Waiting Looks Like Rushing!

When God moves it always feels like trying to keep up with a train! Have you found that to be true? We wait and wait and wait upon Him. And when the times comes...BAM! 


We've been quietly busy with adoption paperwork. We were so completely pleased with those who did our homestudy. Our case worker was just awesome! She was very motivated to finish quickly. I have found everyone I have had to call to be so helpful. No one has uttered a harsh word to me which as you can imagine, is quite a blessing! 


There are days of questions, of confusion, of frustration. But I am trying to find as much enjoyment as I can in these days of papers and waiting. I am waiting on the Lord and this process is a blessing! I have to count my blessings daily!! And really, there hasn't been a whole lot of waiting...


~About April 15th or 16th our family started asking God "where are our other kids?"
~By the next week we were seeking God about adopting a sibling group of 4 from Nicaragua.
~By April 25th, thanks to friends, we had an adoption lawyer and were contacting a place called St. Andre's to get information to start our homestudy. Our friends, who were also adopting from Nicaragua, sent us all the examples for additional paperwork that we would need.
~On April 27 our adoption lawyer advised us to start our paperwork  for the dossier.
~On May 9th we sent a letter of intent to adopt a sibling group to our adoption lawyer.
~By the end of the second week of May, the paperwork we were asked to complete for our homestudy was done and we were contacted by our case worker to start our interviews.
~On May 19th we sent in a questionnaire to Nicaragua through our lawyer to social services. It asks questions like "why we would like to adopt" and such.
~About the same time our Power of Attorney was sent done thanks to our friend who was flying down to Nicaragua and could hand deliver it to our lawyer.
~The very day AFTER the Power of Attorney was delivered our lawyer represented us in court and we were approved to adopt in the country of Nicaragua.
~On June 12th, our lawyer called and said that social services was ready for us to come down to start visiting our children and to be approved as their foster parents.
~On June 13th, my two teens at home received their passports.
~On June 19th our homestudy was completed and we received the FINAL draft! The same day, I filed my I600A with USCIS. 
~On June 22nd, the last piece of paperwork that I was waiting on arrived.
~The same day, my husband got an email from USCIS that our I600A was received.
~Tomorrow, June 25th, I'll get my dossier authenticated in the State of Maine and head straight to Fed Ex with it to send it to the Nicaraguan Embassy for their authentication. Using overnight mail there and back we should be able to have it in hand by Friday. That's the prayer! 


So here we are...social services in Nicaragua is ready to roll and just waiting on us. Therefore we made a very difficult decision (as we never thought things would happen so fast). My husband is going down ahead (next week actually!!) to begin visiting our children while I say behind and finish with the USCIS stuff and close up the house and pack the rest of the family, etc, etc. Why him? Well, because he is the best one to go down there and figure out where we will live for the 3-5 months and get it ready for us. And because he doesn't want me to go to a foreign country alone that I have never been to.


Will it be hard to have him go ahead of me? YUP, you bet! But I agree it is best. I will get to skype with them SOON!!! I am making a little calendar for them so they can count down the days until the rest of us come and once they are with my husband full time he can give them a little treat each day as they cross it off on the calendar! 


So we wait to be all together as a family of 9...but waiting has looked a lot like rushing and it is a pure blessing!