The Hardest Part

I've been trying to find rest during this stage of the adoption process, but it is hard. I've been trying to have faith in God's provision, in His time.

You all have blessed us tremendously with your financial, emotional and physical support to our family as we chase after Jesus and His plan to bring Caroline home. You have donated money, let us talk, and have even watched our kids for us as we do "stuff" for this adoption. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You have been tangible reminders for us of God's continued hand on this process, and for that we are so very thankful.

If you haven't purchased a shirt yet and would like to, click here and follow through to our GoFundMe. All you have to do is make a minimum $25 donation, and either email or PM me via Facebook or Instagram your size(s) and mailing address and I will order them all together at the end of the campaign.

Adoption is harder than I thought it would be. We have to sacrifice a lot, and it's been a wonderful measuring stick: do I want to buy this shirt (or home decoration, etc) more than I want to bring Caroline home? Nope! She's helped us get our priorities straight, and has taught us to value a life more than on a possession.

My sister just had her precious baby boy a week ago (time FLIES!) and it's been so hard to not be there. I wish more than anything I was there, or were going there soon, but I've had to do a lot of self talk: Turner has a mom and dad, and a family, and is being so cared for. I can love him as much as I do as his auntie, but I am not his mom, and by the grace of God, he is safe and sound and loved. Caroline Mercy is still orphaned. It creates this urgency in me, that even when my heart so longs for "home" and the people I miss so much, this little girl's life it on the line. Thank you, God, for perspective.

The hardest part of this process so far that I've found is having to "hurry up and wait." Everything in an adoption feels urgent, but once I've completed my part, it's 100% out of my control and I need to shift gears back to waiting and resting mode, and it's SO hard to do.

We were rushing, rushing, rushing to get our home study completed so we could submit our grant applications and submit our I-800A (our request for immigration approval to bring a child into the country as our child permanently). Now that those are done, we just WAIT... and if you know me even in the slightest, you know how terrible I am at waiting. I get things DONE, and when I can't do anything it's ridiculously impossible for me to sit and twiddle my thumbs. I need to feel like I'm doing SOMETHING to speed it along, but it's teaching me so much to have to rest and wait and trust.

I keep trying to remind myself that along with praying for this process to be quick and smooth, praying for Caroline's body and mind, we've also been praying that God would prepare her to come home. So perhaps, the timing is slowing down a bit so her little heart and mind may be more ready to come home, and have a family to love her and welcome her as a beloved daughter.

Will you continue to pray for/with us? Here are a couple of ways that you can join along side us before the Throne:

1) Please pray over our I-800A Immigration approval. It's the last piece of our dossier, and is 100% out of our hands now. We are waiting to receive a request for our fingerprints from USCIS (US Immigration), which is the last step towards approval. Once we submit our finger prints, we have to wait for our final approval from them, which will be mailed to us. Once we receive it, we will have it authenticated by the State of Colorado, and over-nighted to our placing agency up in Utah, who will then send all of our originals to Washington DC so the State Department can authenticate on the federal level, and then have them couriered to the Chinese Embassy for their authentication, at which point we can finally send the dossier to China. Please pray for all of this to be processed quickly. If this takes longer than the second week in December, we will have to pay more money (long story short- they need everything authenticated by the Chinese Embassy before a certain time frame, or we would have to start over with a number of the documents).

2) Please pray for the decision makers of the grant agencies. We've submitted 12 of the 16 eligible grants we could qualify for. 2 of them don't allow you to submit until after receiving final approval from immigration, until you're only 3-4 months out from travel (we are currently about 7-8 months out from travel). The other remaining 2 have application fee's. We are waiting to submit the grant applications with the fee's until we see the decisions from the grants without application fee's. There are so many people trying to adopt, who are relying on the generosity of grant agencies (ourselves included). Will you join me in praying for clarity of mind and wisdom in their generosity? We are praying that they can see our need, and select us in their processes.

Our sweet friends and families, thank you for joining alongside us in this journey. Caroline may be Kris and my daughter, but she's ALL OF OUR girl. That's an incredible feeling, and such a joy.

 

Happy Weekend :)