I woke up this morning, Thanksgiving morning, a tad sad. I love Thanksgiving. It is one of my absolutely favoritest holidays, and I love it every year. But today, not being with our littlest son and not knowing when our travel plans will be and just missing him, it was just hard. We have plans to go over to my sister's house later today, which we do every year, but for a few seconds, I was feeling sorry for myself about having to be around a houseful of people and having to work hard to put on a cheerful face when I just wanted to stay at home in my pajamas, eat popcorn, and watch a movie. Yeah, yeah, poor little me having my own little pity party.
The only good thing about it was that it didn't last very long. I learned something this week about spiritual warfare, and it has served me well all week whenever I start to feel sad or discontent or angry or whatever. I learned a simple prayer, "Spirit of ___(fill in the blank here with whatever it is that is bothering me, in this case it was ingratitude), in the name of Jesus, I command you to leave my life and go to the feet of Jesus." So I prayed, and then asked the Lord to hold me today and support me in my missing my little boy. A few minutes later, I felt an inspiration that put my heart back in the right place. As I have said before, I know God is in charge. I know He is trustworthy. I know He is faithful. I know He has the perfect plan. It just gets hard sometimes, human that I am, to rest in that and remain joyful.
It occurred to me this morning that perhaps there is some reason that we are here now and not in Honduras. Perhaps there is something that is very important for which God would like us here. I honestly don't know what that could be, but I know that I only see a tiny picture of everything. God has the full picture. It could be something that in my mind is little but in reality is very important. A Scout meeting? A lesson in school? A conversation with a friend? A chance encounter? Maybe one of these things or maybe something completely different, but the point is, that God know what He is about. He knows what He is doing, He knows what will happen, and He knows what is important. I have to trust once again that God is in charge. And in fact once I think about it I am extremely grateful that He is in charge. He knows best, and I am so grateful that I know that, that I am not just floundering around thinking that this beautiful world and everything in it is just some random occurrence of chemicals and physical actions, but the work of an amazingly loving God who has a plan for me and for each one of us. Thank you Lord for a grateful heart!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Fingerprint success!
God is faithful! Can I hear an "Amen!"? And He sure does have a sense of humor. And sometimes, I think He likes to show off a little bit too! Here's how it went down this morning.
Jerry made plans to work from home today, so this morning he started working extra early. He let those in his office know we were going to run downtown to get our fingerprints taken as soon as USCIS was open for business at 8:00. We figured if things went smoothly, he would be able to easily put in a full day's work, but if we encountered a big crowd, or if they didn't want to allow walk-ins, or there was crazy rush-hour traffic, or anything else major, then we might be stuck downtown for a while, and he would have to use one of his vacation days.
So, we dropped off the boys at school and then headed downtown. The whole drive, each time I would feel the blender in my stomach start to puree, I would start to pray again and remind myself of God's faithfulness. I was like that in fact most of the morning before we got on the road. Traffic was not bad at all. We found a parking spot in a lot just across the street from the federal building. I pretty much bolted across the street to get in the building as soon as possible. We went through security just fine. Luckily I didn't have any sharp implements in my purse like I did last time we had to renew our fingerprint clearance! After security, I bolted toward the USCIS office. Now keep in mind that this is the third time we have had to get our fingerprints taken for this adoption. And we had to have them taken once each for Mario and Erik's adoptions. So this is fifth time getting fingerprints from USCIS. We are pros at this. So, we walk fast over to the USCIS office. Every other time we have been there, we have always got there first thing in the morning before it opens so as to get early in line. I think maybe one time we were first in line, but generally there are other people there in front of us. The first time we went there, it was a huge line, and we ended up having to wait over an hour to get our fingerprints taken. So we've learned our lesson to get there early. We weren't able to do that this morning because of having to get the boys to school, but we were still there within fifteen or twenty minutes of he doors opening, which is excellent timing when you come down to it.
So we come around the corner and go into the USCIS office. There is no one there at all, except for the two USCIS staffers waiting at the counter! We were able to walk right up and get our fingerprints taken! There was no problem with us just walking in, and there was not even one other soul waiting! I was completely blown away! I knew going into this fingerprint situation that this was going to have to be all God. There were so many factors against us, and everything was out of my control. I had to give it all to Him. And it just plain cracks me up that there was no one at all waiting in that office! It was as if our dear Lord was just saying "Dear child, I've always got your back. Let me show you just how much!"
Praise God for reminding me of this once again!
Jerry made plans to work from home today, so this morning he started working extra early. He let those in his office know we were going to run downtown to get our fingerprints taken as soon as USCIS was open for business at 8:00. We figured if things went smoothly, he would be able to easily put in a full day's work, but if we encountered a big crowd, or if they didn't want to allow walk-ins, or there was crazy rush-hour traffic, or anything else major, then we might be stuck downtown for a while, and he would have to use one of his vacation days.
So, we dropped off the boys at school and then headed downtown. The whole drive, each time I would feel the blender in my stomach start to puree, I would start to pray again and remind myself of God's faithfulness. I was like that in fact most of the morning before we got on the road. Traffic was not bad at all. We found a parking spot in a lot just across the street from the federal building. I pretty much bolted across the street to get in the building as soon as possible. We went through security just fine. Luckily I didn't have any sharp implements in my purse like I did last time we had to renew our fingerprint clearance! After security, I bolted toward the USCIS office. Now keep in mind that this is the third time we have had to get our fingerprints taken for this adoption. And we had to have them taken once each for Mario and Erik's adoptions. So this is fifth time getting fingerprints from USCIS. We are pros at this. So, we walk fast over to the USCIS office. Every other time we have been there, we have always got there first thing in the morning before it opens so as to get early in line. I think maybe one time we were first in line, but generally there are other people there in front of us. The first time we went there, it was a huge line, and we ended up having to wait over an hour to get our fingerprints taken. So we've learned our lesson to get there early. We weren't able to do that this morning because of having to get the boys to school, but we were still there within fifteen or twenty minutes of he doors opening, which is excellent timing when you come down to it.
So we come around the corner and go into the USCIS office. There is no one there at all, except for the two USCIS staffers waiting at the counter! We were able to walk right up and get our fingerprints taken! There was no problem with us just walking in, and there was not even one other soul waiting! I was completely blown away! I knew going into this fingerprint situation that this was going to have to be all God. There were so many factors against us, and everything was out of my control. I had to give it all to Him. And it just plain cracks me up that there was no one at all waiting in that office! It was as if our dear Lord was just saying "Dear child, I've always got your back. Let me show you just how much!"
Praise God for reminding me of this once again!
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Fingerprints one mo' time!
Yeah, I am not too excited to have to get our fingerprints taken again. This is the second re-do, so this time they aren't free. It's not a huge bill compared to other adoption-related costs, but I sure would rather be spending this $170 on something else rather than just having the government confirm that we are felony-free. Oh well about that.
USCIS is super busy these days with the new immigration executive order, so it took more than a month for my telephone calls to be returned. Our officer took pity on me when my voice mail messages changed from polite mama to frantic mama. Ordinarily, it would not be such a big rush to get refingerprinted. However, we are still hoping that we will be traveling at month's end, and so we absolutely must be refingerprinted and be issued an updated I-171H form from USCIS before we leave. The soonest fingerprint appointment we could get is for November 28th. Again, we are hoping to be in Honduras by then, but the appointments are set by computer, and humans cannot override them. Don't get me started on that. Anyway, we are going to hope (and beg) that our local USCIS office will allow us to walk in on Monday morning and get our fingerprints taken. Because they are so busy with this new executive order thing, some places are allowing walk ins, and some are not. I'm seriously hoping, praying, and begging that ours is one that will allow walk ins, or at least a walk in for a frantic mama and her poor husband.
God is faithful. He has demonstrated His faithfulness time and time again during this adoption story, and it is not in His nature to be unfaithful now. I am reminding myself of this fact constantly these days. It is not that I don't trust Him. I absolutely do. But my fallen nature gets the best of me on days like today when I have to wait all day for the mail to come, and today is the day when the letter carrier absolutely must deliver our USCIS appointment notice so that we can try to get fingerprinted on Monday. And I get frantic inside doing the what if's. What if it's not there? What if? What if? What if? It is hard for me right now to rest in the trusting. I've said it before on this blog: I am a do'er. If one road closes, I look for another. Again, again, again. I have a long history, all through school and being employed, where that part of me was a huge asset. I think the problem comes in when I expend all that energy taking it all on my shoulders and starting to get anxious that it is somehow not going to happen, and then I start to consider superhuman things that maybe I could do if I tried real hard, rather than doing what I can do and concurrently asking for God to be sovereign and do what I cannot do. I need to trust that God is going to come through for us and make it happen when things are so out of my control. For instance, that today's mail would contain the fingerprint appointment notice. And of course don't you just know that it was there. Of course it was there. And I am going to try very hard to trust that God will be sovereign and the nice people at USCIS will take our fingerprints on Monday morning and that we will get our new I-171H just fine. If you could pray for me too, that would really really help.
USCIS is super busy these days with the new immigration executive order, so it took more than a month for my telephone calls to be returned. Our officer took pity on me when my voice mail messages changed from polite mama to frantic mama. Ordinarily, it would not be such a big rush to get refingerprinted. However, we are still hoping that we will be traveling at month's end, and so we absolutely must be refingerprinted and be issued an updated I-171H form from USCIS before we leave. The soonest fingerprint appointment we could get is for November 28th. Again, we are hoping to be in Honduras by then, but the appointments are set by computer, and humans cannot override them. Don't get me started on that. Anyway, we are going to hope (and beg) that our local USCIS office will allow us to walk in on Monday morning and get our fingerprints taken. Because they are so busy with this new executive order thing, some places are allowing walk ins, and some are not. I'm seriously hoping, praying, and begging that ours is one that will allow walk ins, or at least a walk in for a frantic mama and her poor husband.
God is faithful. He has demonstrated His faithfulness time and time again during this adoption story, and it is not in His nature to be unfaithful now. I am reminding myself of this fact constantly these days. It is not that I don't trust Him. I absolutely do. But my fallen nature gets the best of me on days like today when I have to wait all day for the mail to come, and today is the day when the letter carrier absolutely must deliver our USCIS appointment notice so that we can try to get fingerprinted on Monday. And I get frantic inside doing the what if's. What if it's not there? What if? What if? What if? It is hard for me right now to rest in the trusting. I've said it before on this blog: I am a do'er. If one road closes, I look for another. Again, again, again. I have a long history, all through school and being employed, where that part of me was a huge asset. I think the problem comes in when I expend all that energy taking it all on my shoulders and starting to get anxious that it is somehow not going to happen, and then I start to consider superhuman things that maybe I could do if I tried real hard, rather than doing what I can do and concurrently asking for God to be sovereign and do what I cannot do. I need to trust that God is going to come through for us and make it happen when things are so out of my control. For instance, that today's mail would contain the fingerprint appointment notice. And of course don't you just know that it was there. Of course it was there. And I am going to try very hard to trust that God will be sovereign and the nice people at USCIS will take our fingerprints on Monday morning and that we will get our new I-171H just fine. If you could pray for me too, that would really really help.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
23 months old!
My dear little boy is 23 months old today. It is a tad difficult to think about these milestones of him getting one month older apart from us, but I am hoping that this is the last milestone that will have to pass before we are reunited.
I am "celebrating" by doing laundry! I actually don't mind doing laundry at all (it is SO much better than when I was in Botswana and had to do everything by hand!). And the laundry for today is especially good since I am just getting clothes ready for our new little guy! I've been down in the basement a fair bit yesterday and today, rooting around in the plastic bins of little boy clothes, and getting them fresh and clean. It really has been a great time, looking at the clothes, remembering Mario and Erik in them, and picturing new little mister in them. Some of those outfits are just so stinking cute! What am I saying -- most of them are so stinking cute! Just looking at them and the memories just come flooding back, and it is simply thrilling knowing that we'll be making new memories in these clothes again!
Since new little mister is getting close to two years old now, he might be completely in size 2T clothes, but I hung onto some 18 month old clothes as well, just in case. And remembering our trip in August when the 2T pants literally fell off him, it is probably a good idea to take a combination of 18 month/2T clothes with us for him on our upcoming trip, hopefully at the end of the month. I guess I'll just pick out some of my all time favorites! I am so looking forward to seeing him and getting him dressed!
We're coming sweet love! Hope to see you very soon!
I am "celebrating" by doing laundry! I actually don't mind doing laundry at all (it is SO much better than when I was in Botswana and had to do everything by hand!). And the laundry for today is especially good since I am just getting clothes ready for our new little guy! I've been down in the basement a fair bit yesterday and today, rooting around in the plastic bins of little boy clothes, and getting them fresh and clean. It really has been a great time, looking at the clothes, remembering Mario and Erik in them, and picturing new little mister in them. Some of those outfits are just so stinking cute! What am I saying -- most of them are so stinking cute! Just looking at them and the memories just come flooding back, and it is simply thrilling knowing that we'll be making new memories in these clothes again!
Since new little mister is getting close to two years old now, he might be completely in size 2T clothes, but I hung onto some 18 month old clothes as well, just in case. And remembering our trip in August when the 2T pants literally fell off him, it is probably a good idea to take a combination of 18 month/2T clothes with us for him on our upcoming trip, hopefully at the end of the month. I guess I'll just pick out some of my all time favorites! I am so looking forward to seeing him and getting him dressed!
We're coming sweet love! Hope to see you very soon!
Sunday, November 11, 2012
The fatherless and the widow He sustains
I came so close to losing it at Mass today. Seriously close to a big ugly cry, but I managed to hold it off, which was fortunate for all those around me! I was leading the psalm, which for today was an excerpt from Psalm 146. It is such a beautiful psalm anyway, but for today it was extra special. I sang:
Praise the Lord my soul!
The Lord keeps faith forever,
Secures justice for the oppressed,
Gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets captives free.
The Lord gives sight to the blind;
The Lord raises up those who were bowed down.
The Lord loves the just;
The Lord protects strangers.
I was doing ok up until that point. A little shaky, but making it. Then I sang this:
The fatherless and the widow he sustains,
But the way of the wicked he thwarts.
The Lord shall reign forever,
Your God, O Zion, through all generations. Alleluia.
I bet you don't have to look too hard to figure out the part where I nearly cried!! Praise the Lord my soul!! I praise you Lord for sustaining my baby!!
Praise the Lord my soul!
The Lord keeps faith forever,
Secures justice for the oppressed,
Gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets captives free.
The Lord gives sight to the blind;
The Lord raises up those who were bowed down.
The Lord loves the just;
The Lord protects strangers.
I was doing ok up until that point. A little shaky, but making it. Then I sang this:
The fatherless and the widow he sustains,
But the way of the wicked he thwarts.
The Lord shall reign forever,
Your God, O Zion, through all generations. Alleluia.
I bet you don't have to look too hard to figure out the part where I nearly cried!! Praise the Lord my soul!! I praise you Lord for sustaining my baby!!
Saturday, November 10, 2012
The crib is up!
We're starting to get ready around here! We put up the crib in our little one's room, and it is starting to look like a little boy's room again! For the last few years, it has just been the spare bedroom, and the storehouse of my husband's clothes. So today we moved some of my husband's clothes into our bedroom, moved a dresser and cedar chest down to the basement, and set up the crib. I still have several things still to do to get the room totally ready for our nearly-two-year-old, but today felt like a big accomplishment! We have a crib!
I hadn't want to set up the crib until now. When our two older sons were done with cribs and ready for big boy beds (they were both in cribs at the same time), we took the cribs apart and stored them down in the basement for the future. At the time, we didn't know what was in store for us, but we stashed them away in a corner of the basement in hopes that someday they would get used again. It is wonderful to know that one of them will get used for another little member of our family!!
I hadn't want to set up the crib until now. When our two older sons were done with cribs and ready for big boy beds (they were both in cribs at the same time), we took the cribs apart and stored them down in the basement for the future. At the time, we didn't know what was in store for us, but we stashed them away in a corner of the basement in hopes that someday they would get used again. It is wonderful to know that one of them will get used for another little member of our family!!
Thursday, November 08, 2012
One giant step closer!!!
Yay!!! Yay!!! Yay!!! Yay!!! YAY!!!
Just heard from our agency. IHNFA completed writing up the report regarding our August trip and submitted it to court!!!! The next step is that the court reviews the report along with our dossier and our son's paperwork that we submitted back in August. Once they approve everything, then IHNFA tells us our travel dates, and we fly down and sign the final adoption decree.
We don't know exactly how long it will take the court to review the reports, though have heard an estimate of three weeks, in which case we might be travelling at the end of the month!!!!
We are so excited around here, I can hardly tell you. Prior to today, this has been a rough few days for me. I didn't have a chance to blog, but if I had, I would have said that I think I had hit the wall, and that the waiting had gotten very tough. I just wanted my baby. I just wanted to see him and be with him and be a family with him. Now, I feel like we have passed a huge milestone. The wait isn't over, but we are so much closer.
Thank you so much for everyone that has been praying for us! Please can I beg you to keep it up?!
Pardon me, I'm going to go do a happy dance!!!!!!
Just heard from our agency. IHNFA completed writing up the report regarding our August trip and submitted it to court!!!! The next step is that the court reviews the report along with our dossier and our son's paperwork that we submitted back in August. Once they approve everything, then IHNFA tells us our travel dates, and we fly down and sign the final adoption decree.
We don't know exactly how long it will take the court to review the reports, though have heard an estimate of three weeks, in which case we might be travelling at the end of the month!!!!
We are so excited around here, I can hardly tell you. Prior to today, this has been a rough few days for me. I didn't have a chance to blog, but if I had, I would have said that I think I had hit the wall, and that the waiting had gotten very tough. I just wanted my baby. I just wanted to see him and be with him and be a family with him. Now, I feel like we have passed a huge milestone. The wait isn't over, but we are so much closer.
Thank you so much for everyone that has been praying for us! Please can I beg you to keep it up?!
Pardon me, I'm going to go do a happy dance!!!!!!
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