Answered Prayer and a Hard Decision

We asked for prayer on Monday... and you prayed. God answered. Thank you! All praise be to God.

On Tuesday, I received our completed home study to review for corrections!!!! We reviewed it, made small corrections and the agency was able to overnight it to our social worker for final signatures that day. It was then overnighted back to the agency, and overnighted today to USCIS for immigration approval. It should arrive there tomorrow and you better believe we will be tracking this package!  Thank you for praying. Wow!

Our best case scenario travel time is early August. This is highly variable depending on the efficiency of all the workers involved. None of them will have the same drive that we do when completing their paperwork in a timely manner. We've heard it really depends on whose desk our papers land on. However, it is definitely not outside the realm of possibility to travel in early August and we are praying that is the case. We are learning though to expect the unexpected and to pray and wait. We can't control this and that is a good thing.

Today, we were faced with a difficult decision. Around mid-day we were asked to decide whether we would host Irina while we wait for our travel invitation. The hosting trip is scheduled from July 25-August 29th. It is a risk. If she is here being hosted and we get our invitation to travel, we will have to postpone our travel until she is back at the orphanage. By law, we cannot change the travel plans made by the hosting company in coordination with the Ukrainian government. She has to travel back with her group on the scheduled date. That would mean the earliest we would travel is early September. We would spend three weeks in country, return home for a 10 day waiting period. Then travel back to Ukraine to retrieve her, get her visa to travel here and not return to the states until sometime in early October.

The alternative is to wait for our invitation, pray that we travel in August and bring her home by early September for good. After much prayer and discussion, Darin summed it up best: "We decided not to host Irina and instead pray hard that God will work it out so we can travel sometime in August.  But, if it turns out He has other plans and we don’t travel until September or later, we will be content in the knowledge that His timing is perfect and He has some reason to make us wait." We are in unity in our decision and at peace. Definitely a gift as we muddled through this together in the midst of a work day for Darin and a busy afternoon for the boys and me. 

Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to pray for Irina and the timing of our travel. God is growing our love for her as we wait and teaching us more and more to trust Him.

"You will keep in perfect peace, him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal." Isaiah 26:3-4

Calling All Prayer Warriors

We would so appreciate your prayers.

Our latest update: We have all our dossier documents ready to be sent, except one vital document. We have submitted our I600A and it is waiting on one vital document to be fully processed. That one important missing document is our completed Home Study. We have been waiting on the final completion of that for over 4 weeks. (We started the initial process at the end of January - almost 4 months ago!) Supposedly, it has been completed by the social worker and is getting reviewed by the agency in North Carolina. It is taking longer then expected.

My attitude has been mostly relaxed, trusting it will all work out in God's timing. However, it was brought to my attention this morning that we will likely not travel in July. We may have to host her this summer instead if this continues to drag out.  That would mean we would have to go through the horrible goodbye's at the airport again. I don't want to send my daughter back. I want her home with us to begin healing. Or, we may travel in August. Our travel time is still so uncertain and it's driving me crazy!! If you've been around the adoption world for long, you are not surprised by all these delays. It seems to be a part of the deal, and even though I know this, I had been optimistic until now. Or maybe trusting God? Either way, we covet your prayers as the final steps before travel are completed.

Here are some specific prayer requests:
1) For the homestudy to finally be completed and mailed to the appropriate places. That we would be Christ's light with the two agencies we are working with, all the while advocating fiercely for our daughter.

2) That we'll be able to travel with the two other families adopting Irina's two friends in Ukraine. It is looking like that is not possible now, but with God anything is possible. I am asking BIG things. I think it would be terrible for Irina's two friends to have their families arrive for them while she is left behind until we can travel to get her.

3) For Irina's continued safety. I know she is not getting tortured, but the picture that has been painted for me of her orphanage from those who have been there is VERY grim. Please pray that God would put a hedge of protection around her.

4) The children at the orphanage will be heading to camp in two weeks. I have heard so many conflicting things about camp, some very ugly. Pray for safety for the children and specifically pray that Irina will not get her head shaved at camp. The last time she was at camp, her head was shaved and I saw before and after pictures. I think it was traumatic for her. We're not sure if the head shaving is a preventative measure or a reactive measure due to lice.

5) Continue to pray that we will trust God and cling to His promises as we are tempted to worry or be fearful.

Prayer, Papers and Cleaning

I have been so eager to write about our journey towards adopting Irina, but the time to do so has been very elusive. First of all, thank you so much for all the encouraging messages and emails. Darin was just remarking today how significant it is that so many people are praying and thinking about Irina as she goes about her day to day life in Ukraine. Do you think she can feel the love? I sure hope so!

Before I can blog about where we are in the process now, I need to rewind back to January (4 months ago). If you've been following along, you know that we bonded with Irina when she was here. I'm learning through training that we haven't "attached", but as a result of positive shared experiences we have bonded. In the days leading up to and following her departure, Darin began discussing with me the nudging he felt to consider adopting Irina. This is not something I expected. It took me a little by surprise, but I could see Darin's sincerity. He took the lead and contacted new friends we had met through our hosting training experience. I am grateful for the time this husband and wife spent with us on the phone. They listened, shared their experience adopting an older Ukrainian girl and suggested several appropriate books. The best advice they shared with us was to wait three weeks and let the emotions settle down, all the while praying for clarity and wisdom.

And so on January 24th, three weeks after Irina flew back to Ukraine, and after much prayer we still felt the urge to move forward. We felt comforted and reassured that we didn't need to think through all the long term details yet. All we needed to do was pray and take the "next faithful step." (Wise words we heard often from a dear friend.) For us, our next step was to complete a home study. We received our home study packet in the mail on Friday, January 31st. You may already know this, but that is one heavy packet! I sat down for several hours that Friday evening and filled out every page I could fill out without having to think too much. I didn't even scratch the surface that evening on all the paperwork that needed to be completed and yikes! I was going to have to think. :) We worked hard for 3 1/2 weeks and much thanks to Darin's determination we were able to mail our initial paperwork back on February 25.

Throughout this process, there have been many opportunities for God to put up a road block or many road blocks. We keep repeating to ourselves, "Just take the next faithful step. Just take the next faithful step." For a planner like me, it has been an exciting place to live. In the midst of all this paperwork and decisions, we still have three other boys who need our attention. Not to mention our homeschool schedule. All of this has been another opportunity for me to be reminded about who is really in control. As much as I act like I want it to be me, it's so much better that it is not!!! God knows exactly where our path will lead and He is completely worthy of my trust. He has proven that to me over and over.

The month of March was spent arranging home visits with our social worker. Not to mention me going a little crazy cleaning the house. Well, maybe more then a little crazy, all to realize that it wasn't so important that our closet was perfectly organized or that our pantry was arranged in alphabetical order. I'm exaggerating here, but you get the idea. I went into crazy nesting mode purging closets and cleaning in spaces that I haven't cleaned in the past two years that we've lived in our house. I put so much pressure on myself (and the boys!) to keep everything "perfect" so we would seem perfect. I don't think it is an accident that each time I spent hours/days cleaning, the social worker cancelled. Or how about the day before one visit when Aaron decided to do a pull up on the towel bar. (So irresistible without all the dirty towels hanging on it.) Yes, it ripped out of the wall leaving two big holes. Yep! Just another opportunity for me to trust God and not be able to control it all! And by the way, the measure of a healthy family is not the white glove test. We surely don't maintain that day to day, but I felt foolishly determined to strive to attain that level of clean during the one hour (or less) the social worker was visiting. Phew! Oh the things God can teach you when you pursue adoption.

My time is up for tonight. To hear more about March and April and our adoption journey, stay tuned!