Saturday, October 15, 2011

Out Of Our Hands

Our dossier is complete.  It has been notarized.  Checked for accuracy.  Cried over.  Redone.  Double checked.  Apostilled.  Triple checked. Prayed over.  Boxed up.  Weighed.  Addressed.  And shipped to Eastern Europe.  Goodbye dossier!  It is out of our hands!    
Most of you reading this blog know exactly what I'm talking about, because you've been there!  For those of you not so painfully familiar with the international adoption journey, the dossier is a great big old stack of documents detailing every single aspect of our lives:  financial, medical, professional, personal, etc.  There are multiple background checks.  There are in-depth summaries of our entire lives.  There are letters of petition, letters of obligation, letters for name declarations, letters for interpol clearance, letter of home ownership, letter of employment, letters about everything!  There are multiple copies of multiple personal documents for both Derek and I.  Why do they need four copies of each of our passports?  Each notarized and apostilled, at $15 per document?  Who knows.  We do it because it's on the list.  And then there are copies of the licenses for all the professionals who contributed documents to the dossier.  Our doctor's medical license.  Our social worker's license.  The agency's license.  I'm telling you, this dossier is a triumph!  A beautiful mountain of completed paperwork!  It represents hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of document requests, apostilling, translation, and shipping fees.  It represents months worth of phone calls, appointments, begging, pleading, letter writing, typing, printing, sitting in the notary's office at the bank, and waiting.  Lots of waiting.

And it is finally out of our hands.

Whew!  I feel lighter.

So now we wait some more.  It took so much longer than we had hoped it would.  There were so many delays.  A month here.  A week there.  A few days here.  It all added up.  But I know that we personally did not waste a single day.  From the day we committed to adopting Gideon, not a single day has been squandered on our part.  If there was something to be done, we have done it.  If there was somebody to call and pester and nag politely remind and make inquiries, I have called.  These delays have all been due to waiting on other people.  It has been SO FRUSTRATING, but we have trusted God every step of the way, prayed through every delay, and never wasted an opportunity to move things forward.  If it meant dropping everything to drive for hours to pick up a document the day it was completed, we have done it.  If it meant Derek taking a day off work that we can scarcely afford, we have done it.  We have done what we can.  

And now we are really trying to trust the Lord.  Because honestly, we may be too late.  The fact that this dossier was not sent two or three weeks ago could mean months more waiting for our children.  There are deadlines looming in the country we are adopting from, and it looks as though we may have just missed those deadlines.  But we are trusting God.  His plan is to give these boys a future and a hope.  He has a good plan for them!  He has not forgotten them.  And so we are trusting.  

Nobody seems to know for sure whether these deadlines are really going to happen or not.  Nobody seems to know how long the shutdown may last, if it is actually implemented.  Nobody seems to know when we may be invited to travel.  Nobody seems to know if our boys are okay.  So much is uncertain right now.  But God knows.  

Please pray for our process, and for the processes of so many other families currently in a similar situation as ours.  So many families waiting.  So many children waiting.  Please pray for miracles and good news from our children's country!     

And let me leave with you some sweet pictures from the pumpkin patch:











3 comments:

Pam said...

So Exciting to hear that the Dossier is in the mail! Hoping and praying it gets submitted soon so you can go get those boys before Christmas!

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Laura said...

I know it's so hard to wait. The boys need families. You want them. What's the delay?? You'll get there though. It will come. Praying it's soon!!