Immigration here we come!

Well there sure hasn't been much to report on in the recent weeks but the wait has paid off! We absolutely flew through our home study! Even though we finished it quickly, everything is a process and you are at the mercy of whoever is on the other end of your paperwork as to how long it takes to get it back into your hands.  I got an email probably a week and a half ago saying that our home study was being mailed.  I waited and waited and waited and waited and....well you get the picture! I sent a follow up email asking if it had been mailed yet, two days later I heard back that actually the person was out that had to notarize and sign the home study.  So, we waited :) FINALLY, today when I came home around lunch time I saw it leaning against the house (I'm so glad that Lola, the lab, was in her pin or else this could have been a really bad day!).  I pulled in the garage just long enough to run in and grab the other pile of paperwork that had to be mailed off with our original home study to Home Land Security to convince them that we are in fact the perfect family to adopt a child.  Having four of your own doesn't do much for you :) 

Such a special message from just one of the many amazing Lifeline employees.

There were probably eight different things that we had to send in with our home study, of course one of which was a nice size check.  It is scheduled to arrive at the USCIS tomorrow at noon and the next "wait" will begin.  As a rule, the immigration process is approximately three months long.  We have been encouraged by others that the process is running a little quicker right now (pray that it continues).  After they receive our papers, they will send us some paperwork and an appointment for our biometric fingerprints in Atlanta (the other three aren't sufficient).  Again, it may not seem like much but it is one step closer to the children that I was just praying for this morning.  The ones that God knew before the foundation of the world that HE in his sovereign plan would place in our care for a short time.  I cannot wait to be able to put a face and a name with the children I have in my heart right now.  I pray that the Lord sends loving caregivers their way and that most of all He begins even now to prepare their hearts to know Him first and foremost.  That is our heart's desire above all else.  

"But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons." Galatians 4:4-5

"But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God."

John 1:12-13