Late Saturday night my sister-in-law and I drove to FedEx right before the door closed to send off a binder filled with every adoption paper under the sun (at least that's how it felt!). We have spent the last several month filling out all kinds of forms, scanning, emailing and compiling documents from DRC along with their English translations, Skyping to get everything perfectly organized and praying throughout. There were so many hands and hearts involved in preparing this binder and we are so humbled and grateful for each of them.
The binder was sent to our US attorney who would review, sign and send the binder to USCIS. It was the next BIG step in bringing U home.
We were anticipating that she would send it out yesterday and by today it would be in the hands of USCIS (United States Citizenship & Immigration Services). We learned today that it is still with our attorney. She recommends that we wait to take extra precautions in Congo before moving forward. My heart sunk when I read that in an email. Mailing that binder felt a bit like Christmas morning on steroids. It was one of the last steps that I could physically take to bring our baby boy home. We will talk with our attorney tonight and make sure we do exactly what needs to be done in order to make this process as ethically sound as one can and in doing so honoring U's biological family along with everyone else involved.
As the wait grows longer it is easy to grow weary. (If we have no faith, He will still be faithful for He cannot go against what He is. 2 Timothy 2:13)
For my own benefit I stopped to remind myself how God has been in every step of this process in far more ways than I can count. Here are just a few:
- So much about this adoption thus far has gone remarkably smooth.
- We are blessed beyond measure to know that we are dealing
with people with the highest standards of ethics and love for the
Congelese children and people.
- We have documents and other information that we were not expecting to have when we started this process and are so thankful to have the chance to tell U about them as he grows up.
- We were told not to expect any other pictures of U besides the first original picture we have of him. Three months later we have a total of 4 pictures. We have a picture of his little smile and we can see how he has grown and become a healthy chubby little guy since coming to the orphanage.
I stare at his picture each and every day...multiple times. He is our joy.
As we wait to bring U into our family here at home we are so thankful for all the blessings leading up to his homecoming.
O Lord, You are my God. I will praise You. I will give thanks to You name. For You have been faithful to do great things, plans that You made long ago. Isaiah 25:1
