sooooooooooooooooooo excited that it looked like we would be DTE on Christmas Eve.

But then I received a call from Emily, our family coordinator, on Tuesday, letting me know that we had forgotten to sign our passports before we photocopied them, so we needed to sign them, scan them, and e-mail them to her ASAP.  We did that as soon as Nathan got home that evening and e-mailed them to her immediately.  However, I didn't hear back from her on Wednesday so I didn't know if she had received my e-mail.  She had told me that because AWAA was closed on Thursday and Friday for Christmas, we would probably receive a DTE date of the following Tuesday or Wednesday (Dec. 28th or 29th).  While that was not what I wanted, I was still grateful that we would be DTE before the New Year.

However, when I e-mailed her on Monday morning (Dec. 27th) to confirm that she had received my e-mail, I got an "out of office" response that told me she was out until January 3rd!!!!!!!  Oh, No!!!!!!!  I ended up e-mailing the lady who was filling in for Emily while she was gone and, to make a long story short (kind of), everything was confusing to me.  Lost e-mails are floating around out there in Internet land somewhere, and it seemed as if we were not going to be DTE in 2010.

This was hard for me.  I've been struggling with a little anger and lots of frustration that we did what we needed to do, and we STILL weren't DTE.  Nathan had a better attitude and has been reminding me that God knows who our children are and when they will be ready to enter our lives.  If we aren't DTE in 2010, it's because God has a different time-table for our adoption journey.  Yesterday I finally came to a peace about this and was just grateful to know that we had done what we could and God was going to take care of the rest of it.

I e-mailed Emily this morning to ask about the status of our dossier.  I received an e-mail within a half hour letting me know that she was sorry about the confusion and our DTE date is CHRISTMAS EVE, December 24th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God is sooooooooooooooooooooo good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He knew all along that we were already DTE, but I think He was teaching us a lesson in patience and trust.  And then He still chose to give us the desire of our hearts!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Will you take a minute to pray along with me, and thank God for His overwhelming goodness?!?!?!?!

Adoption Update

Pam ~ We mailed our I-600A yesterday!!! Now you may be wondering, "What is an I-600A?" Good question. :-)

The I-600A is a United State Citizenship and Immigration Services {USCIS} form that is also called the Application for the Advance Processing of Orphan Petition. This form allows the USCIS to begin processing our request to bring orphans into the United States.

In order to submit the I-600A form, we had to have a completed Home Study. In addition to the I-600A form and our home study, we submitted copies of both our birth certificates, our marriage license, our home study agency's license, along with a cover letter and a check for $830. Needless to say, we packaged all these important documents in a padded, water-resistant manila envelope and prayerfully mailed it at the post-office.

Now we have to wait to be contacted with a date, time, and place to go be fingerprinted. After the fingerprinting is done, we will wait some more until we receive our I-171H form in the mail!!! The I-171H is basically our letter of acceptance and permission. It doesn't sound so exciting, but it is a HUGE step in the paperwork we need for our dossier. It sounds like IA is one of the states that has a longer wait time to get this processed, so we are happy to have it done and in the mail!!!

While we wait for this to be done, we are continuing to work on the rest of our dossier paperwork. I am typing this post at school, so I don't have the list of the documents we still need to complete in front of me, but I'll try to remember and list a few of them {since I know that you are just dying to know}.

~ Police Reports
~ Three letters of reference
~ Proof of medical insurance
~ Proof of life insurance
~ Application Letter
~ Family Photo Sheet
~ Copies of our passports
~ Two passport photos of each of us
~ Dossier Checklist {that's not what it's called, but it's the general idea}
~ A few others that I can't remember :-)

I am leaving right after school today to attend a two day teacher's conference so these documents are having to wait a few more days. Nathan and I are planning to sit down on Saturday {hopefully} and talk through a plan on when/how to complete the rest of these documents. Our personal goal is to have the paperwork done in the next month or two, and then just work hard and wait on the Lord to provide the rest of the needed finances to submit our dossier. He has a plan and we are excited to see how He will provide. Wouldn't it be GREAT if we could submit our dossier before Christmas?!?! What a wonderful Christmas present that would be!!!!

{By the way, since I will be out of town on Friday, our "Fund-Raising Friday" post will probably be on Saturday.}