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