Agency Visit Today

We have finally gotten every document together for the dossier!  Jim and I drove up to Berthoud this morning to give this big ol' stack of papers/photos/documents directly to our agency rep.  I was not about to trust it to the mail or delivery service!  We are still waiting to receive our background clearances from our previous states (please pray that these do not sit under a pile of papers on anyone's desk!) and our home study is being written up by our social worker.  After all this is finally completed, we can apply for permission   to adopt from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration.  And then after thaaaat . . . we can FINALLY send the dossier to China!   And then comes the reeeeally long wait.

 Yes . . . it is a very long process.  While it appears that we will not be able to travel to bring our sweet girl home until late spring, I keep going back to the fact that God > Impossible, and how awesome it would be if we could get her before she turns 4 in February!  I know He could do that  - and WILL do that - if that is His good plan for her and for us.  We will wait to see what He has in mind, while continuing to pray that time would not be wasted unnecessarily in any of the steps, and that all involved would do the very best job they can.

And now for the great awesome God news!  We found out today that we've been given a $3000 grant for our adoption!  This was a great surprise, as we have several large payments due over the next months.  We know that He who calls us is faithful (1 Thess. 5:24) and He will make a way for us to follow his call.  From the time we first knew God was calling us to international adoption, we have known it would be very expensive, and we knew we did not have to worry about it.  Even (and especially!) on the day I lost my teaching job.  We knew.  He who calls us is faithful!

Another fun thing from our agency visit . . . we saw our little Caylie Jiu Chang's visa photo!  We only have a few photos of our sweet girl, so finding another was a treasure.