Blog resurrection day!!!

IT’S ALIVE, the blog that is!!! And yes, we are still adopting :)  I have been on a blogging hiatus for several months now, largely in part to being crazy busy with dossier paperwork and partly from just being paralyzed by a blah season in my life.  I don’t think from kindergarten to doctoral PT program that I have ever completed such a gruesome paper trail as dossier preparation.  We had until the week of Christmas to finish our dossier so that it could be sent to our country before the first of the year (we have omitted the name of the country we are adopting from due to agency request and privacy in the blogging world but will be glad to share with you if we know you).  These were certainly crazy days leading up to the end of the paper trail process, especially when mixed with being pastor’s wife, Mommy, Sunday School teacher, MOPS coordinator, part-time PT, and the list goes on.  I’m pleased to tell you that we are paper ready as of the end of December!  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the adoption world, this means that we do not have to do ANOTHER PIECE of paperwork until we go get our baby!  Praise the Lord!
Aside from sheer craziness of being busy, I had a period of time after we submitted our dossier that I was just BLAH!  Emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  It’s weird to me that I could never exactly put my finger on why, but it lasted all throughout January.  One night Chad asked me what was wrong.  And can I just say that I love that God has blessed me with a man who knows me to my core and can recognize when something is just not right.  I hope you all have a relationship like that with your spouse.  You know how we are as women, at least me anyway.  I’m fine until someone asks me what’s wrong.  And then the waterworks begin.  I began to tell him how I didn’t know what was wrong.  That I was just in a blah kind of state.  Now that I look back, I think it had a lot to do with fear.  Fear of the unknown with the adoption.  Fear that our house in Louisiana that’s been for sale for over a year would never sell.  Fear that we wouldn’t be able to fund this adoption on our own.  Fear of not being busy with paperwork anymore and now just having to be still and wait.  I hate how Satan can paralyze us as Christians with fear and unbelief.  Well, a funny thing happened that night as Chad and I sat there on the bed and talked.  God spoke through circumstances as He often does.  I told Chad that I wanted to stop crying and watch American Idol.  So we began to watch and this contestant comes on with a story about her family.  Her father begins to tell a story about how the country they were living in had forced people to leave with nowhere to go because of their race.  Would you believe that he said that they were from the country we are adopting from and that we could tell he was obviously of the Roma class?!?!  This is the exact people group we are adopting from, and are adopting from here because of the cycle of oppression these poor people go through.  On American Idol.  Who’d a thunk it!  And then literally 5 minutes later I get a text from someone very dear to me acknowledging our new baby.  This was a huge deal to me because it was the first sign of excitement and acceptance of our adoption I had seen since telling them about it many months ago.  I love my God!  That He is so AMAZING that He can pull you out of anything by the speaking of His Holy Spirit.  I pray that He continues to refine me daily.  To burn away all of the sin in my heart.  To form me into His likeness.  To help me reach my ultimate goal of bringing Him glory.  It’s not always glamorous to be real in front of people, but I pray I can always be real.  As I heard my favorite bible teacher Beth tell it, you can’t have a testimony or a healing without first having some wounds.  I’m thankful for such a merciful healer.  
I have some pics for you to see of what we have been doing.

This is the dossier checklist that is finally COMPLETE!  It felt SO good to put all of those little dashes on there :)
 
This is our notice of action.  It’s an important piece of mail we were looking for daily after we submitted our I-600A form.  It puts you in the system for FBI fingerprinting appointments.

This is us at the McCoy Federal Building in Jackson, MS.  Originally our fingerprint appointments were for December 22 in Memphis.  We wanted to spend a few days before Christmas with our families in south MS, but were not going to be able to do that if we had to be in Memphis on the 22nd.  It is very hard to change these appointments.  You can only do this by mail and it draws out your time frame of dossier completion.  So, I used my connection :)  My Daddy is a MS State Senator, so I called in a favor.  To my delight he was able to have our appointment changed to Jackson on Dec. 20th and we were able to celebrate Christmas with family before having to travel back to Tupelo for Chad to preach the Christmas Eve service.  Just one glimpse of God’s goodness along the way.  “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”  Romans 8:28  

This is the day we completed our dossier!  I think our social worker thinks we are nuts!  Have we told you how much we LOVE him!  If you are called to adopt, please let me share with you how wonderful New Beginnings has been. 
 
This is my sweet little helper that I took with me to mail the dossier.  We are doing our best to let her be very involved in getting her new baby brother or sister home!  She is so excited for that day!

This is the day I got the LAST piece of mail!  It is called the I-171H  or the Notice of Favorable Determination Concerning Application for Advance Processing of Orphan Petition.  I’m sure our neighbors think I’m crazy…from going out to check my mailbox a gazillion times a day even in my PJs at times to jumping up and down and squealing when it finally came!
 
This is the book of family photos that I made to send over to our country with the dossier.  Most countries focus on your financials, combing through W-2s and net worth statements, but our country really focuses on family pictures and whether or not your family seems like a good healthy family to raise an orphan.  I put this book together so that they could get a glimpse of our family, praying that they will see the love we have to give.  This is the front cover.

This is one of the inside pages.
 
This is the back cover.
 
This is a picture Annlee drew at church.  I think that she has made up her mind on what the gender of the baby will be!  I’m so thankful that she is so excited about adoption that she has included our baby in her family portrait!
I spoke with the founder of our adoption agency this week.  She is leaving tomorrow to go over to our country where our dossier has already arrived and has been translated.  She will be calling us next week with an update.  She is hoping that she might get us a referral while she is there (this includes a picture, social and medical history).  This may be a long shot since this is a new program, but our God can do amazing things!  We are believing that His timing is perfect and that we will be matched with a precious child at just the right time.  Please pray for the matching process!

I thought I would end this post with this picture that Annlee drew  yesterday.  I was explaining to her what a Gottcha Day was.  This is the day you get your baby.  She adamantly told me that she thought it would be May 14th :)  She then drew this picture on a sticky note that is now affectionately place on our refrigerator.  Can’t wait for that day.  And how cool would it be if she were right on target?!?!