I received an email from our social worker at Lifeline today telling me that she overnighted our I800A application to USCIS!! We are officially in the immigration stage and will now wait for notice of their receipt of the paperwork and then a biometric fingerprinting appointment.
It is typical that waiting on the approval from USCIS takes about 2 months. In this 2 months, we will continue work on building our dossier. Once we have the approval, I will scan it and email it to Lifeline and they will immediately begin the process of certifying and authenticating all our documents for China. That takes about 2-3 weeks, and then we will be DTC - dossier to China!!!
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Praying BIG Things...and an update!
We are getting closer to having all our paperwork turned in to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) or Homeland Security for our immigration approval! We have completed the I800A form, sent that, some documents, and our check to Lifeline, and once our social worker there has our completed home study in her hands, she will send it all off to USCIS. We saw our home study report about 2 weeks ago, submitted some corrections on our end, and our social worker at Lifeline submitted some corrections as well, so now we are just waiting for IFS to finalize all those and get the notarized copy to Alabama.
The application that we completed for homeland security is asking for approval to be able to adopt a child. This approval will be sent in our dossier to China, showing that the US government says we are ok to be able to adopt a child from China.
While we are waiting on this approval, we will continue to build our dossier. The dossier consists of 13 documents that are all certified and authenticated and is what the Chinese government looks at before they are able to log us in to their system. I just recieved the handbook this week from Lifeline, telling me all the documents I can work on compiling, so I will post more about the dossier later.
For now, I thought I would share some of the things Randy and I are praying for right now, and ask if you are praying for us if you would pray these specific things as well. We have already seen God answer big prayers and we believe that he wants us to ask more big things! So we are, and here are the 4 big prayers we are praying:
1. That we would complete our adoption debt-free, having everything we need each step along the way. This is a big prayer. So far, we have had everything we have needed as it has come due and we are so thankful for God's faithfulness to provide that! Just a quick update: so far we have paid close to $8,000 in various fees, which means we have (roughly) $22,000 left throughout the whole process. We believe God will be faithful to provide this as we "pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us!" (Quote from The Circlemaker by Mark Batterson - loving that book right now!)
2. That we would receive a referral for our little girl by Christmas, and that she would be at least a year younger than Cooper. We are hoping to send our dossier at the end of August, when I turn 30 (China's requirement) and when Cooper is turning 2. Typically a referral could come quickly after that, which would mean that we would need a 12-13 month old to be a year younger than Coop. That is a very uncommon age for referrals - they generally are closer to 16-18 months old. So while we do want to have that year span, we are anxious to see her and know who she is. That is why we are praying for a referral by Christmas. By then Cooper would be 2 years and 4 months old, which means our daughter could be closer to 16 months. Big prayer - but our God is bigger! Will you join us in praying for that??
3. For her attachment and bonding with us. We are praying that she is attaching with care-givers and nannies now, even though that may mean a rough transition when we get to her. We want her to know how to attach, so that it will be easier for her to attach to us. Also, we are praying for a quick and easy attachment to both me AND to Randy. Often, it is easier for the children to bond to women, because that is who they have known caring for them their whole lives. Randy wants just as badly as me to hold her, love on her, and care for her though, so we are praying that she bonds to both of us quickly!
4. Finally, we are praying for our family when we bring our new daughter home. We are praying that Kendall and Cooper bond quickly with her and that they don't feel jealous or left out. We are praying for us, that we will have the strength and energy required to care for 3 children, one of whom will probably have a lot of needs early on. And we are praying for wisdom for how to lead our family through this new stage of our lives.
I mentioned the book The Circlemaker that I have been reading lately. I love these two quotes from the book:
"Are your problems bigger than God, or is God bigger than your problems? Our biggest problem is our small view of God. That is the cause of all lesser evils. And it's a high view of God that is the solution to all other problems."
"If you've never had a God-sized dream that scared you half to death, then you haven't really come to life. If you've never been overwhelmed by the impossibility of your plans, then your God is too small. If your vision isn't perplexingly impossible, then you need to expand the radiuses of your prayer circles."
We have been overwhelmed, we have been a little scared, and we wonder how in the world these four prayers will be answered. But we feel so at peace because of Who we are trusting in - and we are absolutely LOVING the ride!!
"I lift my eyes up to the hills - where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121:1-2
Thank you for joining us in praying for BIG things!!
The application that we completed for homeland security is asking for approval to be able to adopt a child. This approval will be sent in our dossier to China, showing that the US government says we are ok to be able to adopt a child from China.
While we are waiting on this approval, we will continue to build our dossier. The dossier consists of 13 documents that are all certified and authenticated and is what the Chinese government looks at before they are able to log us in to their system. I just recieved the handbook this week from Lifeline, telling me all the documents I can work on compiling, so I will post more about the dossier later.
For now, I thought I would share some of the things Randy and I are praying for right now, and ask if you are praying for us if you would pray these specific things as well. We have already seen God answer big prayers and we believe that he wants us to ask more big things! So we are, and here are the 4 big prayers we are praying:
1. That we would complete our adoption debt-free, having everything we need each step along the way. This is a big prayer. So far, we have had everything we have needed as it has come due and we are so thankful for God's faithfulness to provide that! Just a quick update: so far we have paid close to $8,000 in various fees, which means we have (roughly) $22,000 left throughout the whole process. We believe God will be faithful to provide this as we "pray like it depends on God and work like it depends on us!" (Quote from The Circlemaker by Mark Batterson - loving that book right now!)
2. That we would receive a referral for our little girl by Christmas, and that she would be at least a year younger than Cooper. We are hoping to send our dossier at the end of August, when I turn 30 (China's requirement) and when Cooper is turning 2. Typically a referral could come quickly after that, which would mean that we would need a 12-13 month old to be a year younger than Coop. That is a very uncommon age for referrals - they generally are closer to 16-18 months old. So while we do want to have that year span, we are anxious to see her and know who she is. That is why we are praying for a referral by Christmas. By then Cooper would be 2 years and 4 months old, which means our daughter could be closer to 16 months. Big prayer - but our God is bigger! Will you join us in praying for that??
3. For her attachment and bonding with us. We are praying that she is attaching with care-givers and nannies now, even though that may mean a rough transition when we get to her. We want her to know how to attach, so that it will be easier for her to attach to us. Also, we are praying for a quick and easy attachment to both me AND to Randy. Often, it is easier for the children to bond to women, because that is who they have known caring for them their whole lives. Randy wants just as badly as me to hold her, love on her, and care for her though, so we are praying that she bonds to both of us quickly!
4. Finally, we are praying for our family when we bring our new daughter home. We are praying that Kendall and Cooper bond quickly with her and that they don't feel jealous or left out. We are praying for us, that we will have the strength and energy required to care for 3 children, one of whom will probably have a lot of needs early on. And we are praying for wisdom for how to lead our family through this new stage of our lives.
I mentioned the book The Circlemaker that I have been reading lately. I love these two quotes from the book:
"Are your problems bigger than God, or is God bigger than your problems? Our biggest problem is our small view of God. That is the cause of all lesser evils. And it's a high view of God that is the solution to all other problems."
"If you've never had a God-sized dream that scared you half to death, then you haven't really come to life. If you've never been overwhelmed by the impossibility of your plans, then your God is too small. If your vision isn't perplexingly impossible, then you need to expand the radiuses of your prayer circles."
We have been overwhelmed, we have been a little scared, and we wonder how in the world these four prayers will be answered. But we feel so at peace because of Who we are trusting in - and we are absolutely LOVING the ride!!
"I lift my eyes up to the hills - where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121:1-2
Thank you for joining us in praying for BIG things!!
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