Good news: two days after my last post immigration cashed our check, and two days later I received our receipt in the mail! Praise the Lord- seriously, progress feels SO good in this process.
Next, we have to wait USCIS (Immigration) to mail us the date/time of our Biometrics appointment. Luckily, when you're adopting from a Hague Convention country, they don't make you wait in "line" to be handled by an agent. Lord willing, our application is currently on the desk of our immigration agent, who is also just waiting on our appointment. Once that appointment is done, we will be holding our breathe, eagerly awaiting our approval... once it's here, I'm driving straight downtown to have that puppy authenticated at the Secretary of State, and overnighting it to our placing agency so we can get that dossier to China (or DTC in adoption terms)! Please be praying for speed in this process.
Now for the bummer news: we've received word from four more grant agencies, and none of them decided they were able to assist in our adoption. I am a super sensitive person, and my heart is just prone to taking things personally, so I have to fight myself to not wonder if I said something wrong, or what it was that WE did that made them decide to help other families. I literally spent hours upon hours working on these grant apps, so I suppose it's natural to lean towards those feeling when you put such effort into them. I'm finding that these moments require the most self talk for me, to remind myself of the other precious children that WILL be awarded financial assistance to come home. I have to remind myself consistently that perhaps their health condition is more urgent or fatal than Caroline's, rather than just chronic.
This Sunday we had a guest speaker at church, and his message couldn't be more applicable to our hearts during this process. It's so easy to become ungrateful for the gifts God has already given us, and simply focus on what else we want or need. Then he said, "We're given limits so we reach for the limitless God."
Whew.
It was exactly what I needed to hear, and has become my mantra this week- with each declination letter/email that comes: God is limitless. He will provide how He sees fit. He cares for the fatherless and orphaned far, far more than any human heart or mind can fathom.
Now onto another good thing: last night I had my first "Gotcha Day" dream. With all of my boys, my pregnancies all became so much more real with my first labor dream. I woke up so excited to be dreaming of picking her up. It wasn't stressful, or scary- I dreamed we were standing, having our picture taken before she came into the room. Unfortunately, I woke up before I dream-met her. But it was so exciting and made it feel SO real in the best ways.
Lastly, today we are having our Usborne Book Fundraiser. If you're interest, click HERE and make sure to select our fundraiser at check out.
Thank you so much for reading, for supporting us, and for praying for us. Please continue to lift this process up, and our funding up to our limitless God.
"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever." Ephesians 3:20-21
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